Hey Fellow Kidz, Here’s a Cool New Idea That No One Has Ever Thought of Before!

We'll put on our own show!

 

Minus the blackface of course.

 

'Cause all we need is pluck, and spunk, and a little elbow grease and we can put on a show that'll blow the socks of these rubes!  Then we'll have enough money to save all parent's houses from foreclosure, and won't that be a fine thing!

In case you are unfamiliar, this plot was a Depression-era staple, usually starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.  And during the Depression, I imagine it was a balm to the despairing masses -- to being able to get away from the desperation of real life for an hour and a half and imagine that putting on a show with some old costumes found in a steamer truck, staged in somebody's uncle's barn with a few song-and-dance numbers written for the occasion would save the day.  

With that in mind, we will now go to Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post,  mere days ago in an exercise which, in my previous life, I have referred to in many, many meetings as the "All quarterbacks/ No wide receivers" school of management.   In this scenario, senior management sits around a large table at their weekly, well-catered meeting and spitball about stuff they want.  Stuff they'd like to see happen, or outcomes they'd like to see achieved.  It's all just wishcasting, with everyone trying to outbid everyone else with the awesomeness of their Wish List: a Wish List which some unspecified person or persons is/are excepted to take up and complete at some point .

Eventually, with all the wishing done (and the ritual complaints about the availability of parking and state of the break room are completed) the meeting adjourns and everyone (except me) leaves feeling a warm glow of accomplishment.  That something had definitely been decided upon (it hadn't.)   That plans had been laid (they weren't.) And that this plan had been delegated to ... someone (Nope.)

A few weeks later, some member of this brain trust remembers one of the wishes which had been spoken aloud to the cosmos and the boss asks the group where that thing stood.  Eyes flash around the room, and even though everyone is seated, everyone manages to slowly take a step backwards.  This is followed by a lot of ponderous or grouchy harrumphing, but the issue gradually dissipates into a welter of disappointed and "Why does nothing every get done around here?" harrumphs, and the cycle repeats itself. 

From the WaPo:

Democrats need to reclaim reality from the right-wing disinformation machine

Disinformation has taken hold over democracy.

Whether you believe that Americans embraced President-elect Donald Trump’s misogynistic, racist and bullying persona because they misunderstood what he stood for or because they liked what he stood for; or because they believed (falsely) that the economy was in a recession or because they could not afford to buy their own home; or because of some combination of all of these, we cannot ignore the success of the right-wing media’s disinformation network in shaping how millions of Americans view the country.

Yes, Jen.  Thank you for joining the chat that the rest of us have been engaged in for +20 years.

Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer put it succinctly:

The things that pundits have been talking about since Tuesday ... all factored into this election. But nothing mattered more than this: Donald Trump was returned to power by the most badly informed electorate in modern American history.

Yes, Jen.  We know.  We get it.  We, too, have been putting this succinctly, and angrily, and despairingly, and TL:DR-ingly on our blogs and podcasts and Tweets and newsletters and TikToks and YouTubes and screaming it across the table at family gatherings. 

A now much-discussed Reuters-Ipsos poll found that...

Lemme guess.  Reuters-Ipsos poll confirms what we have been saying for decades.  We know.  We get it.  

The media preferences of millions of fellow Americans...

...are fucked-in-the-head because they are soaking in Conservative propaganda 24/7.   We know.  We get it.  Are we going to get around to proposing a practical, viable solution anytime soon?

On views about inflation and the overall economy, people in 2024 consistently reported very negative opinions compared to actual inflation, unemployment, and GDP figures...

So no.  I guess we're just going to keep padding out this column with stuff everyone already knows.

Europeans have been especially perplexed by American’s sour views of the economy...

More padding..

On the eve of the general election, the Economist magazine even had a cover story saying the U.S. economy was the envy of the world. Yet voters...

Well golly, Jen, you've finally convinced me.  This all sounds bad.  So...whatever exactly are we supposed to do about it.

The answer to combating the avalanche of disinformation...

Hurrah!  The word "answer" has finally appeared on the horizon!  How exciting!  So go ahead.  Dazzle me.

Oopsie.  Spoke too soon.  Still more Jensplaining to us things we already know about and have spilled a million pixels writing about since the dawn of blogging.  

The answer to combating the avalanche of disinformation, sadly, does not reside primarily in legacy media, which millions upon millions of Americans never see or read. (It certainly does not reside in outlets that offered false equivalence, failed to oppose a fascist candidate, or ignored voters’ lack of interest in democracy and underlying resentment over the loss of White power.) 

Touchingly honest: a WaPo editorial writer telling us her platform and her profession are a dead loss, but still, nothing we did not already know.

Then more yadda yadda yadda.

Then comes two sentences, written in the passive voice, explaining to us rubes what must be done to solve our fatal national journalism problem.

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

Ok, here we go:

Rather, the solution lies largely in fostering new forms of media to counteract the gusher of right-wing disinformation that fills the brains and shapes the attitudes of many Americans.

And

A new crop of relevant opinion makers, local media and investigative journalists is required to get basic information to voters and combat the right’s conspiracy-laden hysteria. Then democracy and good governance stand a fighting chance...

Hey look kids!  Big Time WaPo opinion-haver Jennifer Rubin is of the opinion that we need a Liberal media.

Huzza!

And what she is very carefully not saying is that the Left was right all along.  

Not a word about the who, what, when, where or how -- and who's gonna pay for -- this  "new crop of relevant opinion makers".  Not a word about all the Liberal bloggers and podcasts and Utne Reader and The New Republic writers and Air America veterans who have gone gray in the service of trying to build just such a Liberal media from scratch without the billions that right wing billionaires were willing to lavish on Conservative media to build the vast propaganda machine that produced the likes of [checks notes] Jennifer Rubin.

Not a word about the coordinated mockery, dismissal and attacks from legacy media and Conservative against any hint of Liberalism that might threaten to break into the mainstream.

Instead Rubin advises that someone, somewhere should manifest such a thing somehow.  

Should, y'know, make it so.

Honestly, if I had a dollar for every time a Liberal has cried out for a genuinely Liberal media over the past 20 years...I'd have nearly enough cabbage to fund a genuinely Liberal media.

But now, last last, Jennifer Rubin has arrived to explain this to us as if 'twere something fresh and new.

Time to take Jennifer Rubin in back and plug her into the hyperdrive.

I Am The Liberal Media