Even if Donald Trump loses the election, 2024 will at least be the year Americans finally told the sociopaths who make up our news media to go to hell.
On one of its more useless shows this week, CNN anchor Abby Phillip removed frequent guest Ryan Girdusky (a happy acquaintance of mine) from a roundtable segment after he hilariously quipped that co-panelist Mehdi Hasan might be wearing one of those Israeli-rigged exploding beepers. Mind you, the joke came after Hasan definitively declared attendees at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden campaign rally Nazis. Hasan helpfully elaborated that if you don’t want him to call you a Nazi, “then stop saying things.”
That’s the CNN way. Suggesting that you agree with the mass murder of Jews is fine. Joke that a co-panelist, who is so vile he was demoted when he worked at MSNBC, might be wearing a bomb, and that’s “too far,” as Phillip said.
All of them know their time is running out. CNN, MSNBC, the networks — all of them know their overhead is no longer sustainable because their audience is dwindling. That’s why their “star” anchors are reportedly either getting pay cuts or told not to expect raises. And it’s not because this was inevitable. It’s because they pissed away their credibility, literally the core product they sell, because they hate too many of their would-be customers.
Both by arrogance and conviction, these people believe it’s fine to demean, belittle, and then ultimately shut out half of this country. They’re finding out it comes with a heavy price.
Their audiences aren’t going elsewhere solely because the networks’ credibility is shot. It’s a bleaker picture. Their audiences were pushed away by people like Hasan and Phillip, who spit and permit obscenities and indecencies at their political opponents while tolerating nothing less than submission. And the moment they’re challenged on their own terms, they insist you take it back, lest they accuse you of inciting violence.
It’s a revolting game they’ve gotten away with playing for far too long, and they’ve gotten away with it because, unlike them, most people are conflict-averse and are loath to offend. Hasan, Phillip, and their colleagues do it with impunity and glee.
Trump is projected to win, despite everything they’ve said about him and his supporters — for years. If he doesn’t, he will still have beaten this particularly disgusting feature of our media forever.
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