The manufacturing of public opinion in America.

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-manufacturing-of-public-opinion-in.html

But how is it possible for a man whose first term in office was, by any measure, the single worst Presidency in all of American history, and who committed waves of crime with mountains of evidence produced in two major investigations, able to get the kind of support this demagogue has been able to maintain among a base that represents about 30% of registered voters? The man is a buffoon, an image, a fraud, a phony, a grifter whose old age dementia requires much more management of his appearances than the media claims about his predecessor. How is it that he has the kind of support that he does?

It's because we have no free press left in America, and because he is a public figure who has a specific identity, and whose obsession with money, which leads him to place financial value on every aspect of life, is exactly the kind of President the billionaire class in America need to be able to run the country their way. They control the media, having turned it into a for-profit venture like everything else they touch. So with money as the bottom line of everything, they have conducted a four year media campaign to re-elect Trump as President.

A sizeable chunk of the population doesn't get its news from traditional sources that still follow some kind of journalistic ethics. They get it from a virtually unregulated media with a plethora of websites and podcasts all aimed at cornering a niche to make money. There's little regulation, as far as the standards of the FCC are concerned and ethics, integrity and honesty are no longer values of media sources, including those who claim to be "Christian." Some of them are the worst violators when it comes to truth and integrity.

It's up to each individual American to do the hard work of research, to determine where the truth lies without being distracted by appeals that are based more on their monetary value or commercial appeal than they are on any set of human values. Read books carefully, noting the author's perspective and background. Listen to podcasts with discernment, applying those critical thinking skills learned in school, if those are even being taught anymore, and pass these skills along to your children. Otherwise, we become victims of propaganda doing the will of someone else who has the money to purchase the means of manipulation.

Our freedom depends on it.

[taxi]

1. The author has valid points, although some of the writing walks a thin line.

For example: (paraphrasing here) Democrats didn't take steps towards Trump's prosecution, save Roe, or overturn Presidential immunity. Further along -Democrats didn't save America from the threat of a demagogue. The author then backtracks a bit and says the fault isn't on Democrats. That part, that part where the author says it isn't the fault of the Democrats can stand on its own. There is no need to drag us across the coals, there is no need to play nice with the other side of the aisle. Just say what needs to be said without bothsiderisms. Just say it.

[lees1975]

2. Public opinion was manufactured to create the image that use of single party power is "political"

Democrats' defense to the critics within their own party for not breaking the filibuster to pack the court and thus gain rulings which would have saved Roe, overturned the immunity ruling, overturned Citizens United and expidited Trump's criminal trials was that doing so would have "looked political," which was an opinion manufactured by the media. And while Trump's favorability ratings and job approval ratings fall below his previous record lows, Democrats in Congress sit at 26% and at least some of that is because they tied their actions to the public opinion created by the media. So it is that a guy indicted 92 different times for major crimes is not only walking around free, but is in the White House as the President. It's not "bothsideism" to put some of the blame on Democrats for letting the media zap some of the boldness they could have taken to stop Trump for good.