So much for that narrative
Once Hope Hicks testified that Donald Trump was in on the hush money payments, this criminal trial was over. Prosecutors had a Trump-friendly witness reluctantly and tearfully corroborating Michael Cohen’s upcoming testimony about Trump’s involvement, and so that was the ballgame. Jurors wouldn’t have to decide whether to take Cohen at his word.
At the time, various pundits on MSNBC and CNN acknowledged that Hicks had just delivered a dagger, and that Trump was officially nailed. It was good to see the media accurately acknowledging what was happening. But I still cynically predicted that by the time Cohen was ready to take the stand, the media would conveniently ignore that they had already declared this trial to be over, and that they would suddenly try to frame the trial as hinging entirely on Cohen’s testimony. I also predicted that they would portray Cohen as an erratically out of control witness who was in danger of taking the stand and blowing the whole case. I also predicted that once Cohen got on the stand and gave the same kind of measured testimony that he always gives against Trump, the media would pretend to be surprised.
Sure enough, everything that I predicted about this has indeed played out. We were subjected to a weekend of fear mongering about how the trial was coming down entirely to Cohen, and that Cohen was supposedly going to get on the stand and start giving people middle fingers or something. And when that didn’t happen, the media acted shocked – even though they’ve all covered him giving testimony before.
I’m spelling out all of this not to toot my own horn. I’m spelling it out because I want all of you to realize just how easy it is to predict exactly how the media will try to bullshit us for ratings at any given point. Even though this trial was over a week ago, the talking heads were never going to pass up the opportunity to scare you into spending this past weekend with your eyes glued to the screen in fear that Cohen was going to sink the case.
Remember, figuring out how to spot this nonsense from the media is your first step in not letting yourself get played. Imagine if you were watching a football game where one team was up by 25 points late in the fourth quarter, and the commentator tried to convince the audience to stick around to watch a last second field goal because the entire game somehow hinged on it. If you know football, then you know that this isn’t how anything works, and you won’t fall for it. Even if you decide to keep watching until the end, it’ll be on your terms, not because someone misled you in order to boost ratings.
It’s the same with politics. If you’ve followed this trial closely, then you knew coming into today that the prosecution was already up by 25 points, and that Michael Cohen’s testimony was merely the cherry on top. If you’ve seen Cohen testify about Trump in the past, then you knew coming into today that he was going to be a level headed witness.
None of the media hype that you heard this weekend was based in reality. None of it was compatible with the facts at hand. It was all strictly about keeping you glued to your screen in fear all weekend, at the expense of the truth. Now you can look back and see that none of what was being said was even within the realm of reality. You could have spent the weekend at the beach, and you’d have come into today with a more accurate understanding of this trial than the people who spent the weekend staring at MSNBC or CNN.
