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And by "it," we mean journalism.
Right now, everyone is asking, "HOW THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN?" How are we going from an extremely popular president who saved the American economy after one of the worst recessions in generations, who repaired alliances after the nation spent a decade bombing the shit out of countries that did nothing to us, to a pompous, know-nothing, racist pig man who used to host "The Celebrity Apprentice," when our other choice was the most qualified candidate in any election of our lifetimes? HOW? HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW?
We think the answer is multi-pronged, involving a perfect storm of racism against the first black president; titty-baby millennials who third-party voted with their feelings instead of their brains and who failed to listen to the wisdom of their own preferred candidate, Bernie Sanders, the man who TRIED to impress upon them the importance of rallying around Hillary Clinton for the good of the nation; an antiquated Electoral College that has, for the second time in 16 years, given the White House to the person who came in second place IN VOTES; and a sleeping giant made up of rural people whose economic fortunes have been dwindling for decades, for whom good change never comes fast enough, who are woefully unprepared for a 21st century economy, who have been taught to blame black and brown folks for their grievances, and who are now literally willing to try out electing Hitler, because we've never elected Hitler, maybe that'll open the fact'ry again!
Oh and sexism. That old thing! Whole lotta sexism, and just plain hate.
There are so many factors here, and we haven't even put on our tinfoil hats and started talking about Russian and FBI interference in our American democratic election! Donald Trump did say the election was #rigged, and it's a well known fact that Donald Trump projects like a motherfucker, and when he levies a charge against somebody or something, it's worth considering whether he's looking in the mirror.
But what we want to focus on in this post is the lazy, ratings-hungry media that has absolutely abdicated its responsibility to actually INFORM people. We're not talking about slobbering sycophants like Sean Hannity, who will probably be the CEO of our new state-run media, "Trump News." We're talking about CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, the New York Times , and every moron talking head like Chuck Todd and Mark Halperin and Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell (who is going full "Democrat lady" on MSNBC right now, hi Andrea, join us!) and Wolf Blitzer and Erin Burnett and all the other names we can't think of right now, who breathlessly and constantly reported on every twist and turn in the hallowed Clinton Email Scandal, but somehow "reported" it WITHOUT EVER ACTUALLY EXPLAINING TO JOE AND JANE DUMBASS THE AVERAGE AMERICAN VOTERS WHAT THE FUCK THE ACTUAL STORY WAS.
We explained it! Right here! And here! And here! Unfortunately, the hosts of the nightly news don't read Wonkette. Perhaps they don't read at all, as they're too busy getting thrills up their legs about the horse race and filling 24 hours of news coverage. IDEA: How about using like TWO OF THOSE HOURS to teach Americans a goddamn thing about something, because let's be clear, Donald Trump may have ignited a movement, but it's a movement of the monumentally ignorant, a movement completely divorced from facts, a movement of Useful Idiots who have now sent the world into a tailspin, the ramifications of which we will not fully understand until they're being forcibly crammed down our throats.
The writing was on the wall for the media's role in this. Did you see the thing in Slate, about the media's propensity for acting like both candidates are equally bad? After all, if one candidate is bad, then it's only fair and balanced to make like the other one is equally bad , so the easily confused electorate remains easily confused. Sure, Trump grabs chicks by the pussy, but HILLARY IS THE EMAIL LIAR! Sure, Trump attacked a Gold Star family repeatedly, but HILLARY HOTMAIL BENGHAZI! Sure, Trump thinks Russia is our blowjob pal in the war against ISIS, but HILLARY ASKED HER AIDE CHERYL WHEN "THE GOOD WIFE" IS ON.
Slate listed TWO-HUNDRED THIRTY horrifying, disgusting things Trump has either done, said or believed, and 100% of them are more important than "emails." But you wouldn't know it from watching the news!
"Saturday Night Live" nailed it in its last cold open before November 8, 2016, the day that will forever live in infamy:
A lot of the actual morons who voted for Trump mainline Fox News and Breitbart and Alex Jones. They are the actual basket of deplorables, and Tuesday night's results don't change how they are the absolute worst humans America has on offer. But a lot of the people who caused this "wave election," as they're calling it, fancy themselves as people who "really try to look at all sides," because sometimes they switch to CNN! And when they switched to CNN, they saw people obsessing over that fucking non-scandal, and we guaran-damn-tee you not fucking ONE of those people can explain what Hillary Clinton actually did or did not do that was supposedly bad. All they know is that CNN put a giant, glaring spotlight, for over a year, on how Hillary was somehow "corrupt," which means Fox must be right, if even the Clinton News Network is obsessed with it! For fuck's sake, even Bernie dead-enders bought into the noise. They couldn't put their fingers on it, because they had their fingers stuck up their asses, but they just KNEW Hillary was bad. Somehow !
The mainstream media could have taken the time to actually explain the laws in question, and how Hillary Clinton really didn't do anything criminal. Hell, they could have even cheated on the test and relied on great reporters from Mother Jones and others who took the time to explain it. And as we noted, and for Christ's sake, WE, YR FUCKING WONKETTE, dove deep into the original text and explained the details and facts and figures, and WE ARE GODDAMNED BLOGGERS WHO SOMETIMES DON'T SHOWER UNTIL AFTER 4 PM.
CNN could have seen the "fuck you Hillary" letter sent by FBI Director James Comey, analyzed it and realized there was no "there" there, and immediately focused on reporting the real story, which was that the FBI seemed to be trying to throw the election, instead of jacking off to sweet, sweet ratings spikes because OOH THE ELECTION IS GETTING CLOSE AGAIN!
Oh, and we haven't even mentioned how the media lapped up everything released by the Russian mouthpieces at WikiLeaks, but never quite bothered to explain that "HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS, JOHN PODESTA'S FUCKING RISOTTO RECIPE ISN'T ACTUALLY A CRUCIAL DETAIL AMERICANS NEED TO KNOW IN ORDER TO MAKE AN INFORMED FUCKING DECISION."
If the mainstream media doesn't do some serious soul-searching and reflection and find the resolve to never let this happen again, and to rediscover for the first time what the hell "actual journalism" is, then fuck them in the ear with the jagged corners of Edward R. Murrow's sarcophagus.
Dear Media: HI! GO FUCK YOURSELF!
I thought it was mostly uneducated white voters.
The "basket of deplorables" comment was for us, the women and POC who had been harassed for over a year for standing with her. It was a huge cost for some. She called out the abusers. She tried it a speech earlier about the alt-right but the press ignored it so she had to be stronger in wording. And if the press had actually looked into who she was referring to instead of assuming she meant all Trump supporters - which was another hammer they could beat her with - we could have had a discussion about all the hate speech around the election instead of somewhat having it now.
I'm happy she said it.