Nine years into the Donald Trump Era of American politics and our news media still can’t handle him. To this very instant, he handles them! A few journalists have always understood how to shut down sociopathic bullshit artists like Trump, but the overwhelming majority of journalists working here in America refuse to take notes and learn. Instead, not only do they accommodate bullshit, they give it the same credence they give truth.

That’s what “both sides do it” journalism has delivered.

Whatever they teach in journalism schools keeps getting skewed by a corporate media that intrinsically toes a conservative line. Most corporations see the public as a buck to be made. Their goal, find a way to make it from us. Or take it from us if necessary. That’s where politics enter the picture.

Conservatives have a very specific goal in mind. So do Progressives. While both sides may have goals, not only are those goals different, but both sides approach achieving those goals differently. To that end, each side uses politics differently. Conservatives – having had power for the bulk of our history – want to maintain that power despite the fact that America has changed because Americans have changed.

As their name implies, conservatives want to conserve. What do they want to conserve? Their hold on power and the money that goes with it. That’s why they always act like someone who’s got something to lose (in their mind) and therefore every reason to resist losing. Even if that involves cheating. Or treason.

Progressives, by contrast, have rarely (if ever) held power in America. Individual progressives have held power, but progressivism as a movement or ideal hasn’t – up until reently. That’s because, up until recently, conservatives via conservative media have portrayed progressive ideas as “socialist” or “communist”. Americans only resisted “socialized medicine” because of how the media portrayed it. And the media portrayed it the way their corporate bosses and conservative politics wanted.

Meanwhile, most of Europe socialized its medical and educational systems. They built mass transit instead of highways. Taking into account conservative successes at underfunding several national health care systems, for the most part, “socialized medicine” produces far better results than what we have in America – home of for profit health “care”.

For the record, America doesn’t have a health CARE system. We have a health INSURANCE system. Not the same thing. The first question we ask whenever anyone walks in our door isn’t “How can we fix you?”, it’s “How’re you gonna pay for this?”. That’s inhumane and barbaric.

Know what never happens in countries with socialized medicine? No one ever loses their house because they got sick.

That’s a progressive idea. Most of America (and Americans) embrace it. It’s not even really “progressive” anymore. It’s American.

The news media started the same crap again when Kamala became the Democrats’ clear choice. A big chunk of the news media veepstakes involved talking heads insisting that Kamala needed to chose someone more moderate or conservative. You know, to appeal to “reasonable people” to whom progressive policies – like the ACA they want to keep – are abhorrent.

As America has diverse, it’s gotten more progressive – in order to accommodate that diversification. The two go hand in hand. That’s why conservatives are hell bent on overthrowing our democracy – by brute force.

Donald Trump has told us – out loud – that the election results do not matter. FFS, can we please take him at his word? He means it. Just as he’s always meant it. This is all about hijacking the results.

And that – right from the jump – is criminal. But, hey – Trump’s entire presidential run back in 2016 was criminal. Hell, it was downright treasonous. The GOP leadership knew it. A year later, so did the news media.

To this day, the news media has never followed up on this remarkable event. By, of course, they’d already normalized “Mexicans are rapists” and “pussy grabbing” because “But her emails“. That was the conservative news media – thinking they’d sniffed out corruption when, in fact, Trump was in the process of corrupting them!

Make no mistake. That is what happened. Donald Trump corrupted our news media. Compare how the White House Press Corps kowtowed to Trump to how they grilled Joe Biden for performing poorly at a debate. That’s a debate where his opponent lied whenever he opened his mouth, knowing no one was fact checking him in real time. That part? It didn’t bother the news media apparently…

Both sides don’t do that. Never have. It’s bullshit.

Our news media needs to understand how they contributed to Trump’s rise. Until then (if then ever happens), the need to learn how to deal with this man. It’s not too late for our news media to help save our republic.

It’s quite simple actually.

They need to stop accepting or broadcasting bullshit. Democrats have always been forced to put their receipts on the table. That’s why we seem so wonky. Receipts ARE wonky.

But wonky is how government works – if you want it to work. Yeah, it can get inefficient. But I’ll take government inefficiency over fascism any day.  That’s the choice. One, we can fix. The other will try and “fix” us.

If the news media had a lover like Donald Trump – who lied to them every day and in every way, they’d tire of it. Quickly. The moment he walked in the door, clearly guilty of something, they’d demand receipts before accepting a word he said. “Back it up it’s bullshit”.

That’s what they should be thinking at the very least. Saying it out loud, one hopes. Shouting it, ideally. Unless they were co-dependent, that is.

Hmmmmmmm… maybe I’ve stumbled onto something.