How the Media Twists the Truth to Help Trump
By David Gottfried
I endure a ritual every evening which is at best boring and at worst painful. I listen to the evening News, broadcast by ABC, in New York City at 6:30 PM, EST. I do this because if one wishes to be a political critic, one must know what the people believe and what shapes their opinions (inchoate paranoia and feelings of powerlessness). Through ABC, I suffer to hear the drooling drivel given to the American people. ABC, like most of the national media coming from New York and Washington, is deemed left of center, but it articulates supposedly liberal positions in such a weak and whimpering fashion that it pushes people to the right.
On the evening of November 19, the anchorman on ABC had the opportunity to sound like a preachy, prim and proper parson, trembling with horror at the mere mention of sexual indiscretions. Very simply, he noted that Trump’s pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, has been accused of sleeping around with a 17-year-old girl and my, isn’t he a naughty boy. The anchorman suggested that because of his licentiousness and lust, Gaetz might not get the job.
(Allow me to note that I agree that it is not appropriate for an adult male to bed 17-year-olds. Of course, one might claim that we are infantilizing 17-year-olds, and denying them their autonomy, when we make the age of consent so high).
I am enraged at this: By only talking about Gaetz’s sexual behavior (And that is all that ABC had to say about Gaetz), the American people are given the false idea that Gaetz has only one demerit: Sleeping Around. The American people will therefore support Gaetz and Trump. They have reached their saturation point with sex scandals. They are beginning to find them boring. For God’s sake: Give us some Political Meat and Potatoes.
The utterly awful ABC News should have said that many people disdain Gaetz because he:
a) Was one of the most stalwart supporters of Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen,
b) Was such a strong supporter of the January 6 insurrectionists that he was one heartbeat away from being an insurrectionist,
c) Has called for the destruction of the FBI and many other federal agencies,
d) Has spoken of Anthony Fauci as if that tireless scientist were the devil himself, and
e) Is such a scoundrel and sadist that most of his Republican colleagues absolutely, positively hate his f-ing guts.
Indeed, the inside Washington scoop is that Trump picked Gaetz in a fit of anger at Senate Republicans. A few hours before he picked Gaetz, Republican Senators had chosen Thune to be the Republican leader in the Senate. Trump was as irate as a radioactive isotope spewing gamma rays in our face because Thune was not an obsequious Trumper !!! (Thune doesn’t oppose Trump, but he does not kiss the hem of Trump’s robes as Lindsay Graham kisses a certain appendage of Trump’s body) Because Trump was enraged at the Senate, he picked Matt Gaetz, whom the Senators, Republican and Democrat alike, view as a cross between a bomb-throwing John Bircher and an 8-year-old with a severe hyperactivity disorder.
Such boring and irrelevant things such as knowledge of and fealty to the Law had nothing to do with Trump’s decision to pick Gaetz. Then again, Trump adheres to Roy Cohen’s conception of the Law: “I don’t care what the Law is. I want to know which Judge is deciding the case.”
Thanks to the way in which the news is covered in this country, 90 percent of the populace will think the only problem with Matt Gaetz was sex, and they will reaffirm their love for Trump.