Robert Reich: Why isn't the media reporting on Trump's increasing dementia?
Robert Reich: Why isn't the media reporting on Trump's increasing dementia?
Today, Trump held an hourlong news conference in the main room at Mar-a-Lago. He insulted Kamala Harris’s intelligence, lied about the state of the U.S. economy, and claimed the country would be in mortal danger if he didn’t win the election.In other words, the usual Trump torrent of lies and insult...
Having standards only works on democrats
At this point footage could come out of him raping a baby and they'd still defend him.
He is in the Epstein logs seven times.
So yes.
I mean, isn’t there that deposition that came out in 2015 of his unnamed victim who was like 14 or so at the time, describing his violent sexual assault of her with Epstein? Where they were competing as to who could rape her first?
In 2015. This came to light before he was ever elected. And yet here we are.
Edit: she was 13.
We already know why.
Tax cuts
Tax cuts
Tax cuts
and they hate brown people
Don't forget the bump in ratings for news outlets
The problem with Trump’s decline is that it’s hard to perceive for the casual viewer. Trump’s sharper way of thinking still involved a ton of word salad. His limited intelligence is actually helping him in this front.
At the risk of sounding like a milquetoast liberal; can you confidently speculate on a supposed medical diagnosis that (presumably) hasn't been given by his doctor, and that he hasn't himself revealed?
Like, sure, we can speculate all we like that he's losing his shit, but a media outlet who has to conform to some level of regulation has to real fucking careful about shit like that. In theory.
The media felt free to report on Biden's mental decline.
Biden was obviously declining 4 years ago and the media gaslit and pretended it wasn't happening. It wasn't until it was undeniable and the whole nation watched it on-screen during the debate (and some powerbrokers within the party like Obama and Peolsi pulled the trigger) that it became "acceptable" to talk about.
Oh please. The media can say whatever the fuck they want. They hide behind the “we aren’t actually news, but entertainment!”.
The media already spreads a ton of false shit without any repercussions.
Because the media is owned and controlled by billionaires.
I'm clearly not the target audience (my TV is perma-tuned to the weather channel), but watching someone's senescent decline in real time is a bit morbid.
That's what I want to know. He is clearly losing it and far too old to be doing this.
The media report the news people want to read about/generates clicks.
Democrats and trumpers care if Biden has all high facilities. Although, both for entirely different reasons.
Democrats and just about any neutral too know that trumps mind isn't aging well either. Some will but won't get many who want to read a lot about that when its just confirming what they already believe themselves to know.
Trumpers wouldn't care if they watched a livestream of trump being lobotomised. They'd still vote for him. More so, they've been groomed to presume any and all media that speaks about trump as anything less than perfect is to be dismissed as lies and fake news. So, they won't read it either.
To me, the problem is that "the news" is the most profitable stories that will generate the most traffic. Trump being senile doesn't do that. Therefore, its not "news."
It's all click bait in some form. The news always reports the bad because that's what everyone wants to see and that's what everyone talks about. The news doesn't make money from feel good stories which is why a feel good story is tacked on at the end of the broadcast. Everything else is doom and gloom.
Democrats and just about any neutral too know that trumps mind isn’t aging well either.
There's a baseline a "Trump's stupid" / "Trump's an asshole" attitude towards the guy that's persisted his he first ran in 2016. This isn't an understanding of him a actually suffering from dementia, its just a casual acceptance of any criticism lobbied at him as true because he's distasteful.
I don't think Dem (and I really don't think neutrals) perceive Trump as meaningfully medically mentally ill. And I don't think he's being investigated or covered as such. Not in the way Biden (who was showing sever cognitive decline both during and after that one Trump debate) was understood to be ill.
Trumpers wouldn’t care if they watched a livestream of trump being lobotomised. They’d still vote for him.
Trumpers don't trust the more mainstream news vendors in the same way they trust their boutique set of fascist media outlets. But if Michael Savage and OAN News and similar outlets began reporting, in earnest, that Trump was suffering sever mental decline I suspect at least some of them would listen and adjust their expectations.
The response would be very different than you'd get from a Dem or non-partisan voter. Its possible they'd "Vote Red No Matter Who" because they felt they had no better options. But their view of him would be shifted based on their media diet.
To me, the problem is that “the news” is the most profitable stories that will generate the most traffic. Trump being senile doesn’t do that.
There are other things to cover that are more exciting, certainly. The coverage of RFK Jr's bizarre spoofs and goofs has captured headlines for the last week. But I don't even think this is about profit, per say. It's just the whims of the collective consciousness of news editors.
This isn’t an understanding of him a actually suffering from dementia
Dementia is a long way from a mind that isn't aging well and he does seem particularly unhinged to me, even by his standards. I'm not sure why you'd jumped from one to the other and then argue against that instead.
its just a casual acceptance of any criticism lobbied at him as true because he’s distasteful.
Thats certainly something his supporters say.
The problem is, footage of trump, more often than not, confirms those stories or close enough for no one to care about the difference. However, his supporters cling to any minor deviation from their "version", using them as a claim that the whole thing is a lie and a giant conspiracy against trump.
They've been utterly inoculated against any truth they dont like about trump. So much so that they won't even bother to reading anything that isn't something they already know is pro trump. Which is my point here.
I agree that people have already made up their mind about trump, based on his own behaviour and words, but thats a far cry from any accusation is true because he's distasteful, as an attitude.
I have the hypothesis that dementia is Trumps get-out-of-jail-free card... He was really ramping this shit up for a while and then he got Cannon to do his dirty work and started gaining on Biden and laid off a bit. Now that it looks like he's losing again, he's going all in on it. 100% of what he is doing is a combination of grift and CYA.
He's not smart enough, and far too arrogant, to stay in character for the length of time and consistency that pulling that off would take.
Are you kidding? It's a con and that is his specialty. One of the reasons that he keeps being so effective is that everyone thinks he's stupid. He's not stupid - he's malicious and psychotic.
They do all the time
Biden's age was wall-to-wall coverage on nearly every front page of a major US news outlet for nearly a month
Trump has no such treatment
Trump didn't start off with many marbles, so losing a few doesn't really change much.
Dementia DonOLD the weird racist rapist with 34 felonies that can't complete a coherent sentence is too old. He should drop out and seek treatment for his dementia. At this point it's just sad and embarrassing.
Also: Twice impeached, I think that's a good fact to commit to history
They've been reporting on his increasing dementia for 8 years. That free media time was one of the reasons he won in 2016.
I mean, I'm pretty sure his dementia is as well documented as his astronomical level of spouting bullshit.
The real question is: what would be the point? "Serial liar found to actually suffer from dementia" Suddenly that sounds like a cheap excuse for some of his lies and shit behavior. Would that make more republicans ask him to step down and give up the election like Biden? I really doubt so.
Because they keep forgetting.
Ba-dum-tish!
The media is largely owned by a very small group of incredibly rich, deeply conservative old white men.
Of course they favor drumpf.
And also illustrate the serious problem of media monopolies.
Maybe that's why he 'knows' everything was better in the past. Only few childhood dreams left. Oh, sorry, Right, not left.