During the 2016 campaign, the American news media demonstrated remarkable (if not downright shameless) ineptitude. Donald Trump ate the news media for lunch and then farted them out right back in their own faces. And they went all Oliver Twist and asked for more. Please, sir! Fortunately, not every member of the Fifth Estate bought the bullshit and drank abundantly of the koolaid. On MSNBC, a few of the on air talent demonstrated perspective from the jump. Rachel Maddow, Niccole Wallace, Ali Velshi, Joy Ann Reid, Chris Hayes, Mehdi Hassan and Lawrence O’Donnell all saw not only Donald Trump’s corruption, but also how that corruption was already impacting their fellow journalists.

On last night’s “The Last Word”, Lawrence O’Donnell perfectly articulated how that problem played out then and how, remarkably, it’s playing out again now – in almost the exact same way.

FFS, it’s like the news media learned nothing over the past eight years. That is in fact what’s happened. They’ve learned nothing! And one of their own has some harsh, justified words each and every one of them needs to hear.

In 20016, the American news media watched Donald Trump descend that golden escalator and declare “Mexicans are rapists”. Oh, sure, a few of them sorta kinda tried to ask about that, but the news media acting all lemming-like when “pussy-grabbing” suddenly dropped. Yes, that was significant news – but covering that doesn’t mean you forget “Mexicans are rapists”.

In fact, better than forgetting it, you AGGREGATE it – adding it into and onto the fact that the man also thinks grabbing women by their genitalia is okey-dokey. One plus one should equal three at this point.

Imagine our what understanding of Trump and Republican corruption would be had the news media – like good storytellers – not only added new information as they learned it, but built that new knowledge upon the old. Our news media never does that – aggregates everything they know about Trump (having reported it) into a cohesive, evolving sense of who he is (as opposed to who he says he is).

Actual journalists should have recognized that Trump was a liar right after the first lie. After the secod lie? They should have been demanding receipts before they ever accepted a word Trump said.

“Back it up or it’s bullshit, pal!” If the news media stopped reporting Trump’s spew unless he could prove it all first? Trump would have dissolved into a puddle of inert rage.

But, instead of beginning to aggregate a picture of Trump that reflected what we all knew, the news media forgot everything the second “But, her emails” dropped.

Let’s stick a pin in the corruption that made “But, her emails” happen.

What the news media did thereafter contributed significantly to Trump winning the election. When our cultural truthtellers get bamboozled and begin equating bullshit with truth? We shouldn’t be surprised when, suddenly, a large swath of America lives in bullshit’s shadow.

Our news media has been equating bullshit with truth for a long time. Corporate journalism is responsible for the ludicrous notion that “both sides do it”. That’s a cynical, conservative framing of events. It’s patently untrue.

But, that’s why our news media thinks Democrats and Republicans are exactly alike.

We’re not and never have been.

The people who call themselves “Democrats” and the people who call themselves “Republican” are entirely different creatures with entirely different values. Whereas Democrats want to govern, Republicans want to rule. There’s a difference.

That’s why the head Republican – Donald Trump – just told all those Christians he loves that, after this election, they’ll never have to vote again.

I suggest watching the whole segment. Lawrence is pitch perfect and word perfect throughout.

Lawrence points out a few of the most oppressive examples of the news media’s double standards. Indeed, if you compare, say, the news media’s hounding of Biden press spokesperson  regarding whether or not Joe Biden had taken a competency test with their utter lack of follow up last night to Donald Trump’s meandering, lie-filled, hour-long masturbation session, you can’t help thinking: the overwhelming majority of America’s journalists just plain suck at journalism.

I have a few add-ons.

How many times has Donald Trump used the word “perfect” to describe phone calls or conversations that, clearly, have been criminal. Like the phone call to Georgia Secretary Of State Brad Raffensberger.

I can’t think of a single journalist – including the good ones – who bothered to ask: “what does Trump mean by the word ‘perfect’ here?” Perfect HOW?

I also can’t wrap my head around how our news media – and our political class – have normalized treason. I don’t get it. The news media have reported some very important things and then forgotten about them. Example: “There’s two people I think Putin pays – Rohrbacher and Trump – swear to God!”.

Kevin McCarthy said that on June 25, 2016 to a meeting of other Republican leaders. After leaving a meeting where the intelligence community briefed members of Congress about how Vladimir Putin was working to undermine Ukraine’s fragile, new democracy. This was a month before the GOP formally nominated Trump.

Why haven’t the press revisited that meeting. A few reporters did after Adam Entous published his piece in the Washington Post. But they happily accepted Kevin McCarthy’s excuse that “he was kidding.”

Was he? Was he kidding about Dana Rohrbacher – a man the press labeled “Putin’s favorite Congressman“? No, he wasn’t. And he wasn’t kidding about Trump either.

You could ask any “Pro-Putin Republican” about it. But then, you’d have to ask yourself “What the flying fuck is a Pro-Putin Republican”?

Other than a traitor, that is?

Alas, Lawrence was absolutely right. Our news media IS being 2016 stupid all over again. Unfortunately for us, this time there could be 2024 consequences.