What they aren’t telling you

Try a little experiment with me. Every time you read a news story about the 2024 election, wherever you see the name “Donald Trump,” substitute the name “Adolf Hitler.” I want to see if you come to the same conclusion I have.

I hasten to tell you, this is not some cockamamie experiment in the amplification of Godwin’s law, or anything like that. The point I’m trying to make is, when a man proclaims his intention, if he comes to power, to lock up whole segments of the American population based on race, religion or origin, to murder protesters with the army, to declare martial law, to tear up the Constitution and to imprison his political foes, hasn’t he pretty much identified with Adolf Hitler? Especially when you consider that many of his supporters carry flags with swastikas on them? That’s fair, isn’t it?

Okay, now imagine what headlines would look like if changed accordingly. Here are some examples taken from real life where the name “Hitler” is inserted where “Trump” was before. This from MSNBC: “Hitler leads Biden by five points.” Or, from the Guardian, “Only Adolf Hitler can save the free world now.” Or this from New York Magazine: “The 2024 Polls Agree: Hitler Has a Significant Lead Over Biden.”

Grim news, yes? Pretty depressing, yes? You’d think the men and women of the mainstream media would be crying out in alarm over such headlines, would you not? You’d think instead they would promote headlines such as this little-regarded bit of news from a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll (again, with the names changed to amplify the guilty): “Biden Leads Hitler In These Key Battleground States.”

Now that’s some good news, is it not? How come we’re not hearing more about this recent poll? What’s going on here? Why are we hearing so much about the obviously politically-motivated crap intended to destroy Hunter Biden instead? Why are we hearing so much about the desperate attempt by Republicans to mount a presidential impeachment inquiry without a single solitary specific charge against President Biden? Maybe there would be more media outrage about that if the man they were referencing was Adolf Hitler instead of Donald Trump?

For that matter, why are we hearing so many media complaints about President Biden’s age? There were a lot of media complaints about Paul von Hindenburg’s age too. Hindenburg, as you may recall, was the President of Germany when he was strong-armed into naming Adolf Hitler Chancellor in 1933. Hindenburg was 85 years old then, and he was incessantly pilloried by the press on that account.

But then, back in the day the name “Hitler” didn’t quite carry the same cachet or evil resonance it does today, did it? Today it’s a name that is positively dripping with poisonous evil. And today a man who has a book of Hitler’s speeches next to the bed where he sleeps wants to be president again. And the media is almost treating 2024 like an ordinary presidential election. Have we learned nothing?

There’s a bit more good news that you probably haven’t heard, brothers and sisters. The same Reuters/Ipsos poll that says Biden is ahead in battleground states also says that if Donald Trump is convicted on just one count of the 91 criminal counts he’s under indictment for, 31% of Republicans won’t vote for him. Last time I looked, in a presidential contest where 31% of one party refuses to vote for their candidate that means a huge landslide for the other candidate, does it not? Where are the headlines about that?

Instead, the very first headline I found when I entered that figure in Google was this, from the “centrist” publication The New Republic: “Growing Number of Republicans Say They’d Back Trump—Even With a Felony.” Yes, I suppose it goes without saying that if 31% say they won’t vote for Trump that means 69% will. A rather odd way of looking at some very bad news for Trump, wouldn’t you agree?

Let’s be honest here. Sure, the people of the mainstream media have their share of commentators sounding the alarm about Trump. I’m thinking of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell and Nicole Wallace, just to name one outlet with three examples. But why isn’t the alarm-sounding more universal? Why isn’t it more shrill? Why in this time of dictators and global warming and wars in Ukraine and Israel aren’t we hearing more outrage and more concern about this Trump calamity and how utterly illegitimate and dangerous he is?

Why are members of the mainstream media giving Trump and his apologists a platform to tell their lies? Could it be because the bottom line is the bottom line? Could they be selling out for money? Even the likes of Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell and Nicole Wallace remain mute when their paymasters play footsie with members of the Trump camp. In the end, cash is king, and there is just too much money poison in the news.

Trump shouldn’t even be a candidate, and he wouldn’t be if the mainstream media did its job and stopped worrying about ratings. The elephant in the room, brothers and sisters, is money. It is, if you’ll pardon the play on words, the mammoth of mammon. Money and politics makes for corruption, and money must go. A tall order you say? Yes it is. But then great social gains are seldom easy. Besides, do we have something better to do? And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.