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    Why Booing Trump Matters

    Various elite media types clucked, scolded, and clutched their pearls after Donald Trump got booed at the World Series and some of the crowd spontaneously chanted "Lock him up!" Because when ordinary voters do it, it's "uncivil." When Trump does it, it's the Voice of the People. But the talking heads' discomfort was about something more important: cognitive dissonance. Trump being booed threatens their worldview. The American media cannot accept the fact that President Trump is unpopular.

    Donald Trump is very unpopular. More than half the country dislikes him. The polls have always shown this. But the media and political establishments refuse to digest this. They always find a way to attach a but or a qualification.

    Unpopular, but that's just the other party. (Forget what the polls say about independents.) Unpopular, but only in the big cities (where most of the people are). Unpopular, but not in "Real America" (where most of the people aren't). Unpopular, but that's just the elite.

    There's no such thing as a small elite that makes up more than half the population. If you think about that for a second, it's obvious. So some people work very hard to avoid thinking about it for even a second.
    Having a random World Series crowd lustily boo the President of the United States threatens the pundits' world view. It undermines what they "know" to be true. So they organize all the excuses they can to protect the conventional wisdom from the facts.

    Here's the thing: Trump, as a reality TV type used to creating false appearances, has carefully managed every appearance of his Presidency, precisely because he was afraid of this. He knows he's deeply unpopular and is afraid other people will catch on. So this may be the first time in his presidency that he's been outside without hand-picking his audience.

    And look: people hate him. 100% of Trump's genuine public appearances have resulted in him being booed and jeered. The last time I saw him enter a public place where he didn't control the guest list was election day, when he went to vote in his local precinct. He got heckled. The video clearly captures some guy shouting, "You're gonna lose!"

    Donald Trump is an unpopular figure with a small, fiercely loyal cult following. That cult following is a real political fact, which needs to be confronted. But it is not at all the same as wider popularity, and it becomes impossible to think about him, or strategize against him, if you don't think about the actual situation. And yet, our media establishment refuses to take the depths of his unpopularity on board. They are not at all interested in what is really happening. They'd rather go out and interview one of his stalwart superfans again, as if that told us anything.

    Because Donald Trump is right about one thing: if the false perception of his popularity went away, that would change things.

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     And yet, our media establishment refuses to take the depths of his unpopularity on board.

    Several phenomena: 1) Sinclair, IHeartRadio (formerly Clear Channel) and of course Fox/News Corp have a lock on US media across the nation, aside from the big "MSM" names that are significantly marginalized in effect. 2) Facebook essentially acts like our print news of before - think of it as those free newspapers buy on steroids, displacing real newspapers and pumped full of junk from #1 and other party and partisan bodies (evangelicals and Russian/Saudi/other sources). 3) some like CNN's president got in bed with the devil to make a cool billion in profits off of feeding the Trumpernaut with its "controversy sells eyeballs", so definitively labeling lies and scandalous behaviour as such didn't come til much too late, as they'd already been labeled as "fake news" by people who once might have cared, 4) the rest of the media and Twitter sphere who do their best, and have scored victories, but they're working against some heavily entrenched monied interests.

    There is a curious phenomenon of some/many normal media people not pinning Trump down at particular times when they have him dead to rights, and letting him control the spin and narrative - hard to explain.

    Aside from the House, the GOP control the power structure of the country, including the packed judiciary and most legislatures. Trump doesn't have to be "popular" - he just has to serve the monied interests of that majority and they'll echo and support him. Nixon claimed a "silent majority", Bush claimed a "Mandate", Trump just bullshits his way throu, and the chattering classes support him beyond the resistance. Of course if Democrats could market worth a shit, we might be able to discuss popularity, but we're getting snowballed as they home their issues statements and we flounder and in-fight and wax philosophically while the other side wages war.


    The last days' Deadspin travesty reminds of other corporate/vulture capitalist pressure on the media world:

    The Los Angeles Times, for example, was rescued from the ownership of Tribune Publishing Company (formerly Tronc) by billionaire Patrick Shoon-Shiong after Tronc, amid other problems, was caught stiffing its employees on raises while paying millions to executives for private flights. Last year, Tronc gutted the New York Daily News, cutting 50% of its staff.

    Spanfeller and G/O Media ― the company that formed when a private equity firm bought Gizmodo Media Group and The Onion in April ― have worked to tear their company apart since their takeover. They oversaw sweeping layoffs immediately, even after Spanfeller said he didn’t foresee cuts; they ungraciously axed their news and opinion site, Splinter, in October, and told other G/O Media employees not to write about it; they watched Deadspin’s top editor, Megan Greenwell, walk out after demanding that she foist a “stick to sports” edict on her writers (she published a very good, very nonsports column about the state of the industry as she departed). You can read a good distillation of G/O Media’s hostile takeover by one of Deadspin’s departing employees, Laura Wagner, right here.


    And it's pure gold when the freaky right can get MSM like the NY Times to push their ravings as if sane.


    No one thought that Trump would be elected. The media gave each Trump appearance full coverage, while pounding Hillary. Comey yelled about the emails, damaging her chances.
     

    Democrats bicker, but at the end of the day, it is still any Democrat rather than Trump. The fire that fed the midterms is still burning. As the impeachment proceedings go forward, people who stayed home in 2016 will come out in 2020. The upcoming Virginia elections will be another test case.


    Live commentary after the Nationals win on the a-hole in the WH

    https://twitter.com/xmasape/status/1189770384645787648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1189770384645787648&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffpost.com%2Fentry%2Fnationals-fan-fbomb-trump_n_5dba7476e4b0bb1ea374a903

    Edit to add:

    A Washington Nationals fan is going viral after letting out some feelings about President Donald Trump on live TV after the team’s World Series victory over the Houston Astros on Wednesday night.

    “I think this is huge for D.C.,” the unnamed fan said on Fox 5, the Washington Fox station. “D.C. needed this. We got some asshole in the fuckin’ White House.”

    The reporter, Sue Palka, quickly turned away.

    “Oh, no, no,” she said. “No, no, no.”

    “Let’s gooooooo!” the fan yelled in the background:

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nationals-fan-fbomb-trump_n_5dba7476e4b0bb1ea374a903

     

     


    I'm waiting for the small boy to shout "Say it ain't so , Don"

     


    hah, very good Flav, I think you totally get it. The situation needs someone who the fans find sympathetic to destroy his constant narrative of Trump the heero. So far he's always been able to brand the ones who point out that the emporer is wearing no clothes as enemies with agenda. It's got to be a sweet innocent believing fan he clearly outright hurts, right in front of everyone.


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