Malevolence Tempered by Incompetence
Malevolence Tempered by Incompetence
Trump 2.0 won't be the bonanza News Corps enjoyed 8 years ago
Like most, I am a creature of habit. I start my day with coffee and a read at the BBC. It is a habit that perhaps I should break—the BBC part, anyway. Like many in this post-COVID world, I spend an inordinate amount of time online and at home, working my dull job under my own roof. I use the BBC as a beige portal into the world outside my walls, letting it give me the cliff notes from all the life swirling around beyond my property. I have no real beef with the BBC. On balance, the corporation does a decent job. My issue comes, however, with the reporting that it and every other big news corp are gearing up to indulge in: Trump 2.0.
I recall the flurry of media activity when Agent Orange was dropped on us in 2016. It choked the life out of the airwaves, drowning us in a neverending cycle of headlines generated by a man whose gargantuan ego is so off-kilter it could affect our planet’s orbit. And the whole thing, the whole four-year assault on my senses, made me sad. Worse still, anecdotal evidence and actual studies showed that it made us all sad, Trump fans included. And this morning the press bombing started back up with the news of Trump’s appointee to Defense Secretary: Fox News host Pete Hegseth. Now, far be it from me to question the bona fides of a man whose job it is to read a teleprompter for the role of head of the world’s largest military, but think for just a minute that I, a citizen of Scotland, have my headlines manicured to inform me that America is about to triple down on stupid. Why else tell me this other than to engage by enragement? This is the business model, and it stinks.
The sheer baffling stupidity of the appointment aside, why is this news for me? Where is the detail pertinent to my community? Does my community not warrant the full investigative and reporting powers of a global organisation (to which I am legally bound to pay)? We have the Scotland page of BBC News, which is a half-thought-out patina of things going on in my own country, but it is drowned out by the foghorn of US political bullshit that wails 24/7.
So, I have determined that I shall more radically alter my habits. I am going to keep the coffee but jettison the BBC. I have no interest in GroundNews, I don’t buy newspapers, and I only use social media to transmit, which shall now be more orderly and less frequent to avoid even the slightest chance of doom scrolling. Trump was a disaster the first time around. He didn’t drain but flooded the “swamp”. He bungled COVID, threatened NATO, caused record inflation levels with his demented tax cuts and caused the January 6th riots. Currently, he is now on course to appoint the world’s biggest arsehole, Elon Musk, to some kind of position of prominence and power, all while giving us a crash course in what oligarchy looks like firsthand. As he does all of this, I won’t be watching. Much like cigarette companies pivoting to vapes as they discovered their actual product was nicotine and not the paper, filter and tobacco they sold, news corporations are embracing that their product is not information but outrage. Like cigarettes, news should also come with a warning label. I, for one, am trying to give outrage up; I’m getting too old and stupidity and desperation won’t be solved by my rising cortisol levels. My consent does not require off-site manufacture.