The Fourth Estate, AGAIN

I remember in the 2000 election cycle ... Bush v. Gore. I needed to call a distinguished psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who was editor of a journal to which I was submitting some work. His wife answered the phone and before putting her hubby on the phone opined:

Maybe you can talk my husband down from the ledge. 

He walks around the house spouting: 

FFFFUCK! 

Not like him. Not like him, at all.

Well, it wasn't like me, either but it bears some resemblance to my behavior at home during this 2016 cycle. Having a tough time wrapping my head around a Trump candidacy ... never mind a Trump Presidency. I suppose I'm about the age of that Psychiatrist and dealing with my discomfort (rage?) by blogging. My experience thus far has been mixed in the success of walking myself down from the ledge. America the Beautiful with 40% of the Country willing to get on board with someone who attacks by innuendo, has little-to-no respect/empathy for others/women/Muslims/those-who-differ, and ... I could go on.

What strikes me hardest, though, remains the unwillingness of the media to do other than treat his Bad-Boy Delinquent Bull-Pucky as just another balanced view of the World. This morning I was back on the ledge as I listened for a moment to Joe Scarborough talking about the latest Trump juggle of reality in placing the fault for the Inner City pains of the poor folk and the difficulties with Obamacare on the Democrats. 

Hey! It's the Democrats in Power in the Cities, isn't it?

Are the poor any better after 8 years of Democratic Governance?

No reference to the State Legislatures on starving out Social Welfare Programs. Not a mention of the Republican agreement to Shut Down Obama. Not a word about the fact that a goodly percentage of States refused to cooperate with parts of the Affordable Care Act, nor any mention that they recommended that people not cooperate and not even that the ACA was, in no small measure, the Republican expansion of healthcare coverage and neither Clinton's 90's plan nor Obama's plan for a single payer system.

The Game? 

Block and Tackle ... 

and then Blame!

Need I say that we can never know what might've occurred had Mitch McConnell and John Boehner chosen to accept the Voice of the People in their choice of President Obama. We'll never know ... not knowable ... And the Fourth Estate is quiet ... essentially complicit.

The professionals are all quite balanced, as well. Journalistic neutrality ... Professional neutrality and intellectual commentary! The attraction to DJT is an affective storm ... How many millions of people will repeat the lines:

He knows business.

He tells it like it is.

He speaks his mind.

To think that apologeia or rationality will reach these folk ... will reach the Affect (borrowing the title of a book by Manny Hammer 50 years ago) ... Choose any demagogue you like ... Go to his rally ... Hold up a reasonable sign ... and ... then ...  

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! 

& your kids' and grandkids' lives, too

The charismatic demagogue ... whether he has cheated in business ... lies through his teeth ... or is wearing a facade of concern when all evidence is that he 'could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and not lose a single vote ... the charismatic demagogue and those who feel strong through his power will not be defeated by mere logic ... Somehow, we must tap into the affect ... a counter-affect.

Sad!