Mary Sisney's Blog - Posts Tagged "walter-cronkite"
Playas Gonna Play: How Trump And The Media Played American Voters Again
The most despicable source for Bob Woodward’s RAGE, the man I now call “overconfident idiot” (a phrase he used in Woodward’s book to describe the much more intelligent Gary Cohn, James Mattis, and Rex Tillerson) Wannabe Prince Jared bragged about how his “stable genius” father-in-law played the press. Trump has also claimed that he played at least two prominent members of the press—his frenemies MSNBC’S Joe and Mika, who have been two of the sharpest media thorns in his side since their friendship ended. I agree that Trump played the media in 2016. In fact, I blamed the media (see 4/23/17 post), especially NBC, which didn’t fire him for his racist birther lies and then allowed him to guest host “Saturday Night Live” (another thorn) while he was running for President, for creating the monster Trump, demonizing his opponent for almost thirty years, including during the 2016 campaign, and giving him free, mostly positive or neutral coverage, thus causing the 11/9/16 disaster. However, the media played Trump during that campaign as much as he played them. He often made news, sometimes gave great sound bite, and always brought high ratings. When the ratings started to decline and/or his frequent attacks on the media became annoying, possibly dangerous, they stopped covering his rallies. That’s when Trump started playing them so that they would continue to let him “dominate” the news. He pretended that he was going to make a major announcement about foreign policy at one rally, so the press showed up only to hear the same Lock Her Up, Build the Wall nonsense they had been hearing for months (maybe the media just grew tired of the act). He also claimed that he was going to address the birther issue and hold a press conference at his newly opened, conveniently located (near the White House) hotel but instead introduced a group of very old, male military folks while briefly admitting that Obama was born in America without explaining why he lied about the half-black President’s place of birth for five years. When he tried to conduct a tour of the hotel instead of a press conference, the media refused to play. Maybe Jared forgot how that stunt backfired. I’ll never forget how angry Jake Tapper of CNN was, but he wasn’t angry that a white man had acted as if he had the right to determine whether or not a black man, the President of the United States, was a “real American.” He was angry because he and his colleagues had been played; Trump didn’t answer the media’s questions as he promised he would. Ultimately, the people who were played by Trump and the media who loved him were his more competent and usually saner (Carson might be the exception, and Graham seems to have some problems) Republican opponents, the much saner, more decent, and much, much, much more qualified historical Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and the citizens of America and the world. We got played in 2016, and the media and their still favorite media whore (see 11/24/18 post) played us again last week.
Admittedly, once the media helped Trump become the totally incompetent 45th President, they mostly held him accountable for his bad acts. Fox and other conservative outlets were his only safe havens during the nightmare years of his presidency. Still, the so-called liberal mainstream media (actually corporate media) would occasionally let him play them; I remember how he once called a news conference that forced Paul Ryan’s previously scheduled town hall on CNN to be postponed for an hour. He and Ryan, who mostly indulged him, were feuding at the time. He also once interrupted a MSNBC segment that was critical of him to celebrate a rare winning sports team that appeared at the White House (many teams skipped that traditional ceremony while Trump was President). Katy Tur, who was anchoring the segment, pointed out that he was holding the celebration early. I wondered (in a tweet) why MSNBC didn’t just tape the ceremony and show it later the way they do his White House-lawn-while- the-helicopter-waits press conferences. When NBC allowed Trump, who refused to participate in the second (virtual) debate, to counter program Biden’s ABC town hall last month, I wasn’t angry because I believed they made a deal to convince him to participate in the debate moderated by a black woman (he played me during that debate because I was counting on him to walk out and/or bully her more than he did Chris Wallace), hoping his despicable behavior would hurt his poll numbers even more than the disastrous first debate did. When Biden’s town hall did better in the ratings than Trump’s, I was quite pleased with the NBC decision. But then came election week, and I am not pleased.
Many of us have been stressed out by Trump since the night of November 8, 2016, when it first occurred to us that he might win. And this year has been the most stressful. The man is literally trying to kill black, brown, yellow, and red people with Covid and armed white supremacists. Because of what happened in 2016, we didn’t believe the polls showing Biden winning in a landslide, so we were anxious. The last thing we needed was for the news media jerks to treat this election that they called most consequential like a sporting event. We didn’t need them to play “let’s jack up the ratings” games with fake suspense when we had voted like our lives depended on it because they did, and so did our democracy. Nor did we need them to indulge bully Trump by pretending that he had a narrow path to victory when he clearly didn’t. I decided that I would watch the returns only if the race wasn’t tight. When I switched from HBO to MSNBC around 8 p.m on Tuesday and saw that Florida was going to Trump and so was Texas, I knew I wasn’t going to be watching. When I checked my I-Pad and learned that Arizona had been called for Biden (by AP and Fox, but not CNN and MSNBC), I felt calm enough to sleep, and when I woke up after a few hours of sleep and learned from a Facebook friend that Fox had said Biden would win after they called New Mexico for him, I felt even better, especially after I saw that the one Republican house on my 6 a.m. Wednesday morning walk had already removed the Trump-Pence sign while Biden-Harris signs had appeared in three new yards. Still CNN and MSNBC wouldn’t call the race. By Wednesday afternoon, I was more angry than anxious. Once again, black women, who have saved this democracy during the last few years (thanks for acknowledging us, Joe B), were being played and screwed. We were being denied the chance to celebrate the historical victory of Kamala Harris, who had broken five glass ceilings (female, black, Asian, biracial, born to two immigrants) as the newly elected Vice President, so CNN and MSNBC could increase their ratings (Fox already has the highest ratings), and Big Baby Trump wouldn’t have a tantrum.
I enjoyed celebrating yesterday and recognized the poetry of the declaration of Biden’s victory happening on the 48th anniversary of his first being elected to the Senate at 29. The announcement also happened on a day when it rained for the first time since April in dangerously dry Southern California while it seemed to be warm and pleasant everywhere else, so American patriots could celebrate outside. But I will never forget how badly anxious old black women like me (my digestive system took a beating) and my high school friend who lives in red state Missouri, old white women like my graduate school friends in Pasadena and Rhode Island, old white men like my Rhode Island friend’s husband and my former neighbor and surrogate brother now living in Oceanside, slightly younger Asian women like his wife, my surrogate sister-in-law, and old black men like my real brother who lives in my new favorite state Georgia with my real slightly younger sister-in-law (another black woman being abused by these jerks), and my 79-year-old third cousin, who lives in Illinois and claimed when he called me yesterday that he hadn’t slept since Tuesday night, were treated last week. Shame on the clowns in the news media for playing and torturing patriotic American citizens like us, for treating this consequential election between a decent man and an existential threat to the world like a tennis match! I said that John McCain and John Lewis were dancing in Paradise yesterday. I hope RBG was dancing with them. But I think Walter Cronkite was crying in Paradise last week.
Admittedly, once the media helped Trump become the totally incompetent 45th President, they mostly held him accountable for his bad acts. Fox and other conservative outlets were his only safe havens during the nightmare years of his presidency. Still, the so-called liberal mainstream media (actually corporate media) would occasionally let him play them; I remember how he once called a news conference that forced Paul Ryan’s previously scheduled town hall on CNN to be postponed for an hour. He and Ryan, who mostly indulged him, were feuding at the time. He also once interrupted a MSNBC segment that was critical of him to celebrate a rare winning sports team that appeared at the White House (many teams skipped that traditional ceremony while Trump was President). Katy Tur, who was anchoring the segment, pointed out that he was holding the celebration early. I wondered (in a tweet) why MSNBC didn’t just tape the ceremony and show it later the way they do his White House-lawn-while- the-helicopter-waits press conferences. When NBC allowed Trump, who refused to participate in the second (virtual) debate, to counter program Biden’s ABC town hall last month, I wasn’t angry because I believed they made a deal to convince him to participate in the debate moderated by a black woman (he played me during that debate because I was counting on him to walk out and/or bully her more than he did Chris Wallace), hoping his despicable behavior would hurt his poll numbers even more than the disastrous first debate did. When Biden’s town hall did better in the ratings than Trump’s, I was quite pleased with the NBC decision. But then came election week, and I am not pleased.
Many of us have been stressed out by Trump since the night of November 8, 2016, when it first occurred to us that he might win. And this year has been the most stressful. The man is literally trying to kill black, brown, yellow, and red people with Covid and armed white supremacists. Because of what happened in 2016, we didn’t believe the polls showing Biden winning in a landslide, so we were anxious. The last thing we needed was for the news media jerks to treat this election that they called most consequential like a sporting event. We didn’t need them to play “let’s jack up the ratings” games with fake suspense when we had voted like our lives depended on it because they did, and so did our democracy. Nor did we need them to indulge bully Trump by pretending that he had a narrow path to victory when he clearly didn’t. I decided that I would watch the returns only if the race wasn’t tight. When I switched from HBO to MSNBC around 8 p.m on Tuesday and saw that Florida was going to Trump and so was Texas, I knew I wasn’t going to be watching. When I checked my I-Pad and learned that Arizona had been called for Biden (by AP and Fox, but not CNN and MSNBC), I felt calm enough to sleep, and when I woke up after a few hours of sleep and learned from a Facebook friend that Fox had said Biden would win after they called New Mexico for him, I felt even better, especially after I saw that the one Republican house on my 6 a.m. Wednesday morning walk had already removed the Trump-Pence sign while Biden-Harris signs had appeared in three new yards. Still CNN and MSNBC wouldn’t call the race. By Wednesday afternoon, I was more angry than anxious. Once again, black women, who have saved this democracy during the last few years (thanks for acknowledging us, Joe B), were being played and screwed. We were being denied the chance to celebrate the historical victory of Kamala Harris, who had broken five glass ceilings (female, black, Asian, biracial, born to two immigrants) as the newly elected Vice President, so CNN and MSNBC could increase their ratings (Fox already has the highest ratings), and Big Baby Trump wouldn’t have a tantrum.
I enjoyed celebrating yesterday and recognized the poetry of the declaration of Biden’s victory happening on the 48th anniversary of his first being elected to the Senate at 29. The announcement also happened on a day when it rained for the first time since April in dangerously dry Southern California while it seemed to be warm and pleasant everywhere else, so American patriots could celebrate outside. But I will never forget how badly anxious old black women like me (my digestive system took a beating) and my high school friend who lives in red state Missouri, old white women like my graduate school friends in Pasadena and Rhode Island, old white men like my Rhode Island friend’s husband and my former neighbor and surrogate brother now living in Oceanside, slightly younger Asian women like his wife, my surrogate sister-in-law, and old black men like my real brother who lives in my new favorite state Georgia with my real slightly younger sister-in-law (another black woman being abused by these jerks), and my 79-year-old third cousin, who lives in Illinois and claimed when he called me yesterday that he hadn’t slept since Tuesday night, were treated last week. Shame on the clowns in the news media for playing and torturing patriotic American citizens like us, for treating this consequential election between a decent man and an existential threat to the world like a tennis match! I said that John McCain and John Lewis were dancing in Paradise yesterday. I hope RBG was dancing with them. But I think Walter Cronkite was crying in Paradise last week.
