The #LyingPress Beclowns Itself

August 8, 2016:

“If you’re a working journalist and you believe that Donald J. Trump is a demagogue playing to the nation’s worst racist and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes, how the heck are you supposed to cover him?

Because if you believe all of those things, you have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century, if not longer, and approach it in a way you’ve never approached anything in your career. If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that. You would move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional. That’s uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream, nonopinion journalist I’ve ever known, and by normal standards, untenable.

But the question that everyone is grappling with is: Do normal standards apply? And if they don’t, what should take their place? …”

October 17, 2016:

“It sure does get exhausting working for the global corporate media conspiracy.

The hours are horrible (my kingdom for a weekend off). You never know what the puppet masters are going to order up next. (I wish that guy from Mexico, What’s-His-Face Slim, would get off my back.) And there’s no extra combat pay when, at this point, there clearly should be.

I probably shouldn’t joke (and yes, Twitter, that’s what I’m doing). The anger being directed at the news media has become dangerous enough that some news organizations are providing security for staff members covering Trump rallies. “Someone’s going to get hurt” has become a common refrain in American newsrooms.

Covering Mr. Trump as an abnormal and potentially dangerous candidate is more than just a shock to the journalistic system. It threatens to throw the advantage to his news conference-averse opponent, Hillary Clinton, who should draw plenty more tough-minded coverage herself.

Where would anyone get the idea the #LyingPress is out to get Trump?

Trump has already succeeded in moving the needle on a host of Alt-Right issues: his core message of immigration + trade + foreign policy, his assaults on political correctness, and his willingness to call out the corruption of the donor class.

In this latest move, Trump is using the #LyingPress onslaught against him as an opportunity to introduce “the Cathedral” as a concept to his followers. He hasn’t exactly put it in those terms yet, but that is clearly where he is going with this.

Neoreactionaries call it “the Cathedral.” White Nationalists essentially call it The Synagogue. You learn in White Nationalism 101 that Jews control the media and use it to distort our culture and political system to their advantage. It doesn’t matter which term you prefer to use here. Both are describing the same phenomena.

Anyway, the point is that there are more Alt-Right concepts and themes which Trump hasn’t deployed in his campaign. If he loses and starts a television network, where will all of this go?