Recently, the Showtime cable network aired a 7-part series entitled The Loudest Voice. The show centered around the behavior of a man driven by paranoia, narcissism, and sexual malevolence. If you watched even one episode it comes as no surprise that Roger Ailes as CEO and Chairman of Fox News built a propaganda machine for the Republican Party built upon lies, innuendo and xenophobic hatred. The parallels between the fake news thrust on the American public by Fox News and the fake presidency foisted upon America by Donald Trump are similarly eerie.
Night after night Fox offers up nonsensical commentary. The most recent example being Tucker Carlson, who told the Fox audience that “white supremacy is a hoax.” This attempt to coax the Fox viewer into intellectual somnambulates dates back to when E.D. Hill described a celebratory gesture between Michelle and Barack Obama as, “A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab?” Hill couched her brand of drivel in the form of a question to adhere to the Ailes edict of “we report, you decide.” Of course, Ms. Hill’s comment was met with the deserved ridicule by the public it warranted. Fox tried to minimize the damage with a segment blaming young people for their confusing influences on what public gestures mean. Eventually, Ms. Hill issued an equivocated apology.
This tactic, adopted by Mr. Trump, pollutes our airwaves more often than his hair spray. From claiming his mocking gesture of a disabled reporter was misinterpreted by the press, to most recently saying he never said the trade war would be easy. Like E.D. Hill, he contorted himself into his version of the truth by saying, I never said a trade war with the “Chinese” would be easy. Donald Trump has discovered a flaw in the small-c, conservative psyche, they like being lied to; We have a history of altering facts because it makes us feel better about our atrocities when they backfire. From General Custer’s Battle of the Little Big Horn to Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Americans would rather fight to an ignominious death than admit a mistake.
Hence the plight of the Trump supporter in the 2020 election. When Republican and Conservative pundits defend Trump against accusations of racism, they never deny the incidents, they say Liberals are unfair for bringing it up. They do not say Mr. Trump was wrong for saying four women of color need to go back from ‘where they came,” they say the women hate America. When Jeb Bush told us, he would be the “chaos President” he did not deny the charge, he said Jeb was low energy.
Many of you who follow me have heard me speak fondly of professional wrestling. My fondest is not any allusion that the faux sport is real, but it is because it reminds me of my childhood and sitting in my great-granny’s lap and watching her squeal in delight for her heroes when I was five years old. Amongst the vilest of the performing villains was a man named classy Freddie Blassie. He was bleached blond, overly tanned and foul-mouthed. The tv show The Loudest Voice was an adaptation of the book The Loudest Voice in the Room, written by Gabe Sherman and if you watched, as I did, you better understand how it was the natural progression to the Vilest Voice in the Room—President Donald J. Trump. Unfortunately for us, the chair shots are real, and the bruises to America may never heal.
Vote in 2020 for Change.