It also serves the public in the best possible way. For 45 means to do nothing more and nothing less than upset and disturb people with methodology that is not only not helpful, but causes severe damage to our public discourse.
We don't know this yet--and I think someone should ask--but it's also possible that recent acts of intense violence, resulting in deaths of others, may have been caused by taking the bait of his racist, misogynist, hate-mongering, denigrating rhetoric and fulfilling what someone thought he implied by it. He said it himself: He inspires rage by both sides. He doesn't need to, but he does it anyway.
Even if he does it unwittingly--which is difficult to believe at this point, since it's been criticized and challenged so often--it's poor policy and horribly divisive. Presidents aren't supposed to be doing that; they're supposed to be finding ways to bring us together. He insists that the mainstream media must go first, which merely has always meant that it needs to print or broadcast only that which he prefers. That wouldn't be unity. That would be capitulation.
Which brings us back to the main point. What he prefers, first and foremost, is for the nation to tune into his falsehoods-on-the-stump collections of gaslighting, exaggerations, pronouncements of supposition and speculation having the weight of truth, and outright lies. He thus knows that, at least in theory, everyone is focusing on him, and this ultimate narcissist cannot possibly have better moments for himself--which has always been all that matters to him.
He wants, desperately needs, an audience. The mainstream media, that which he has consistently called "the enemy of the people," is in fact his best friend exactly because it delivers an audience, regardless of the level of its support (which may easily be zero). He's so wonderful to the naive masses that back him that they can't get enough of him, and so awful that the rest of us can't look away. At that moment, he has us right where he wants us.
Which puts the mainstream media in an inexorable trap. His position, however cheaply won by coming into the back door through an Electoral College majority supporting a popular minority, demands coverage of absolutely everything he says and does. He only says he hates what they do because he doesn't like the results, which, too, are there for all to see.
But he loves all this: Loves the fawning, loves the special treatment, loves the dependency, loves the fact that no reporter, not even Lesley Stahl on "60 Minutes," will continue to ask him uncomfortable questions, drilling down deep enough to get him to contradict all he has said or make him look like the fool he is, because of respect for his office--for which he himself has none. Loves it so much that--wait and see--he will devise methods to continue the endless attention, or at least try to, when the Constitution demands he leaves office. He will either:
- If he wins two terms: Spend much of his second term making a genuine effort to end the 22nd Amendment (which is exactly the reason he'd like to think he can get rid of the 14th--because if he can do it to that one, he can do it to the other--believe me, he's thought of this because ultimate, perpetual power is the only real thing on his plate);
- If he doesn't, make a genuine effort to discredit the voting process--just like he did in 2016 when he claimed that the election was already fixed; or
- Either way, as it was rumored during the 2016 campaign when the pools mistakenly predicted a crushing defeat, he will start his own television network (which could easily go the way of his university, wine, steaks, et al, but in the meantime continue to insult many people unnecessarily).
So the one thing he cannot stand, cannot deal with, is if no one pays any attention to him. This doesn't mean not to discuss his awful pronunciations and policies, his incompetence, his dysfunctional administration, his innate cruelty and bullying tactics; these should be constantly covered. Even to play clips of the worst parts of his speeches, a few seconds at a time, makes some sense as to mannerisms and effects of statements. But don't give him what he really wants--the nation to be peeking inside his tent revivals, live and unedited, upclose and personal. Fox News will continue to do it because that's what its viewership (a.k.a. 45's true believers) will demand.
But for everybody else: Never mind. Don't indulge his baiting. And for personal interviews, I would ask this question: What are you getting out of them? Are you getting a true insider view of this terrible man? Or are you getting more subterfuge, more shuffling, more falsehoods, more evidence of his basic instability? (He tries to tell the truth? Really?)
Should the press continue his press conferences? Sure, it should. It demonstrates him at his most unhinged, because he insists on being unplugged. We need an occasional reminder of that--and, if the mainstream press insists on not covering his speeches live, it will be the only way he can appear, life and unedited, on screen. He can't help himself, and won't be able to. He'll have more of them.
Otherwise, let's have the major networks, CNN, and the rest, take MSNBC's lead and shut down all live speech coverage. It's enough to have this monster in this position. He only causes damage. He no longer deserves the attention.
Patronizing a demagogue just leaves us with more of it. No need to be afraid that we don't know enough about him. We know plenty, and not one bit of it is any good.
Be well. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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