A wee thread about the how the 4th Estate has failed us, normalized fascist rhetoric and succumbed to their own greed in the service of president Nielsen ratings.

During the 2016 campaign, a shiny object appeared on our scopes from the depths of history. It was difficult to see at first as all distant objects traveling at speed from the darkest depths of unlit universe are.

But the news trained its cameras on it, not in the aid to identify it, but to broadcast and amplify it. To shine its bright light upon it. To illuminate it from the darkness. The moment he uttered the words ‘their rapists’ during his metaphorical descent down the escalator.

Immediately, the media should have questioned him by asking ‘did you mean they are sending their rapists? Or did you mean they’re rapists, meaning all who come across the border are rapists?’ This was the first thing the media failed to ask and it was a clarifying question.

Asking follow up and clarifying questions is how journalism should work. The media is there because we can’t be. They are there for us. As referee’s who tell the story. For us to be informed, the media must ask informing questions. Check facts. Broadcast the truth. @gregolear

Instead, they continued to watch the shiny object get brighter and closer and by showing every speech, in every city, they amplified its message. They allowed the relics of an already defeated dogma to be broadcast to millions. As it was designed to do, the message gained steam.

A symbiotic relationship of parasites emerged. The shiny object feeding on hate, fear, paranoia and the media feeding upon its shiny new host in the form of ad revenue. Jim Acosta tried to stop this when he asked about ‘very fine people on both sides’ during an evil lair presser.

That should have been the beginning of the media asking the tough questions, but instead it was the beginning of the end. When they let him off the hook for praising Nazi’s, the media became complicit. They were in too deep.

People were tuning in to see the monster now. ‘Can you believe what he said this time?’ ‘What’s he going to say today?’ I am sure were periodic refrains in newsrooms everywhere after that. But rather than follow up, they just kept repeating what he said.

And what he said was there were very fine people on both sides. They did not expose it for what it was. Instead, they discussed every thing he said, repeated his message ad nauseum with surrogates cosplaying as experts. They normalized it.

These are big news agencies who have access to information. They can literally call experts. Those who have written books on fascism, how it starts, what it means, what the public should be aware of to avoid it. What it leads to.

They couldn’t call the History Channel and license contextual videos? They couldn’t juxtapose the rallies they were broadcasting with the rallies from Nuremberg? Did it really have to take 4 years and an ascension from the grave balcony speech for us to see Mussolini footage?

Normalizing Nazi’s made it easy to normalize soldiers gassing protestors. Normalizing that will make it easy to normalize military take overs in cities that didn’t vote for him. What will the news do then? Say there were cities that didn’t vote for Biden too?

That shiny object from the dark is here now. Rather than continue to normalize, the media flat out ignores it. The president owes $1B dollars to a foreign foe. He owes being in office to Russia. The media has not reported on the Senate Intelligence findings so here: https://twitter.com/dempseytwo/status/1300998953614401540

Instead, everyday we hear from experts who answer the same questions.
Yes we should all be wearing masks. Stop asking. Start asking republicans why they don’t believe in science.
Yes he is spreading false information. Stop asking. Start asking why he is lying to the public.

Start holding him accountable for the deaths. Begin reporting on the grifts. Where did the $500b for PPE go? How was it spent? If not wearing a mask, and opening bars is cool, why are we in a third peak? Sturgis, no mask motorcycle rally? peak. Wisconsin trump rally? Peak.

Oklahoma rally? Peak. Doctors are suffering again, and we are still debating wearing masks!? The media has normalized death. Death FFS! Lt. Gov of TX, ‘some will have to die’ to open the economy. The news normalized that by not reporting on where this thinking leads. Fascism.

They are doing it again. The news is not reporting on the Executive Order giving the president the ability to fire anyone he wants for any reason. There are protections to prevent such firings. They are not reporting on the horrific rulings of Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

And finally (for this rant anyway), he knows how to play them. They want ratings, he is pure content. Let’s talk debates. Debate 1 he is a monkey flinging poo. That’s all the media can talk about. His behavior. Not the content of his words, but the content of his visual.

After all, TV is a visual medium. He creates a spectacle, the media spreads the word. Then, he creates another by saying he won’t do a second debate, the media normalize again by giving him airtime instead of requiring for us the voting public that he not be a child for once.

And then, when the trap has been laid for a large viewership and there is buzz around whether the third debate will happen, or if he’ll fling poo again, what does president Don King Productions do? He acts normal. And again, the media normalize it. They say his tone has changed.

Cosplay expert pundits will say things like ‘the president’s performance will get him votes.’ ‘He needed to rise to the occasion, and he did.’ They will not tell you it was all a set up. That that is what fascists do. They gaslight. They recruited people to that 3rd debate.

Those who may not have seen the first one, but only heard what the media told them. They got curious. And when they watched, they didn’t see the monster. He was calm. Which makes the claim of Fake News more believable. He is the media’s golden goose and the eggs he lays are hate.

Finally, finally, the media has failed us because they moderate the debates. They do not fact check. When he lies, they broadcast them over their air. It pays for him to lie. He gains followers, they gain viewers and ad revenue. We need to be informed to be better voters.

Nine days. In nine days, we can change the channel. Please read the counterintelligence investigations conclusions. Do not let the shiny object from the deepest darkest recesses of our history take hold. We know where it leads. We must vote him out. We must vote him out.
END https://twitter.com/dempseytwo/status/1300998953614401540