I’ll continue with the shortened commentary moving forward, as the headlines are speaking for themselves now.
Sunday, August 25, 2024
48 hours after the Trump / RFK alliance, still only one article under “Trump” searches about it. It’s an article from Fox News, but it’s not focused on any of the areas of unity the two campaigns found and not focused on the dramatic announcement, but on RFK defending himself against his family and his wife. Remember that Pfizer is one of the largest advertisers on Fox News.
In a rare sign of scattered journalism, there’s an NPR piece that critiques Harris’s DNC speech and a CNN piece about Democrats in swing states who haven’t endorsed Harris yet. I marked the latter as a “negative” headline for Harris, but of course CNN’s angle may be to shame those Democrats into supporting her.
The rest is the usual junk. The New York Times opinion piece talking about Donald Trump being “green with envy” is still there, and there’s breathless coverage of a poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University (or as those of us who grew up in New Jersey call it…Fairly Ridiculous University) released on Friday that shows a supposed 7 point lead for Harris. The poll was conducted from August 17-20 (well before the DNC and the RFK announcement) and interestingly, while they mention how much of each sex, race, and college degree they sampled, they do not mention breakdown by political affiliation.
The media, of course, shout this from the rooftops as if the poll were taken today, released today, and in any way reflect the reality that Trump is still leading in most battleground states. Their goal, of course, is to paint the narrative that Kamala has her post-convention bump—again, from questionable polling that was done prior to the DNC and Trump’s Arizona rally.
Monday, August 26, 2024
The Trump campaign continues to generate news, which is exactly what they need to do. Today, the news was about Tulsi Gabbard endorsing Trump. AP News and USA Today have to cover it, of course.
But notice that Google News makes a point to put stories from USA Today, CBS News, and ABC News about a letter “exclusively obtained by USA Today” at 1:00 PM, parroted by CBS News at 5:28 PM, and again “exclusively obtained by ABC News” at 5:34 PM. The undated letter is signed by 200 obscure Republican staffers who once worked for George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, and John McCain and is timed very conveniently to coincide with Tulsi Gabbard’s formal enforcement of Trump at the National Guard Association at 2:00 PM. Weird, huh?
The “200 Republicans” are reminiscent of the “51 Former Intelligence Officers”. It’s not meant for news junkies like you and me. It’s meant for people who come home from work, pull up Google News, and skim the headlines. Ooh…it looks like Tulsi Gabbard endorsed Trump…but wait a minute…TWO HUNDRED REPUBLICANS said they disavowed Trump??!!!
This game has been played by Google and the mainstream media for years, and sadly, it works.
The rest of the stories continue to be making mountains out of minutiae. CNN and Business Insider spend pages and pages talking about whether the microphones at the debate should be cut off. The New Republic continues to shout how a “shocking new poll” reveals Kamala Harris’s “clear path to victory over Donald Trump”. Rolling Stone spreads fear about how Donald Trump says we “Gotta Restrict the First Amendment”. The Atlantic mocks the National Review…conveniently they show up as an “authoritative news source” on Google News while the National Review is buried. And of course, NPR, smelling fresh blood, brings up abortion to start driving a wedge between Trump and Gabbard supporters just like the Washington Post tried to drive a wedge between Trump and RFK supporters using the environment.
If there’s one thing that’s clear, the battle lines have been freshly drawn, and the mainstream media is too slow to realize. The battle is no longer “right vs. left” or even “Republican vs. Democrat”. It’s Power vs. The People.
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
And just like that, the Tulsi Gabbard endorsement has been memory-holed.
Oddly, Conservatives on X seem to be at each other’s throats. Religious conservatives saw that Trump tweeted his support for “women’s reproductive health” (likely in an overture to Tulsi Gabbard supporters) and threatened to withdraw their support for Trump, leading to insults being hurled back and forth. In other bizarre series of threads, Kyle Seraphin revealed that Julie Kelly had donated to Democrats. I honestly just watched in disbelief, and then sent this post out on X.
I’m just a rinky-dink account so no one’s going to see this (thanks to the one person who liked it so far). But I’m just astounded at how Conservatives are so adept at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The mainstream media hasn’t noticed…yet. They’re busy taking a beautiful moment where Donald Trump laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and twisting it to attack Trump.
What they failed to mention was that the families of the 13 soldiers killed at Abbey Gate three years ago specifically invited Donald Trump to Arlington to share in the tribute of their loved ones. Amazingly, I scrolled through TEN PAGES of Google ORGANIC results before I found this press release from Darrell Issa’s office that confirmed that yes, Trump was invited by the Gold Star famlies to attend. Biden was also invited to attend, but declined and chose instead of release a statement.
Going through 100 Google organic results was downright frightening. Every. Single. Result other than Issa’s press release talked only about one of these things:
- Stories reporting on a supposed “incident” between Trump staffers and a cemetery official
- Stories complaining about how Trump was “grotesque” in “desecrating” Arlington by staging a political event (he was invited)
Lost in all of this political garbage? The actual names of the 13 service members who died outside Kabul Airport on August 26, 2001 who were supposed to be honored today.
I feel like ending all of these posts with, “you don’t hate the mainstream media enough” but I always stop myself. But this time I’ll say it. You don’t hate the mainstream media enough.
Wednesday, August 28, 2024
Details have come out in the last 24 hours about the supposed “altercation” at Arlington National Cemetery. It turns out that the Trump team had been invited by the Gold Star families of the servicemen killed at Abbey Gate, and welcomed the Trump team to document the event, which the Trump team applied for and received permission to do.
It turns out it was the Biden Administration that tried to stop Trump from attending, and it wasn’t until a call from Speaker Johnson that he was permitted. The officials at Arlington Cemetery claimed that the families did not want media, even though they were fine with it. The White House refused to intervene.
That’s the truth that’s being reported on a single Tweet that’s going to be forgotten within the hour. In the meantime, you can see what NPR, CNN, and USA Today are reporting. It’s their usual MO.
They take an incident or a few words, create a story that’s complete fiction and then publish it. But that’s not all. Then they take the stories THEY published and show it to “citizens” to get their reactions. That’s how you get headlines like “‘Furious’ Veterans slam Trump team’s altercation at Arlington National Cemetery.”
And while this is all going on, NO ONE is talking about the 13 soldiers who lost their lives. No one is honoring them. No one is asking what went wrong so that it can be prevented in the future.
So what else is going on in the news? Oh! Trump posted a “crude sexual remark” about Kamala Harris. In the last 12 hours he’s posted about:
- Fox’s polling accuracy
- An endorsement from a PA State Representative
- His policies around Crypto
- A video from CNN on how the housing market has collpased
- A message on how US Farm income has plummeted
- A message about how Harris fakes engagement numbers
- A message to Elon Musk thanking him for a compliment
- A Fox News video of Tulsi Gabbard talking about Trump at Arlington
- A Fox News video about Tulsi Gabbard joining the Trump Transition Team
- A message about the gag order by Judge Merchan
- A message quoting Nicole Shanahan’s reaction to the lawfare against Trump
So wait a minute…where did Trump make “Crude Sexual Remarks” about Harris? I clicked through to the New York Times and saw this.
Then I wanted to read the Rolling Stone article about how Trump supposedly went “Full Fascist” and here’s what I saw:
Do you see the game yet? Both stories are behind a paywall, and Google knows that very, very few people actually bother to pay for a subscription (trust me, they know). So the sensationalist headline is doing a win-win: struggling publications like the New York Times and Rolling Stone get more revenue from hardcore leftists, while the rest of the world see only the headlines and make their own conclusions.
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Conservatives and Independents on X are overwhelmingly panning Kamala Harris for her first sit-down interview since announcing her Presidential campaign. For those keeping score at home, this is Harris’s first interview in 38 days, while just in the last few months Donald Trump has interviewed live with Dr. Phil (57 minutes), Theo Von (57 minutes), Elon Musk (2 hours and 3 minutes), Shawn Ryan (1 hour and 11 minutes), the All In Podcast (50 minutes), Timcast (17 minutes), multiple Town Halls, and many more I’m probably leaving out. In the coming weeks he’s slated to talk to many more, such as Bill O’Reilly and Lex Fridman.
In the meantime, Harris’s interview with CNN’s Dana Bash was 18 minutes, which isn’t even being released as one interview; it’s being heavily edited and released in pieces. And yet, watch closely as the news cycle get dominated by clips of Harris looking “presidential”, if they can find any.
Can you guess which one will end up getting more media coverage, all of it glowing?
In the meantime, Google News continues to paint the Trump side of my screenshots red. Notice very, very carefully how news is manufactured.
The Arlington story is still alive, with reports that the US Army has “rebuked” the Trump campaign. This was the piece of gold the media has been looking for. Now, the Arlington Hoax is complete. Regardless of what the Trump campaign OR the Gold Star families that invited him to join them say, from now until election day, the wreath laying at Arlington was crass political opportunism on Trump’s part. After all, the Army said it, right?
You can also see a story of how ABBA asked to be taken off Trump’s playlist at his rallies. This doesn’t just happen organically. It’s likely that a astroturf campaign wrote hundreds of letters to ABBA complaining that their music was being used at a Trump rally, and ABBA decided they didn’t want their name dragged through the mud. It’s a classic example of celebrities bending to the mob.
And WHY, pray tell, WHY is a story about ABBA whining about their music at Trump rallies considered the THIRD MOST IMPORTANT story about Donald Trump today? And the EIGHTH most important story is an article by The Atlantic called “Laughing At Trump”?
Notice how even the headlines that aren’t overtly negative pick at topics that the media knows will cause dissension among conservatives, like abortion and IVF.
American is being played.
Friday, August 30, 2024
Today, I want you to notice something.
Social media is abuzz over a ballot initiative in Florida intended to provide a constitutional right to abortion before viability (which is typically 26 weeks). The media has been pressing Trump, a citizen of Florida, on how he will vote. He said that he would vote no, simply because he found it too extreme.
From there, the media had their story for the next news cycle. Even mainstream and progressive media site declared that Trump “SUPPORTS FLORIDA’S SIX WEEK ABORTION BAN”.
Notice a few things. Trump didn’t support Florida’s current law. He merely voted against another initiative that he, as a private citizen of Florida, found extreme. And think about those words I just said. As a private citizen of Florida.
Since the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, abortion is a state issue, as it should have been all along. The President and Congress of the United States have no say. Every state must decide for itself.
And yet because it was such a huge issue for them in the 2022 midterms, the Harris campaign and the mainstream media are pretending that the opinions of a private citizen in Florida have anything to do with running for President of the United States.
In other news, the Arlington hoax continues. The Atlantic, predictably, is clutching its pearls over how “The Arlington Debacle is So Serious”. Politico paints Trump as flailing as he “defends” himself. In other news, the New York Times and Yahoo News are clutching their pearls over Trump’s “Vulgarity”.
Have you noticed something? No one is talking about RFK and his ideas on fighting chronic illnesses in children. No one is talking about Gabbard, Shanahan, or Trump’s speech today at the Moms For Liberty conference, where he spoke of how open borders and transgender ideology can harm children. And I hate to say it, but when I look at conservative media, what are they talking about? How Trump is going to vote on abortion and how disastrous Harris’s interview was (forgetting that as far as the mainstream media, Google News, and therefore most of the American public know, Harris “beat Donald Trump in the ratings” (Newsweek) and “surged ahead of Donald Trump (USA Today). In fact, notice that the mainstream media all but memory holed Harris’s interview—all they’re talking about today is how Dick Cheney is going to endorse her and how a meme that JD Vance sent out supposedly “backfired”.
What’s the play here? It’s simple. It’s not to win over women’s votes, or veteran’s votes, although they’ll certainly take those. No, the ultimate strategy is to paint the Trump campaign as so chaotic that regular Americans who glance at these headline just shake their head at how Trump’s campaign is a mess, devoid of ideas. The truth, of course, is that Trump has given hours and hours of interviews to podcasters, influencers, and whoever else will hear him. But no one is hearing him.
Saturday, August 31, 2024
The Arlington Hoax continues. Perhaps emboldened by the wall of protection that the mainstream media, the progressive media, Google News, and the Army gave her, Harris unleashed a post on X that tore into Donald Trump’s supposed “politicization” of the Cemetery. A little while later, Trump posted, without comment, videos from the Gold Star families, berating Harris for her own politicization, and for the Biden/Harris Administration’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal that led to their loved ones’ deaths.
So what’s the response from Google News and the mainstream media? On Google News, there’s only one outlet covering it—Fox News. The rest is the same old nonsense. An article by MSNBC talking about the trading cards Trump’s campaign released for fundraising. An article from the BBC showing that yes, now Europe has gotten word that Trump supposedly desecrated Arlington. Continued cover from The Daily Beast and The Hill defending Harris’s disastrous CNN interview. A Vanity Fair article slamming Trump for supposedly inspiring a man to “storm” into the media section during one of his rallies (no coverage of the rally itself, of course). And the usual from The Atlantic and Axios, with no counter opinions from right-leaning media.
