Marching into Fascist Madness

I’m not ready to discuss A.G. Barr’s “summary” of the Mueller Report, which came out as I was starting this. I didn’t bother watching most of the press coverage, I was too disappointed. Besides, I’d rather wait to see if Jerry “Nads” Nadler, Adam Schiff, etal, can come up with something to cheer me.

In the meantime, I had already run across this survey, which I decided on a whim (of a hat?) to take a look at. I’m glad I did, but when I started reading the questions, I was disturbed – to say the least.

We all know that trump would love to change the libel laws so that he (and his cohorts) can sue a reporter, a newspaper, a network, whoever, over any criticism of trump or his administration.  And of course we all know that trump has been in a verbal war with every news agency except Fox, aka “trumpTV”, although he has lately begun to call out certain Fox reporters who are not lobbing softball questions.

And lastly, we all also know that trump LOVES dictators, and is just dying to emulate them.  So far trump has mainly stuck to his well-documented verbal and Twitter war with journalism and journalists, despite the fact that trump’s stochastic terrorism has already spurred trumpists to violent actions and plots. However, the even stronger stench of fascism in this survey leads me to conclude that the next battle will be much scarier and, eventually, even more violent.  It also seems certain that trump will do whatever he can to try to subvert the First Amendment in order to jail journalists whose questions piss him off for any reason.  The survey also panders to single-issue voters, i.e., anti-choice/”religious-freedom” and/or 2-A voters.

If you don’t want to take the survey or go to the link, below is a description plus the questions.

The survey was titled (in a big red box):

“MAINSTREAM MEDIA ACCOUNTABILITY SURVEY”, above which it states

“Certified Website Of President Donald J. Trump”

The response choices to almost all of the following questions are YES, NO, or NO OPINION:

Do you believe that the mainstream media actually cares about working Americans?

Do you believe that the mainstream media has unfairly reported on our presidency?

Do you trust MSNBC to fairly report on our presidency?

Do you trust CNN to fairly report on our presidency?

Do you trust Fox News to fairly report on our presidency?

On which issues does the mainstream media do the worst job of representing Republicans? (Select as many that apply.)
-Immigration
-Economics
-Pro-life values
-Religion
-Individual liberty
-Conservatism
-Foreign policy
-Second Amendment rights

Which television source do you primarily get your news from?
-Fox News
-CNN
-MSNBC
-Local news

Do you use a source not listed above?  [I added BBC News, just for fun – although I was also tempted to add Al Jazeera]

Do you trust the mainstream media to tell the truth about the Republican Party’s positions and actions?

Do you believe that the mainstream media does not do their due diligence fact-checking before publishing stories on the Trump administration?

Do you believe that the media unfairly reported on Trump’s executive order temporarily restricting people entering our country from nations compromised by radical Islamic terrorism?

Were you aware that a poll was released revealing that a majority of Americans actually supported our temporary restriction executive order?

Do you believe that the media is engaging in a witch hunt to take down President Trump?

Do you believe that people of faith have been unfairly characterized by the media?

Do you believe that the media wrongly attributes gun violence to Second Amendment rights?

Do you believe that the media has been far too quick to spread false stories about our movement?

Do you believe that the media has turned a blind eye to Planned Parenthood’s worst actions?

Do you believe that the media uses slurs rather than facts to attack conservative stances on issues like border control, religious liberties, and ObamaCare?

Do you believe that the media purposely tries to pit Republicans against each other in order to help elect Democrats?

Do you believe that the mainstream media has been too eager to jump to conclusions about rumored stories?

Do you believe that if Republicans were obstructing Obama like Democrats are doing to Trump, the mainstream media would attack Republicans?

Do you agree with the President’s decision to break with tradition by giving lesser known reporters and bloggers the chance to ask the Press Secretary questions?

Do you agree with President Trump’s media strategy to cut through the media’s noise and deliver our message straight to the people?

Do you believe that our Party should spend more time and resources holding the mainstream media accountable?

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Let me repeat that last one:

Do you believe that our Party should spend more time and resources holding the mainstream media accountable?

Um, in what way, trump?

This is more than just shouting “FAKE NEWS!”, or even “THE PRESS IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” This is painting “the media” as the enemy of everything trump’s cult holds dear, the enemy of the trumpian “reality” that trumpists are so desperately trying to force on the rest of us, despite the evidence before everyone’s “lying” eyes. It is an attack on one of the most sacred foundations of our democracy and our freedom, and it must be stopped.

OPEN THREAD – Chime in!