Friday, May 12, 2023

Should CNN have platformed Trump?

 So, CNN held a town hall for trump last night and it was...shall we say, a clusterfudge. The dude lied in every answer, sometimes gratuitously, a lot of people are criticizing CNN for even giving the guy a platform. AOC being a big one. 

Now, I kind of want to focus less on the town hall itself and more on whether we should have given this guy a platform, because I feel quite mixed here. 

On the one hand, I do believe that we need less media bias, and that we should platform every serious presidential candidate. I have a strong dislike, for example, of how CNN often treats Bernie. I mean, they would give Bernie and the like a town hall, but fill it full of loaded questions. And often they wouldn't even focus on Bernie at all when giving speeches, deciding to....instead....look at an empty podium at a trump rally. The media is biased in who they cover, and how they cover them. And honestly, I don't like that. I do believe there should be some fairness there, in principle.

At the same time, TRUMP IS DANGEROUS, and if there was ever a time to ignore a candidate, it's now. I mean the fact that this guy can get on a stage and just lie so openly while his crowd cheers him on is just...disguisting. This dude lowers the bar, and it's quite clear that his lies have hurt people. He has literally incited a insurrection in 2021, and given the circumstances, I can see shutting him out. If there was ever a time to shut someone out, it's something like trump that deserves it. Because this dude doesn't even TRY to tell the truth. He just makes crap up on the spot and his followers cling to every word. And it's had a horrible effect on our democracy. And it's this, which is why I don't feel I can go third party this time if Biden is the nominee, trump is such an open danger to democracy that yeah, he needs to be stopped. 

I mean, if there was ever a time for CNN to just ignore a candidate and pretend they don't exist, doing it now is the time. And that's why AOC was freaking out over this. I mean, AOC is like, traumatized from January 6th. And here we're giving the dude who incited an insurrection a platform to lie again. If there was ever a time to ignore someone, it's now. 

Heck, if we ignored him as not serious in 2016, then maybe he wouldn't have become president. The media covered him 1) for ratings, 2) because the dems wanted him covered. I mean, Trump was good for business, half the country would be horrified by the guy and the other half loved him for "telling it like it is", and of course, the dems thought by elevating him they'd have a better shot, so yeah, we did it. And as a result, he won. Because 1) a lot of people liked the guy, and 2) the democrats miscalculated on their "blue no matter who" campaign and people...didnt vote blue no matter who. 

I know that Breaking Points argued that maybe by giving him a platform it reminds people that he's still the same unrepentant nutcase and that he hasn't changed or learned his lesson, but eh....given how we knew this guy was a nut since 2016 and he won BECAUSE he was a nutcase, well...Im not sure covering the dude is a good idea. I mean, people LIKE this nutcase. It's like giving the joker a platform. 

Honestly, while some level of coverage is necessary given the dude is IS the republican front runner, idk....again, if anyone ever deserved the treatment Bernie and Yang got in 2016 and 2020, it's this guy. Just saying. I'm not saying we should do this for anyone else. Quite frankly, Trump is a special case. He has already caused enough real world damage with his words, and some stuff he does seems to go beyond first amendment protections, so yeah. I'd say January 6th was a hard line for me. if that never happened, I'd probably say out of principle, yes, cover the guy, everyone deserves fair coverage from the media. But yeah...not for the dude who has literally incited violence in the real world. He has to go. The only good thing about him is that he's old and that this will hopefully be the last cycle he runs.

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