LONG ENDURE: Technologies threaten our cool reflection!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2026

So Rosen wisely says: No one's assessments are unassailable, perfect. But in our view, the inanity never stops at one of our struggling nation's three (3) major "cable news" channels. 

Last night, at 8:06 p.m., that channel's chyron said this:  

EVEN COMMIES WANT PLATNER GONE  

Yes, that's what it said.   

The channel to which we refer was the Fox News Channel. The show was Jesse Watters Primetime, the second most-watched "cable news" show within the American firmament.   

With Watters rumored to be vacationing in the south of France, Charlie Hurt was filling in as the program's host. He came on the air excitedly citing an actual news event:   

WATTERS (7/7/26): Welcome to a special edition of Jesse Watters Primetime. I'm Charlie Hurt, filling in for Jesse. 

We start with a Fox News alert:

Another bombshell scandal just blew up inside the Democrat tent. Graham Platner, who has been accused of outrageous drinking, manhandling women, and sexting outside of his marriage, has just been accused of sexual assault. 

It was an actual news event. Indeed, as Hurt continued, he offered his basic citation:  

[continuing directly] 
Lyndsey Fifield, at the center of last month's New York Times piece, just spoke to CNN, and she is accusing the Democratic Senate candidate from Maine of being hostile and violent towards women. She is speaking out just 24 hours after the first ex-girl friend spoke to CNN. 

A minor bungle is included in that brief overview. But this was an actual news event—a news event the Fox News Channel was able to discuss thanks to reporting provided by CNN. 

Indeed, all three major cable news channels opened their 8 p.m. program last night with this topic. That said, only one hurried to offer the braindead chyron we mentioned above. Let's ponder that chyron again:   

EVEN COMMIES WANT PLATNER GONE  

Yes, that's what the chyron said. You can't get dumber than these mofos are, but they'll surely continue to try.   

Three hours earlier, at 5 p.m., the nation's most-watched "cable news" show opened with the previous day's news about Platner. That news had also been broken by CNN.

The Five opened with that. One of its stars had returned from the south of France, but Jessica Tarlov was gone: 

The Five: Tuesday, July 7, 2026 
Kennedy: former MTV VJ 
Harold Ford: former congressman (D-Tenn.) 
Brian Kilmeade: co-host, Fox & Friends 
Dana Perino: co-host, The Five
Greg Gutfeld: host, Gutfeld!

We noted a type of irony as the four pro-MAGA players took turns saying the very same things, as they typically do.

On this evening, the four were shocked and appalled by the litany of accusations floating around Platner's head. No one mentioned an awkward fact: 

The president they treat as a successor to the sun god Ra has a gruesome record in this area—a record which matches, or even surpasses, that of Platner. But no such facts will ever be mentioned on this astonishing imitation of corporate propaganda messaging vehicle which poses as a news program. 

The four pounded away at Democrats who had supported Platner in spite of his record. They failed to note that they themselves are still adopting the same stance with respect to the record of sexual conduct surrounding Citizen Trump.

We move to a somewhat strange fact:

In his recent essay for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Rosen—he's very sharp—doesn't mention the Fox News Channel. Also, he doesn't mention MS NOW or CNN, or cable news in general.  

That said, he does mention some new technologies which have created, or so he says, a threat to the continued existence of our American democracy, imperfect though our democracy has always been.   

Rosen says it, and we believe it! Here's the heart of the way his essay starts, dual headline included: 

IDEAS
American Democracy Wasn’t Designed for This
Can our 18th-century institutions survive 21st-century technology?

In 1787, after the Founders signed the Constitution in Philadelphia, Alexander Hamilton wrote in “Federalist No. 1” that there was more at stake than the future of a single country. The American experiment would “decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.”

The Founders were hopeful, in part because the information environment of the late 18th century was favorable to “reflection and choice.” A flourishing newspaper industry kept Americans informed and fostered vigorous debate...And at a time when nothing traveled faster than a horse or ship, the sheer size of the new country meant that news spread slowly, an obstacle to impulsive public decisions....

Today, those advantages have disappeared, thanks to a technological revolution the Founders could never have imagined.... As America approaches its 250th anniversary, the biggest question for our democracy is whether a system designed for the communications technologies of the 18th century can survive those of the 21st.  

Are we the people—we the humans—capable of making the kinds of judgments needed to maintain a "western democracy?" Are we "really capable of establishing good government" through widespread reasoned "reflection?"  

Are we the American people still capable of such acts? Professor Rosen says he isn't entirely sure. 

Quite correctly in our view, he says that certain new technologies are making that outcome much less certain. As his essay begins—in the deletions we have made—he specifically mentions the Internet and social media, with the onset of AI also mentioned.

Later, he specifically mentions podcasts—but he never mentions talk radio, and he doesn't mention cable news. Possibly stretching the term bit, it might be said those are two additional technologies which have transformed, and are continuing to transform, our "information environment." 

There's never been a time when foolishness didn't exist within the human environment. That said, today's technologies have created a world in which chyrons like the one cited above go out to millions of people, and they go out extremely fast.

EVEN COMMIES WANT PLATNER GONE!

That's what the silly/sad chyron sillily said. As we close for today, we'll borrow a word from the Atlantic headlines posted above:

Can our society expect to "survive" the round-the-clock, daily drubbing administered by the technologies now in play? 

Rosen says the answer may be no. We'll suggest that Rosen is giving voice to an extremely important point.

Tomorrow: One month plus three days