Falling on Deaf Ears

So now we’re just sending tweets that uncritically spread propaganda for dictators who torture dissidents, murder opponents by blowing their bodies to pieces with anti-aircraft guns for sport, and threaten to kill millions of Americans by incinerating several major US cities? https://t.co/FaHrYSAR0W

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) January 2, 2020

High dudgeon:

A video that was edited in a monumentally dishonest fashion to make Joe Biden sound racist just circulated all over Twitter. Distressingly, some reporters and people with large Twitter followings tweeted out the video, before others drew their attention to the full context, causing them to backtrack.

It is simply incredible that anyone in the business of informing people would circulate a video like this before verifying the full context. Have we really learned nothing in the past few years? One hopes this episode will be taken as a cautionary tale of what’s coming.

....

Trump views disinformation not as a scourge to be combated in the name of protecting our democracy, but as an ally. In this particular case, Trump has not retweeted the video of Biden — yet. But let’s try to learn from this.

At this point, no good-faith actors can pretend there is any excuse for playing any role, even an unwitting one, in making this problem worse.

Interesting irony (from a link on the same page):

I predict this will be a summer of nonstop, shameless propaganda from Trump and his minions. It will be clumsy, ridiculous and pathetic — but don’t ignore it. Call it out. Laugh at it. Recognize it for what it is: a sign not of strength but of fear.
.....

Later that evening, the president retweeted a highly edited video clip from a news conference by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi intended to suggest that she was having trouble putting words together. Another clip making the rounds on social media had been slowed and distorted, intended to make it appear as though Pelosi (D-Calif.) — who is not a drinker — were drunk.

This appears to be the propaganda line about Pelosi, that she’s no longer sharp, that she’s lost it. In fact, Pelosi has been both lucid and devastating, saying last week that she prays for Trump and suggesting that his family or staff perform an intervention.

The other main target of Trump’s propaganda attacks is Joe Biden, who is leading in the polls for the Democratic presidential nomination. Trump likes to call him “Sleepy,” which makes little sense to anyone who knows the ebullient former vice president. Trump’s obsession with Biden is a tell: The president apparently fears that Biden could beat him next year, and I think he’s right.

That's from May 27, 2019, so the irony of the reference to Biden and the connection to Pelosi was unknown at the time.  But the Pelosi video was a mere 7 months ago.  Anybody remember it now?

Mr. Robinson's main point is still applicable, however.  Being afraid of this is pointless.  And much as we complain, the media is going to mindlessly megaphone whatever anyone says, even if it's North Korean propaganda.  Oh, there's a tie-in to that, too:

Last week, in the White House, we saw a spectacle that would have embarrassed even Trump’s cult-of-personality role model, Kim Jong Un. Trump was announcing $16 billion in effective welfare payments to farmers whose livelihoods are threatened by his ill-advised trade war with China. As usual, the president went off-script. The assembled farmers must’ve been puzzled as he went into a diatribe about media reports saying he had been irate the day before, when he had stalked out of a meeting with congressional leaders that was supposed to be about infrastructure.

He had been perfectly calm, Trump claimed. Then, one by one, he called on aides to attest that he had indeed been serene and unruffled — counselor Kellyanne Conway, communications aide Mercedes Schlapp, economic adviser Larry Kudlow, press secretary Sarah Sanders. Oh yes, Mr. President, you were sooooo calm and collected , they told him. I was afraid one of them might call him “Dear Leader.” Even deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley, who hadn’t even attended the meeting in question, was forced to chime in; he dutifully offered his measure of fawning praise.

Perhaps, in its long history, the White House has witnessed a similar display of toadying, but I can’t think of when. The men and women in that room once had reputations and self-respect. Now, they have only Trump.

Yeah, that was broadcast, too, IIRC.  Must have been; I doubt Mr. Robinson was in the audience for that White House presentation.  The White House is trafficking in North Korean propaganda of its own, and doesn't need state TV to publicize the proceedings.  Rail against that all you like, it's going to happen.  What to do with it, is the question.

don’t ignore it. Call it out. Laugh at it. Recognize it for what it is: a sign not of strength but of fear.

Sounds about right.  The Emperor is naked, but the press courtiers can't tell us that.  We are Americans.  We can tell ourselves.  Point, laugh, emphasize the weakness of someone who needs lies and fabrications to even be considered a public figure.  E.B. White said democracy is the dent in the high hat.  I prefer to think of it as the snowball thrown at the high hat.

Start throwing more snowballs.d