SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2025
Also, please send the specialists in: The week's exhaustion having been conquered, we'll start today with a question, then turn to a hopeful thought.
Our question emerges from yesterday morning's report. Our question goes like this:
Shouldn't the American public be told about the president's post?
To what post do we refer? As you know, we refer to this:
Trump Deems Democrats ‘The Party of Hate, Evil, and Satan’
President Donald Trump deemed Democrats the party of “Satan” on Thursday amid the ongoing shutdown of the federal government.
[...]
On Thursday night, the president went on a mini-posting spree on his Truth Social platform, during which he falsely claimed that he had presided over “record Black employment.”
Perhaps the most notable post, however, was a collage of prominent Democrats, including Schumer, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and former President Joe Biden.
“The Party of Hate, Evil, and Satan,” text on the image read. “The Democratic Party is Dead! They have no leadership! no message! no hope! their only message for America is to hate Trump!”
The Democrats are the party of Satan! Shouldn't the American public be told that the sitting president keeps posting statements like that?
At this locale, our answer would be a million times yes! But the public isn't being told about the strange things this president does. In large part, that's what an exhausted Lawrence O'Donnell was talking about when he offered this assessment at the start of Thursday night's monologue:
O'DONNELL (10/2/25): Well, the New York Times is lost.
The New York Times is still the greatest newspaper in America by far, and one of the greatest newspapers in the world. But tonight, the New York Times is lost.
The New York Times has no idea how to cover the madness of Donald Trump. And so the New York Times ignores it, just as the madness of King George the Third had to be ignored by the London Times in 1789.
As he went on the air that night, O'Donnell didn't yet know about that latest astonishing post about "the party of Satan."
He didn't know about that astonishing post. But he could already say this:
"The New York Times has no idea how to cover the madness of Donald Trump."
The Democrats are the party of Satan? Is it a form of some sort of "madness" when a sitting president sends a message like that to his millions of readers?
Does it start to approach a form of "madness" when he posts ludicrous "deep fake" videos in which he places sombreros on the heads of those Democrats? When he turns them into mustachioed villains—mustachioed villains who are saying that they themselves are nothing but "pieces of shit?"
Is it news—is it reportable news—when a sitting president behaves in such peculiar ways? We'd say the answer is yes!
But all across the high-end firmament, your mainstream press corps runs and hides. They disappear, or they sanitize, the strange things the president does.
Last night, the analysts watched in stupefaction as a sanitized exchange took place on the PBS show, Washington Week with The Atlantic. Jeffery Goldberg spoke with a panel of four. As you can see by clicking this link, he started with Ashley Parker:
GOLDBERG (10/3/25): Ashley, let's go right to you. You're a veteran White House correspondent. What is Trump getting out of this shutdown?
PARKER: So first, it's not necessarily something he would have chosen, but he likes a fight. He thinks, publicly, gleefully that it benefits him and Republicans politically. I think that still remains to be seen.
He's also enjoying the trolling aspect. I know that's a weird thing to say about the president of the United States, that it was exciting to put a little sombrero on Hakeem Jeffries' hat [sic], but he has sort of enjoyed that aspect.
Ashley Parker seemed to know that she was discussing something "weird." But what in the world was she talking about?
The president "put a little sombrero on Hakeem Jeffries' hat?" Goldberg asked her to explain:
GOLDBERG (continuing directly): Wait. Remind—remind our "normie" viewers what you're referring to. Because not everybody saw the Hakeem Jeffries meme.
PARKER: Yes. So there was a—it looked like AI-generated meme of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. They were coming out and talking about a meeting and where shutdown negotiations stood, and they basically dubbed it over to have Chuck Schumer saying things like, "Nobody likes the# Democrats."
And then they doctored Hakeem Jefferies to have a little squiggly mustache and a sombrero on his head.
That wasn't the clearest explanation of all time. For starters, what percentage of "normie" PBS viewers are even familiar with the new-age term, "meme?"
We'll guess it's well under 100 percent.
Goldberg could have shown his viewers the videotape which had been posted on Truth Social. He settled for that fuzzy description.
And then, of course, the instant dodge. Brushing past an extremely strange bit of behavior, the two major journos said this:
GOLDBERG (continuing directly): Lincoln used to do this stuff all the time.
PARKER: Yeah.
OTHER PANELISTS: [Laughter]
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! In this way, the timorous masters of the universe cleaned up what the president did.
Parker said the president had "doctored" Jefferies. In turn, these major journalists doctored what the president had said and done.
Goldberg was trying to clue in the "normies." We'll guess that most of his audience didn't know about the sombrero and the bandito mustache the sitting president had plastered on Jeffries' face and head.
We'll also guess that most of Goldberg's audience didn't know what Schumer was actually shown saying on the doctored videotape the sitting president had weirdly posted on his Truth Social site. Timorously, here's what Goldberg and Parker did:
Goldberg didn't simply show the videotape of what Trump had done. He didn't play that videotape, then wonder if there's something truly odd about a sitting American president doing something like that.
He didn't simply show his viewers what President Trump had done. And when Parker gave her slightly fuzzy account of what the "meme" in question was all about, she didn't report the actual words the president, for whatever reason, had placed in Schumer's mouth.
Instead, she cleaned up what the president had Schumer saying. Then the gang enjoyed a good laugh about the "trolling" the commander had done.
In that way, our leading journalists sanitized the president's unusual behavior. They didn't show their viewers what he had done, and they cleaned up the actual words he had put in Schumer's mouth.
This was also true:
The previous night, the president had posted the video calling Dems "the party of Satan." That behavior wasn't mentioned by Goldberg and the others at all! PBS viewers were spared from knowing what the president had done.
Also unmentioned—the president's crazy video about the magical beds! That had been posted the previous weekend, It went unmentioned too!
The Democrats are the party of Satan! In our view, the fact that a sitting president would promote such a claim counts as remarkable news. But today, in the realm of people like Goldberg and Parker, this astounding conduct is suitable for sanitization and is a trigger for laughter.
In our view, timorous people like Lord Jeffrey Goldberg need to get off their ascots and start reporting this president's conduct. In this instance, it's actually different from what O'Donnell said:
These journalists knew exactly what to do with the [peculiar conduct] by President Trump. They knew what they should disappear his strangest posts, and that they should sanitize another.
Send in the clowns, the songwriter said. In this case, it may be time to send out the clowns, and to send the medical specialists in.
Is something wrong with President Trump? We'd say it's time to start asking.
Could there be some sort of cognitive decline? A "personality disorder?"
They agreed not to ask about President Biden. Last night, there they went again!
Also this: We had a hopeful thought last evening. We began to imagine that the president's behavior could become so strange that it actually could tip the political scales.
We Blues would still have a whole lot of explaining to do. We still wouldn't be forced to see our own role in this mess. But we'd be spared from an instant defeat.
That said, they won't be going without a fight this time. Is it time to put the airbrush away? Is it possibly time to stop laughing?
Pity the child.
ReplyDeleteTrump gains if that video is widely shown. Many viewers will take the straightforward message that Dems are evil. This is a standard Trump technique. He publicizes his chosen message by expressing it in an offensive manner so that others will repeat it.
ReplyDeleteIf true, do you support or condemn the use of this technique?
DeleteYou complained, bitterly, DiC, when some Democrats called Trump a fascist, claiming it leads directly to violence. Here you are saying calling Democrats “evil” is good for Trump. Why can’t you ever denounce what he says, and stand on some kind of principle, like “speech like this is wrong whoever says it.”
DeleteNot as effective as that kid from the Republican family, who shot Charlie Kirk. That kid gets things done.
DeletePeople on the left are talking about it which takes their attention away from other more important issues they need to be addressing.
Delete“People on the left” you mean like Somerby, who claims the public isn’t being told about this? And I assume he thinks it’s important, since it shows the unfitness if Trump.
Deletehttps://instapundit.com/748656/
DeleteOr put another way, media outlets like this Atlantic show is talking about it, when they could be talking about much more serious issues regarding the Trump administration.
DeleteIs it better for Trump that people talk about if he may be crazy or if he is trolling over an idiotic picture or if the media and people are focused on NSPM 7?
Do the Digby readers even know what NSPM7 is? Are they not talking about it everyday? If not, it's a major propaganda victory for Trump and would justify any of the offensive trolling or funny pictures or giving people reasons to think he is crazy.
Delete1239, yes.
DeleteIt seems important to point out the hypocrisy of the gop, which I notice you didn’t respond to DiC, that Democrats are subjected to vilification if they say stuff like this, but it’s just Trump effectively “trolling”. And the media plays along with that unequal treatment. That is at least part of Somerby’s message.
Delete@1248: Indeed. I seem to remember how candidate Clinton was lashed for denouncing half of Trump's supporters as belonging in a "basket of deplorables." (Never mind that her characterization was proven true as Trump benefitted from the support of Proud Boys, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, sovereign citizens, incel activists, and worse.)
DeleteBut hey! I guess she was "just trolling," yeah?
Proven to true because of the Proud Boys et al? That is an embarrassingly stupid thing to say. These Digby readers are nitwits.
DeleteQuaker - you may have a point that they're the same from a moral POV. However, humor and cleverness are a lot more effective than boring, timeworn slogans.
DeleteP.S. -- check your math. Some deplorable people no doubt voted for Trump, but half of Trump's supporters are not deplorable.
Are you seriously saying that calling Democrats evil satanists is humorous? Do you believe that language like this has consequences? Do you believe every Trump supporter who sees this thinks it’s just a joke? There are conservative christians who genuinely believe this about Democrats. Not funny to them.
DeleteYou have a point, @2:02. I was conflating a single picture of Dem leaders along with the word "Satan" with the shot video showing Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero.
DeleteGoldberg and Parker are afraid.
ReplyDeleteTrump is King, all right. The King of Projection.
ReplyDeleteCan’t imagine, if calling Trump the fascist a fascist leads to violence, what calling an entire political party evil Satanists will do, or is intended to do, although one can guess.
ReplyDelete“the trolling aspect.”
ReplyDeleteTrolling is a thing nowadays, has been for a while. It’s where people deliberately say mean or hurtful things to get a rise out of people. DiC and other Trump supporters would say that Trump is trolling here, to get what he wants. In other words, they are saying not that Trump is mentally ill, but that he is a bad person. They are also saying that they are proud hypocrites, because if Democrats said such things, they would be accused of spreading hate and inciting violence.
By the way, there are such things as “bad people”, despite Somerby’s weird attempts to deny it.
People aren’t things.
DeleteToday's post inspires a modest hope in me. There is, at last, an indication that the larger news organizations realize how powerful social media has become. The reach of Facebook, Insta, X, and Reddit are far greater than any cable news channel. And while news organizations themselves present an anemic presence, a great many Americans get their news--or their impressions of the news--while they scroll through news about family and old friends.
ReplyDeleteI'll start to have some real hope when these outlets begin to take a hard look at the algorithms that act as the hidden editors and producers of the news Americans see, and the many, many shadowy content sources that exist to manipulate those algorithms.
For example, recall the furor over Cracker Barrel's new logo? Millions of Americans decried the loss of beloved "Uncle Herschel" in a flood of posts. Or so we were told. Now academics who study such things reveal that a network of bots likely fueled the whole uproar. What they can't tell us is who unleashed the bot army, how their operation became headline news, and why such a thing was done in the first place.
When folks like Parker and Goldberg come around to look at the answers to these questions, I'll have more than a little hope.
They can't tell us if an army of bots was spreading that information either if they include the weasel word "likely".
Delete– Cracker Barrel, after reversing course on a recent “brand refresh” which resulted in widespread backlash, has announced that the company is parting ways with a consulting firm suggested to be responsible.
DeleteCracker Barrel, the right wing’s most recent rage obsession? And the trolls here claim that liberals are too focused on Trump calling the Democratic Party evil satanists, rather than important things like…cracker barrel’s logo.
DeleteNo dummy, more important things like NSPM7. And that is just for starters.
DeleteWell, dummy at 2:02, seems like the President calling Democrats evil is connected to his national security pronouncements. He’s trying to justify declaring them terrorists.
Delete