Earlier today, Senator Alex Padilla of California was assaulted and handcuffed by Secret Service agents for peacefully attempting to ask DHS Secretary Kristi Noem questions about the Trump regime terrorizing L.A. with ICE agents, Marines, and the National Guard.
We have video footage of the entire exchange. Senator Padilla was civil, identified himself, and yet that still didn’t stop agents from aggressively manhandling him in an obscene-and perhaps even illegal-breach of norms and protocol. There’s literally no way to “both sides” this alarming and indefensible act against a U.S. senator.
That being said, I always have faith in corporate media.
At 3:13 pm ET, I wrote, “I look forward to the both sides framing of Senator Padilla being assaulted by ICE Agents for trying to asking Kristi Noem questions during her press conference. It's going to be a wild night.”
At 4:18 pm, Chris Cilizza said, “Hold my beer.”
Even after a decade of Donald Trump attacking the press as “the enemy of the people” and inciting violence against his critics, the corporate media, some news personalities, and Beltway remoras remain convinced they can “both sides” their way to the good graces of a right-wing authoritarian force that wishes them dead. Within the last week, ABC News bent the knee and threw their former reporter, Terry Moran, under the bus for criticizing Stephen Miller and Trump. Paramount is desperate to finalize a merger so they’re willing to throw their news department under the bus and pay off Trump to the tune of $20 million to settle a bullshit lawsuit. Jake Tapper has traded what little remains of his reputation and pride to peddle his book on Biden’s health, even as ICE agents are kidnapping US residents without due process and Trump continues degenerating before our very eyes.
It’s clear by now that corporate media and its lackeys are now complicit in normalizing and sanewashing a very real, existential threat to our democracy and freedoms for the sake of profit, ratings, and access. In addition to the one percent, those with privileged perches in establishment media - including editors, anchors, and producers - have played ball with a right-wing cult that is aiming to take a bat to their heads.
Journalist Noah Berlatsky, editor of the Everything is Horrible substack, recently wrote a piece in Public Notice describing how the road to fascism is paved with the corporate media’s "objectivity" and "civility." He joins me to discuss the mass failure of the corporate media during Trump’s blatant authoritarianism and what the rest of us can do to remain informed and vigilant.
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