McCain criticizes Trump for calling media 'the enemy': 'That's how dictators start'

[Sunseeker]

Anyway, @OP it's not hyperbole. This is exactly what both Putin and Erdogan did a few years ago. They started decrying the media and then suddenly the only "media" allowed was State-Sponsored. Ya know, after arrests and killing of reporters first and shutting down private business.

[Felya]

Holy...wow...you really believe this crazy shit....

This is why people believe Trump. It's easy to laugh at, but when media doesn't cover their bullshit conspiracy theory, guess what that means about media to them? This is how Bannon and InfoWars get called real news by Trump...

[Deleted]

I just hope he any many others can draw this image of Trump. Do rebel! Blood, death and win for my party.

[Kokolums]

Trump is just giving his constituents what they want.



As you can see by the chart, in the 1990s and up to the Iraq War in 2003, about 50% of republicans trusted the mainstream press. That's not great but its pretty solid. As you can see, around early-mid 2003, that trust took a sharp drop to around 30%. This was when the media turned against the Iraq War (the actual invasion was in March 2003). The thing is, is STAYED at those levels and never recovered.

A proper look at history is that the democrats were able to convince the overall public that Bush was wrong to invade, but it came at a pretty hefty cost of PERMANENT damage to mainstream media credibility.

Then starting in 2015, the credibility among republicans fell off a cliff, likely due to a variety of factors such as news reports on BLM, negative coverage of cops, identity politics in general. Its fallen all the way to 14%.

Effectively EVERY REPUBLICAN NOW HATES THE MAINSTREAM PRESS.

In this environment, the GOP primary results seem inevitable. They ran 17 candidates & the only guy to attack the press hard was Trump. And he vaulted into the lead and won the nomination easily. Now that he is president, Trump continues a massive assault on the mainstream press. But people who assume this is a Trump problem and not a systemic crisis aren't paying attention. Trump MUST attack the press because his constituents demand it. If he goes soft on the press, that will piss off his base and he will get voted out. If Trump was removed, it changes nothing because the GOP voters will just gravitate to the next candidate who assaults the mainstream press.

This is a situation where in modern America, about half the population now hates its own media. That wasn't the case even a few years ago.

I think this resolves in one of two ways:

1. The mainstream media moves to the right. This is what you might call "The Perot Gambit". Ross Perot was a third party force in 1992 in US politics. He won over many voters with his federal debt reduction issue. To fix the problem, the democrat and republican parties co-opted his message. They also pledged to reduce the debt and this took away Perot's political power. Without that, maybe Perot becomes president. Let's apply the Perot gambit to Trump. Republicans now totally distrust the mainstream media. So to fix it, you move the media to the right on several issues. Less identity politics. More favorable coverage of religion and guns. Do that, and republicans will probably start to approve of the media again.

2. The public leaves the mainstream media behind for alt-right media. If the mainstream press stubbornly refuses to acknowledge they have lost massive credibility with republicans, republicans will find somewhere else to get their news. That could be pretty random. They might wind up anywhere from Breitbart to Stormfront. This is the less appealing option because in the end the media will be slanted much further to the right than if the mainstream press updated their own programming.

I should note that as of this post, web traffic at Breitbart is setting new records every month. Stormfront is shattering web traffic records all the time now. Stormfront traffic has about doubled in size in the last year.

If you want to look back on history from where we are now, the decision by the democrats to turn against the Iraq War was an unmitigated disaster. It paid short-term dividends by winning in 2008, but it has apparently dealt permanent damage to the democrat party as it helped ruin the credibility of the mainstream press and a large chunk of the population is now fleeing to alt-right sites.

[Felya]

Anyway, @OP it's not hyperbole. This is exactly what both Putin and Erdogan did a few years ago. They started decrying the media and then suddenly the only "media" allowed was State-Sponsored. Ya know, after arrests and killing of reporters first and shutting down private business.

It's the autocrat way...

[Theodarzna]

Attacking the media when the media is legitimately being an oppositional party isn't exactly some terrible sin. After all the fawning adoration of Obama, it seems many media outlets are acting as organs of a specific political party.

[Sylvestra]

Why do so many people defend the media when they have proven not to be trustworthy on multiple occasions. While I don't agree with Trump in some cases, I'm glad someone is finally calling out the media on their biased bullshit.

[Shadowferal]

This is why people believe Trump. It's easy to laugh at, but when media doesn't cover their bullshit conspiracy theory, guess what that means about media to them? This is how Bannon and InfoWars get called real news by Trump...

Trump has surrounded himself in a bubble.
When the axe falls, as I believe it will this year, he'll still insist he's the president, even as the Secret Service quietly lock him up in the loony bin private hospital.

[Felya]

Attacking the media when the media is legitimately being an oppositional party isn't exactly some terrible sin. After all the fawning adoration of Obama, it seems many media outlets are acting as organs of a specific political party.

You are normalizing Trump. The fact that media never covered Obama's firing of an advisor due to lying, isn't because they fawned over Obama. Obama didn't provide a shit ton of tweets to scrutinize daily. The fact that you ignore the cause of the effect, doesn't mean those not reporting on Obama's twitter war with the Pope, are biased.

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Why do so many people defend the media when they have proven not to be trustworthy on multiple occasions. While I don't agree with Trump in some cases, I'm glad someone is finally calling out the media on their biased bullshit.

Because the reason they are not trust worthy is Trump. The lies are you to ignore are directly involved with Trump. You wanted the media to cover FEMA camps more? Would that make them unbiased?

[Theodarzna]

You are normalizing Trump. The fact that media never covered Obama's firing of an advisor due to lying, isn't because they fawned over Obama. Obama didn't provide a shit ton of tweets to scrutinize daily. The fact that you ignore the cause of the effect, doesn't mean those not reporting on Obama's twitter war with the Pope, are biased.

Trump is fairly normal, if more crude and potty mouthed? America has been doing terrible sins since the dawn of the 20th century.

Obama did evil but was eloquently spoken and I guess he did his evil that certain players liked, so its all good I suppose.

[Kokolums]

Trump has surrounded himself in a bubble.
When the axe falls, as I believe it will this year, he'll still insist he's the president, even as the Secret Service quietly lock him up in the loony bin private hospital.

He's not in a bubble. All republican voters today effectively hate the mainstream press. He HAS to attack the mainstream media or he loses his base.

[Shadowferal]

He's not in a bubble. All republican voters today effectively hate the mainstream press. He HAS to attack the mainstream media or he loses his base.

He fires anyone that criticizes or questions him.
That says "bubble" to me.

[LaserChild9]

McCain should retire. He is has outlived his usefulness as a Senator in my opinion. At this point, I would put him in the same category as Harry Reid. In no way is Trump suggesting the media should be silent. He is wanting them to be more responsible in their reporting. The same thing Thomas Jefferson and Lincoln wanted. :P

So somebody from trumps own party see's him as something less than God-King and you think its time for them to retire? The fact you said this shows that you are far from unbiased, you are basically supporting a future dictatorship because much like the prick in the white house himself, anytime anybody criticizes or questions him, they are the ones that are lying/senile/wrong/fake news. Strangely enough the term fake news has only really been around outside of the US since trump started spouting it, wonder why that could be?

However that would require something the media lacks. Credibility. The whole slew of cop shoots minority stories just proves that. The truth and facts are the victims of producers quests for ratings.

But in those stories a cop DID shoot a minority. That is not false. The cop did not punch a white person. Ok, they may have put a slant on the info to include things like the word minority, but its not false, if anything its more descriptive. If you are gonna criticize the media, find me an actual unsubstantiated lie, something that really didn't happen but was reported as fact.

[Sunseeker]

You are focusing on the wrong issues.
Being sponsored by the state is not the problem, the problem is they get lazy and prefer going for feelings than actual investigation. Often because it's more profitable.
That is actually something you'd find faster at "independent" "news" agencies.

We have a for-profit media where the first-to-publish is the person who makes the money. How did anyone think this wouldn't be the end result of the news media.

And yes, state-sponsored news is a problem because as show by just about every country with state-sponsored news: their news is absolute fact-less garbage that the state promotes as truth in order to confuse, stupefy and control it's population.

[Torgent]

So you are suggesting Thomas Jefferson wanted the same thing when he said there is very little that can be taken as the truth from the newspapers? I hope Trump is remembered like Jefferson was.

Trump literally calls anything from certain news "Fake", while citing and quoting "news" that deliberately lie and have been called out on it. He also refuses to call any conservative news fake, despite the fact that they are more incorrect than any other news org.

[Alvito]

Trump has never taken criticism well. The type of person that slaps their name on every single thing they have anything to do with never will. Who knew king mudslinger had such delicate and thin skin.

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Trump literally calls anything from certain news "Fake", while citing and quoting "news" that deliberately lie and have been called out on it. He also refuses to call any conservative news fake, despite the fact that they are more incorrect than any other news org.

Well he is always right so if something doesn't agree with him how could it possibly be real? Even when caught with his hand in the cookie jar lying he keeps spinning it until it isn't his fault. His little back and forth about having the most votes since Reagan is a great example of this. Without missing a beat he keeps rolling with the punches until he dumps the blame for his bad information on somebody else, never taking responsibility for spouting off fiction.

[Deleted]

Trump is just giving his constituents what they want. -snip

So essentially the only way to get media back to be trusted by republicans, is to essentially slant towards what they want to hear?

That doesn't sound particularly much like an actual solution to disreputably media

[Seezer]

McCain should retire. He is has outlived his usefulness as a Senator in my opinion. At this point, I would put him in the same category as Harry Reid. In no way is Trump suggesting the media should be silent. He is wanting them to be more responsible in their reporting. The same thing Thomas Jefferson and Lincoln wanted. :P

Doesn't matter. He's spot on. Leaders with authoritarian tendencies try to discredit the media. That way the only source of the truth comes from them. Just because you don't like what he said doesn't mean he should retire.

Totally fits in with Trumps "Fall in line or fall out" mentality. Trump will go down as one of the worst leaders this country has ever had.

[Alvito]

So you are suggesting Thomas Jefferson wanted the same thing when he said there is very little that can be taken as the truth from the newspapers? I hope Trump is remembered like Jefferson was.

If he is remembered like a Jefferson, it will be Jefferson Davis.

[Darththeo]

McCain should retire. He is has outlived his usefulness as a Senator in my opinion. At this point, I would put him in the same category as Harry Reid. In no way is Trump suggesting the media should be silent. He is wanting them to be more responsible in their reporting. The same thing Thomas Jefferson and Lincoln wanted. :P

That's not what Trump wants and that wasn't what Jefferson and Lincoln wanted either ... Trump doesn't want them to be "responsible" but report the news as HE sees fit.