Watched Andrea Mitchell interview Bernie Sanders and was very surprised that Mitchell, who this column thought was one of our best commentators, managed to ask all the wrong questions. Bernie was trying to illustrate many of the problems that plague our nation. Andrea was trying to question him on all the stupid, bigoted, misogynistic, garbage that vomits out of Donald Trump’s mouth.
Look; there are serious issues in this election and there are bullshit issues. Donald is the champion of bullshit issues. Who gets to the bathroom and when, let’s ban Muslims from the country, I will build a wall that will stop everyone and get Mexico to pay for it, I will deport eleven million people who have been living in this country for years. Trump has a fanciful imagination but these are not real issues. They are not about what’s wrong with this country. They are not about what needs to be fixed and they certainly don’t effect most people’s lives, not like low wages, no jobs, bad infrastructure, incomplete medical care, lack of education or the staggering indebtedness caused by the cost of college. It will, as it always has, come down to whether or not the voting public is smart enough to wade their way through the fear mongering by the Right and come to the realization that we are not really at any great risk of Muslim terrorists. But our citizens are at great risk of collapsing into poverty if something isn’t done to level the very unequal economic field.
Andrea worked hard to bait Sanders with Trump’s insults and bad manners and he worked even harder to bring the discussion around to what’s really important, which is the battle that is now going on in the politics of this country.
Mitchell’s bizarre and irrelevant questioning points up one of the great problems of this election. The media has abandoned its mission to illuminate the public in favor of selling soap. The media has always sold soap but never so blatantly and never so dangerously. Donald Trump is, plain and simple, a product of the media. On a recent, unnamed, (probably Morning Joe), TV show, Trump received 88 minutes of airtime over a given period while Bernie Sanders received 30 seconds. These are two outlaw candidates, men who are reaching for many of the same voters, men who are sharing a similar percentage of their party’s voters. The difference is, Sanders candidacy is aimed at what those voters need, while Trump’s is aimed at what those voters think they want. The difference? Sanders makes intellectual and economic sense while Trump makes bigoted statements that are mostly based on lies and then attacks anyone he thinks he can bully. Yes, Trump’s performance is more show biz and that is precisely why he gets more airtime than most of the other candidates combined. Not because he makes more sense, because he sells more soap.
Should this country be forced to watch a rabid dog chewing on the leg of anyone who has the temerity to point out that he has no plan to do any of the things he promises?
But there’s another aspect to this problem. The media is controlled almost 100% by six corporations and those six companies make all their money selling soap, or oil or cars or coal or guns so no matter what the individual reporter wants to do, he must eventually toe the corporate line or lose his job. Ask Phil Donahue about that, or Dan Rather. If you want to know why Bernie Sanders, who constantly attacks corporate greed only gets 30 seconds on a major political show while Trump gets an hour and twenty eight minutes look no further than the corporate big wigs telling their on-air producers what they can and can’t do. You like your six-figure job? Pay attention and toe the line or next week someone else will have it. We can’t have anyone attacking the corporations that pay for those seven figure bonuses.
Andrea Mitchell can say pretty much what she wants when she’s doing a three minute newscast but when she takes over as substitute host of major Sunday morning show she better not give the guy who is campaigning against Wall Street, the money laundering bankers, the corporate environmental poisoners, or the union breakers that are choking the middle class, a fair shake, not if she wants to get a second chance in the big boys seat.
The game is rigged, my friends, there’s no way around it. An inspired man would follow Bernie to the end of the game but a clever man will go with Hillary, knowing that she won’t get him everything he wants, but that her guile will get much more done than the White Knight.
So on the nose!!!! Corporate America forcing us to support those least in need.