News about "Reform"
The Trump Musk co-presidency is doing so much damage to so many people that the tally of blood, agony and corruption is almost immeasurable. It isn’t being done under cover of darkness. The heartless co-executives are smashing and cutting in broad daylight with no one apparently able to curtail their cruelties.
The obviously false justification for causing such pain is that they are “correcting” the government, “adjusting” the budget and “getting rid of dead weight.” It isn’t true. They’re exercising crude power for their own aims. They lie with a reckless abandon because they can.
How did we get here? It didn’t start with the unholy alliance of Musk and Trump, or even with Trump’s first or second election. For years, we’ve watched media – both traditional and social – grow less and less capable, or willing, to speak truth to power. Instead, media has sold out to what holds an audience’s attention and what chalks up some profit. When billionaire Jeff Bezos purchased The Washington Post, he intended to make money and control reporting, including the report that he was contributing $1 Million to Trump’s inaugural extravaganza. (It’s a paltry sum next to Musk’s $290 Million for Trump’s campaign, the apparent price that can buy a co-presidency.)
The product now called “news” is sold for profit and persuasion, and the persuasion is fueled by dubious or out-right false stories rooted in fear: childhood vaccinations cause autism, there’s a war on Christians and Christmas, DEI is sand-bagging white people, immigrants are mostly rapists and murderers, Ukraine started a war with Russia, Democrats drain the blood of children in a DC pizza joint, and…more. A population fed the steady diet of lies by the media is a population ripe to believe that Trump and Musk are helping America become more American. (Deep breath.)
More than a decade ago Psychology Today showed that what’s driving most modern media’s “news” is a combination of two things: profit, and fear. Here's what I suggest in my forthcoming book, Uneasy Silence:
“The media’s drive for profit outpaces the media’s interest in truth. The goal is profit, and the strategy is persuasive storytelling. Truth is nice but not necessary; the news needs to make money.
…According to the Psychology Today report, fear-based news programming has two aims. The first is to grab attention. In the news media, this is called the “teaser.” The second aim is to persuade the viewer that the solution for reducing fear will be in the news story. Usually, there’s no solution. There’s just a story. If the “news” can hold my attention by keeping me afraid, that’s as good as money in the bank.
…We’ve been treated to years in which lies and immorality sold as well as, if not better than, honesty and honor. What I now know is that the reliability, or “factuality,” of reports depends on who’s controlling the reports. For many newsmakers, if lies could bring a crowd, bring on the lies.”
So here’s the current whopper: We’re told that the Administration is cutting 83% of USAID’s programs. This mainstay of US foreign policy since 1961 will now enjoy what Secretary of State Marco Rubio called an “overdue and historic reform.”
Nicolas Enrich, Acting Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID begs to differ. In a confidential internal memorandum, he predicted that one million starving children will lose access to food and nutrition. That’s one million, and counting.
I’ve been looking for the headline that says “Trump Musk Lie, A Million Children Die.” So far, no headlines. Which leaves me once more shocked at the power of a million lies and the ability to knowingly ignore the deaths of a million hungry children.