Uber Alles

"The media is the message" -- Marshall McLuhan

Freedom of the press does not require fiefdom of depress. Yes, the media can responsibly report anything they chose .... even shading things to their political bent. However, the monolithic nature of today's message makers allows outright lies (fake news) that  seem to go beyond what the framers of our constitution had in mind. To this observer, many of our traditional news outlets seem to believe that they should set government policy ... and they are willing to use their megaphones to make this happen ... since they are so much smarter than the people who elected our current government.

This hubris derives from the fact that throughout our national history politicians needed the media to get their message out ... so they cultivated the various media outlets as they were created ... and visa versa. This gave the media tremendous leverage over politicians ... and they became more and more powerful. They became so powerful that they decided to take down a president who was very popular with the American people, Nixon, and they succeeded! Now they thought that their control was absolute ... uber alles.

Enter social media ... which gave politicians the ability to circumvent all the media-controlled conduits and talk directly to the people. One politician grasped this freedom and got himself elected president. Of course, most media now see that their powerful control of messaging is now seriously diminished ... and they are not happy.

So the media is fighting back. Trump is against "freeeom of the press" and a  litany of other Gestapo tactics. They are even pleading with him to give them back their leverage ... see:  Times Up. But until Twitter throttles him in, Trump is going to set his own agenda and deliver his own message ... free from the control that the media used to exert. There will be many attempts to shut this renegade down (Mueller), but, as long as he has access to an unfettered social media platform, this should not happen.