No Tweets

As much as Trump criticizes the press, there's no doubt that they made him what he is.  They made him president.

He spent very little money during primary season. The reason: the mainstream news gave him 24/7 coverage.  I remember working out at the gym in front of a bank of TVs and all the news channels were waiting breathlessly as his plane pulled up to some rally. It didn’t seem to matter that he was last in the polls and no one thought much of him as a candidate, they still gave him unprecedented coverage.

I don’t remember any previous election in which a person got so much free attention. As he got more coverage, his name became better known with voters and he garnered more attention. This helped move him up against a big bunch of other pols who didn’t get anywhere near the coverage. We now live with the end result of this unrelenting coverage.

And the media continues this assault on viewers mental faculties by endlessly reporting on his tweets.  It doesn't matter that they are inane, have many misspellings or defame someone, the media happily reports them as if they were bona fide news.

They are not. 

They are also not official policy.

They are not legal documents nor government announcements.

However, they are often inflammatory. They more often than not are lies.  They also are misogynistic and racist on many occasions. They give him an outlet to make outrageous statements.  They allow him to blow off steam in a public manner. They provide him another avenue to disparage the very media who report on the tweets. And worse of all, these tweets promote him but not policy.

So the media need to stop covering these tweets.  Don't mention them, allude to them, nor give them any coverage at all. 

Oh sure, the Republican news network, also called Fox News, would still report them, but that network broadcasts to his hardcore followers anyway.  People who want real news filled with facts do not watch the American version of Pravda.

If the media stopped covering these infantile musings they might actually force him to begin to make official statements like normal presidents have in the past.  He might have to actually hold news conferences in which it would be harder (but not impossible) for him to get away with untruths.

A bigger incentive might be to not give him an outlet to blast the media that he criticizes but desperately craves.  Don't give in to his addiction for attention.

It would be a start.  A start for maybe getting him to behave like an adult, er, President.

The next logical step would be to stop covering his pep rallies disguised as campaign events. He's going to attack the press while there anyway, why cover it?  He always says the same things.  So just send an intern to listen to see if he says anything new, and if he does, don't roll the tape, just briefly mention it. 

There is no reason to keep giving him all this free publicity when he's not saying anything of importance.

So media, stop feeding this narcissistic man's ego and giving him free PR.  The majority of Americans (remember, he lost the popular vote by the largest margin of anyone who claimed the White House) will thank you for the silence.

The Thurber Brigade once again apologizes for taking another sidestep and straying from the ongoing War Between Men and Women (relationships). However, this incessant tweeting by The Orange One and the media coverage has driven us crazy.  So although the concept of the news media ignoring him is not new, we hope that if enough voices complain, maybe we'll stop getting deluged by this crazy and useless bilge emanating from the guy. Sadly, we also know that the media loves attention just as much as him. Sigh. 

 

Legacy--Another Thurber Brigade sidestep

If you go into the state Capitol of Kansas, you'll run into a gigantic mural of John Brown. It is probably one of the most iconic of those of him. He's standing with arms outstretched, a Bible in one hand, rifle in the other and he's triumphantly got one foot on the body of a slave supporter he killed.

Before the current slate of GOP conservatives took over the state (and continue to drive the state into the ground), the state was considered a hotbed of populism. A state that worked for the common good of the people. It also considered John Brown a hero. This is sacrilege to southerners of course, who see him as a murderer. But this fiery abolitionist was considered a hero because he took the law into his own hands to pay back with vengeance those who beat, butchered and enslaved humans.

I bring up John Brown because of the recent domestic terrorist attack in Charleston. A man who longs for those days of human oppression slaughtered nine unarmed, helpless souls who made the fatal mistake of trusting him, and had taken him in to their house of worship.

Sadly, there are still a number of people—hopefully a small percentage‑who will see this brutal killer as a hero for standing up for his race. They may not say it outright, but down in their inner fiber they believe that the good old days have passed. The days when they could get away with brutalizing any minority for any affront. When they could control every aspect of another human's life, from where that person would labor under harsh conditions, to selling a child into that bondage far from his family.

It’s hard to take the moral high ground because he did use violence, but at least John Brown attacked those who could not morally backup their beliefs. Plus, the murders he’s known for committing came in response to slavers from Missouri who killed men, women and children in Lawrence, Kansas in an attempt to influence the state to become a slave state. The murderer in Charleston's defense is that blacks were changing HIS world of privilege over another race.

So no, I am not advocating the use of violence to get moral change. I am saying that we can no longer just take for granted that moral change will come about because we want it to. It will only come about by people taking a more aggressive stance and demanding justice. That includes removing a symbol of hate and intolerance that waves over many state buildings in the south as well as demanding that police be held accountable for killing people of color. It means we stop allowing a broadcast company from race-baiting and belittling minorities.

 

 

No, don’t support the violence of a person such as John Brown, but support his ideal of a moral correction of a nation’s soul.

(Jay at Civil Rights protest a loooonngggg time ago during his Army days)

The Thurber Brigade has once more strayed from its usual reporting on The War Between Men and Women and apologizes profusely.  With luck, it will go back on topic soon and not get sidetracked due to the author's anger over social injustice and institutional malfeasance which seems to permeate American society on a weekly basis. Really.

 

Ahh, Thurber