Marc Elias delivered an important message in a video posted to the Democracy Docket YouTube channel. It’s something everyone on the Left needs to hear.
Thinking about Donald Trump and politics yesterday, I realized how dangerous it is for the media to sanewash Trump. It’s one of the reasons we‘re here. I won’t repeat the entire worn-out metaphor but it’s definitely an example of a “frog in boiling water.”
Watching the speeches Trump and Hegseth gave to the Generals the other day was the first time I truly saw what the media was doing. They’ll discuss an insane, unhinged, psychotic statement or behavior from Trump and make it seem “normal.”
They do this by not reacting appropriately, Put Joe Biden in place of Trump and imagine he had delivered that speech to the Generals. Would news anchors and pundits be talking about it as if he had just said a few things that were racist, fascist, or moronic? Or would people be freaking out and calling for the 25th Amendment?
I’ve been aware of the media doing it this entire time, but I never appreciated just how abnormal it was until I started putting past Presidents in place of Trump, Why do we accept crazy behavior from him but would have freaked out if it were anyone else?
Instead of analyzing things by sanewashing them first, we need to start calling out statements or behavior from Republicans without normalizing them first.
Why this is so important
I used to be someone who knew nothing about politics, I had never voted and didn’t watch the news AT ALL. I still remember the false state of bliss I lived in back then. That’s how I can say with certainty that there are people in this country who have no idea that America is turning into a police state with masked vigilantes swarming the cities, zip-tying children together.
If you haven’t seen video footage of the ICE raid on an entire apartment building in Chicago in the middle of the night, it’s a major wake-up call. The video doesn’t look like it was recorded in the U.S.
Kristi Noem, DHS, and ICE have been posting fascist propaganda videos on social media. Masked, militarized vigilantes with guns are everywhere. They’re showing up in more cities. The military isn’t far behind.
I’m afraid that the media’s “normalization” of Trump and his behavior has allowed the administration to get farther into their authoritarian takeover than they would’ve been able to if people were being told, “THIS IS NOT NORMAL.” In fact, this is really freaking bad!”
Perhaps if more people were aware of how bad things were we could have jumped out of the pot before it was boiling.
