It pains me to admit that Donald Trump, a.k.a. The Don, knows more about the inner workings of today’s monolithic media companies than his opponent. But he does. From experience, he knows that big media favors entertainment over news and sensationalism over facts.
Media companies make more money by feeding us hollow celebrity-driven mind-candy than they do breaking down difficult topics of worldwide importance. We can fault them for their lack of honest coverage, or we can accept that all companies operate in a market environment, including CNN, Fox, NBC and the rest. If you want real news you will need to seek it out from independent global sources, which requires time, some skills and serious effort.
Americans are busy working on their masterpiece, whether that means raising a family, creating a company from scratch or applying paint to a canvas. We are busy and many of us are self-absorbed to a point of recklessness. In other words, the conditions on the ground are tenuous.
Who will win Ohio, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and other battleground states? Who will win the popular vote?
We are currently looking at a classic contest that pits policy versus personality. In one corner we have the hard working policy wonk, in the other corner a circus ringmaster. It’s the most awkward political competition of modern times. Those of us who like to read and think are voting for Hillary Clinton. The question is: “Are there more of us than them?” This is a scary question. Nearly half of college graduates never read another book following graduation, and we are in the midst of the greatest “dumbing down” our nation has ever seen. Are we dumb enough to elect a white nationalist, male chauvinist pig to the highest office in the land? No thinking person wants to say yes.
During the first debate last Monday night, The Don tried to paint Hillary as someone who needs $100 million in Madison Avenue wizardry to get her message across, whereas he just needs an open mic and a willing camera crew. I despise The Don, but he scores points with people because of his simple-minded answers, very much like “W” did before him. Take the debate discussion about Chicago and gun violence. The Don was successful in painting Obama’s city as totally lawless. When it was Hillary’s turn to counter on this point, she could have ripped the NRA and gun makers a new one, but she did not.
Overall, her presentation lacked passion. She could have hit him hard. Instead, she was coached to remain calm—precisely because she is a woman and her voice may sound shrill when she’s agitated—but how calm can she or anyone remain under the circumstances? It was just 16 years ago that the sitting Vice President won the popular vote, but lost the election, thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Florida malfeasance. Now here we are again with two unpopular candidates, a complicit media and a nation fully doped on the TV narcotic. I want to believe that America is the land of the free, but no one will be free under fascist rule.
I don’t overstate the case, despite its dramatic nature. For one, our economic viability is dependent on stable markets, which is delivered by the steady hands of wise leaders. If The Don wins, the global economy will spin into turmoil overnight. Before he would even be sworn in, the economy will have flown from the precarious cliff upon which it rests. The Don is also facing his Trump University fraud trial in late November. I believe he will be convicted in this case, no matter what happens on November 8. If he wins the White House, we may have a convicted felon preparing to take office and an economy in total shambles.
It’s a bleak picture of an America that no one wants to see, but we do need to imagine it. Germans laughed at the idiot Hitler. Then their economy collapsed and he rose to power. To say we are playing with matches by allowing a Hitler-like candidate to ascend to power is putting things much too mildly. We’ve gone bat-shit crazy as a nation. I don’t want to blame any one faction for this, I just want common sense to reign. We are all in this together, and we better get busy pulling our collective heads out of our asses before it’s too late.