The Story of Therapy Dog Tails 611
The Story of Therapy Dog Tails 611
Where Everyone Gets a Dose of Puppy Love
PRESENT DAY 86: Everything Trump Says is a Lie
Heard Steve Inskeep on NPR’s morning edition the other day. It was the day after Kamala Harris’ big rally at the Ellipse, the scene of one of Trump’s many crimes. It was a fairly typical Harris rally though with 75,00 people in attendance, another Harris rally during which she promised to respect everyone including those who do not vote for her.
IMAGE: Steve Inskeep
It was two days after Trump’s Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden, the one that kicked off with “comedian” Tony Hinchcliffe describing Puerto Rico as an “island of garbage.” The one that then went on with Trump calling America a pile of garbage among other things. I guess Hinchcliffe figured he was just following in Trump’s footsteps. Trump, after all, kicked off his 2016 campaign by calling Mexicans criminals and rapists and hasn’t really let up on that since. Hinchcliffe must have figured at least Trump would get a kick out of his garbage “joke.” Putting aside the vile, deplorable stuff that passes for humor in MAGA world, it was Inskeep who thought it was a good idea to place Trump’s Nazi rally side by side with Harris’ call for compassion and unity at the Ellipse.
IMAGE: Tony Hinchcliffe at MSG
This is the order in which they happened, Inskeep assured us and then went on to play several lines from Trump’s Nazi rally speech first because Trump’s Nazi MSG rally did, indeed, happen the day before the Harris Ellipse rally. Inskeep then acted as though Trump’s words held meaning. He commented on what Trump said as though Trump had spoken sincerely and in good faith. He talked about Trump, in other words, as if he has been asleep during the past nine years or simply was too busy coming up with his own inside family jokes to notice that nothing out of Trump's mouth has meaning. Trump’s one and only object in running his mouth is to call attention to himself, generally as a distraction from others like Harris whose words actually have meaning and always with lies. Treating Trump’s words as if they have meaning is to do a grave injustice to the truth and to the profession of journalism. It’s also an insult to the intelligence of thinking people who know better than to pay any attention at all to what Trump says. The only accurate way to cover something said by Trump is simply to report that Trump spoke words. Since words Trump speaks have no meaning whatsoever, there is no good journalistic reason to report what those words are. “Trump speaks” should be the only headline and there should be no column below other than perhaps a single paragraph telling where and when Trump spoke and maybe to whom. But nothing at all about the words themselves. And since everything Trump says to draw attention to himself is a lie, another headline might be “Trump lies” or “Trump lies again” or “Trump tells more lies” with a single paragraph below saying where and when but nothing about what was said or what those lies were. When everything a candidate says is a lie, the coverage should simply be that more lies were told. Inskeep fell into the Trump trap of treating him as though he’s something other than a pathological liar. But Trump is a candidate for president, one might argue. As such he must be covered equally. The obvious answer to this is that Trump is not a candidate for president. Trump is not running to be president. Trump isn't running for anything. He’s not running at all. He’s making no attempt whatsoever to win votes. If insulting millions of people in their own city isn’t proof of that, nothing is. Trump has no intention of winning an election. Trump doesn’t even believe in elections as he proved on J6 when he tried to nullify by force the 2020 election. He also tried to nullify it by various hooks and crooks for which he is now being prosecuted in various jurisdictions. Trump could not care less about votes in this election. He knows Harris is going to get millions more votes because there are more honest, compassionate people in the United States than MAGA hate mongers. His plan isn’t now and never was to win a free and fair election. His plan is to overturn the result when he loses as he certainly will. So to cover Trump as though he is a candidate for the presidency is again to do a grave injustice to journalism and to insult the intelligence of thinking people. Trump only survives through false equivalencies like the one Inskeep gave his listening audience. Balanced does not mean treating a lie as if it carries the same weight as the truth. It means just the opposite. Inskeep should have simply said that once again Trump lied his way through another attention grabbing speech, this one a rally at MSG meant to draw a real equivalency between himself and Hitler, between his MAGA base and the Nazis of 1939 America.
IMAGE: 1939 Nazi Rally, Madison Square Garden
There were many, enough to fill the Garden but not enough to win an election. Trump is said to be running even with Harris in 2024 but that is not likely. There are too many Republicans campaigning for Harris all across the country. There are many honest conservatives who can see Trump for what he is - a criminal, a convict, a demagogue and con man. So there really shouldn’t be any consternation in the media over how to cover Trump. Just note that he lied again for another hour or two in another location and then give no amplification to the lies and offensive “jokes” and pronouncements. That means we ought to be seeing an hour of Harris for every 30 seconds of Trump in the media because that is what fair and balanced would look like in this election. To create a false equivalency between Harris and Trump is the worst thing media can do because there is no equivalency between them other than that created through some misguided sense of equal time. When Harris says that Trump is not a serious man, she’s right. He’s not serious about this election (or any election) and shouldn't be treated as though he were. The only thing he's serious about is lying, gaining power and using his “Supreme” Court to keep himself out of prison. So he’s deadly serious; about telling lies. You’d have to be to tell as many per hour as he does.
IMAGE: Kamala Harris at the Ellipse
