The Right-wing Press, Alternative Facts, and the FCC

If you look at The New York Time's "Coronavirus World Map" (December 25), you will be surprised to learn the the U.S. has the second worst record of per capita daily cases.  Only Lithuania has a worse record. 

How sad that this great country, home to one of the finest medical systems in the world, is experiencing such devastation. 

And why is this happening?  The answer falls clearly on the shoulders of President Trump.   Through a combination of well-documented early inaction, a disastrous stand on not wearing masks, turning epidemiological controls into attacks on people's Constitutional rights, and lack of a coordinated federal policy, we are approaching 20,000,000 cases and have surpassed 340,000 deaths. 

Why is it that half the country doesn't seem to realize this.   The answer is that they listen to right-wing news media, who have aided and abetted this crime against the nation. 

What is it about the right-wing media?  How could they be so callous about what is happening throughout the country that they continue to support Trump in his dismissal of the virus as something not serious.   This is not a question of free speech, of opinion.   This is a question of using the public air waves to disseminate lies, misinformation in the current parlance, that threaten the well-being of our country.   

Stations, whether radio, TV, or cable, receive a license to broadcast from the Federal Communication Commission.   Station licensees, as the trustees of the public’s airwaves, must use the broadcast medium to serve the public interest.

The FCC gives stations broad leeway in deciding how it serves that interest.  It will generally not intervene in the exercise of journalistic judgment or opinion.   

"However, as public trustees, broadcast licensees may not intentionally distort the news. The FCC has stated that 'rigging or slanting the news is a most heinous act against the public interest.' "

"The Commission will investigate a station for news distortion if it receives documented evidence of rigging or slanting, such as testimony or other documentation, from individuals with direct personal knowledge (italics supplied) that a licensee or its management engaged in the intentional falsification of the news. Of particular concern would be evidence of the direction to employees from station management to falsify the news. However, absent such a compelling showing, the Commission will not intervene."  This quote is from the FCC manual. 

In the current situation regarding reporting on the pandemic, there has been ample evidence that Fox and other news outlets have done precisely that.   They have intentionally distorted the facts, scientific and other, regarding the pandemic.   Further, I believe that there has been reported direction from management to falsify or distort the news. 

The concept of "alternative facts" that was dreamed up by Kellyanne Conway does not provide cover.   Or at least should not.   Again, this is not a matter of someone having a different opinion on something; something where, as lawyers say, reasonable men may differ.  These are made-up facts; a less-offensive term than falsehoods.

By providing alternative facts to the public, right-wing cable stations are in fact misleading the public, they are distorting the facts on a matter of the gravest national public health interest.   And it is their intention to mislead; they know that they are distorting the facts. 

Obviously with Trump appointees as chair and the majority of the FCC, no complaint regarding this issue would have seen the light of day.   They consider alternative facts, facts. 

But in June 2021, Biden will be able to appoint a Commissioner, giving the Democrats a majority.  With a Democratic chair and majority, hopefully someone will come forward that meets the high bar set by the FCC.   Someone with the required direct personal knowledge, i.e.  a whistle blower possessed of internal documents, and make a well-documented complaint regarding the handling of news of the pandemic.   If proven, the result should be that, at a minimum, a substantial fine should be imposed.   But this case is so egregious that revocation of licenses may be appropriate.

If such a person does not come forward, this travesty that has become news reporting will continue unabated, unchastised.   Another example of the negative impact is the near-fanatacism with which liberals protect free speech.   Whether it's the issue of hate speech or something as gross as the misleading "facts" that have been presented by right-wing media recently, the absolutism of free speech advocates is misplaced.   

As I've stated before in posts, the 1st Amendment right, as with all rights, is not absolute.  There are already various exceptions carved out by the Supreme Court to protect the public from immediate and serious harm, such as false advertising, obscenity, and speech that incites to imminent lawless action.   I agree that the requisite intent to mislead is of critical importance, but there are ways of proving that without a whistle-blower. 

What Will Happen When Trump's Defeat Becomes Final?

During the election, there were times when I shuddered in fear.   I read of roving gangs, for that's what they were, of Trump supporters in cars and trucks stopping traffic on the Garden State Parkway, the Mario Cuomo bridge over the Hudson, various highways crisscrossing the New York City region, and trying to force a Biden-Harris campaign bus off an interstate highway in Texas. 

It reminded me of dark scenes from the movie "Mad Max."  Of roving gangs of hoodlums terrorizing ordinary people in the desolate post-apocalyptic world with their brute power. 

I wondered will this ultimately be the legacy of Donald Trump's presidency?  Even if a small percentage of Trump supporters would be of a mind to engage in such activity, the result would be, as Trump prophesied, bedlam.   It would severely damage our democracy. 

Now as the final denouement of Trump's defeat gets ever closer and his options to reverse the will of the people disappear, he has not changed his tune.   He continues to say that he won by a landslide and that if just some wise people would have the courage to acknowledge the facts, meaning the Supreme Court, he would win.   His latest argument is that the fraud can't be seen because local officials loosened the process so that the fraud was not discoverable. 

Meanwhile, his base of supporters is getting ever-more angry.   Threats are being received by officials, Republican and Democrat alike.   In Arizona, the Republican Party is trashing it's own leaders, the governor and the speaker of the House, for telling the facts of Trump's defeat like it is.   The same is happening in Georgia.   The Arizona Republican Party even sent out a call for people to die fighting for the cause.   Republican officials across the country, even attorney generals, not just his voter base, continue to support Trump's baseless claims. 

Now Trump is trying to get Republicans in Congress to agree to not accept the vote of the electoral college.   His last chance, on January 6.  Senator McConnell after finally acknowledging Biden as President-Elect has urged his Senate colleagues not to join the effort.

What happens when the last nail is driven in the coffin?   When there is no escape for Trump and his supporters from his defeat?

There was an op-ed piece in The New York Times after the election saying that the most dangerous time of our history, for our democracy, will be in the coming weeks.   And I think the writer was right.   

Who will be able to quiet the Trumpist masses when Trump goes down flailing?  It's beyond hope that the Trump loyalist pundits will take a positive role at long last.    And his followers have no use for past Republican leaders, so their words will be useless.   

Some leaders of the Evangelical church might make a difference if they told their followers, Trump supporters, that regardless how aggrieved they feel, that the results of the election must be respected, that law and order must be kept, that they should harm no one in their grief.   Will organized religion finally rise to the occasion, or will it once again fail out of the human weakness of its leaders?

I do not believe in the God of our forefathers, in the God of the Old Testament, but at this moment, I pray to that God that he protect our country from this dark eventuality.   (For clarification, I do believe in the God that is the divine essence that is within each of us; yes, including Trump supporters.   Unfortunately, most people are unaware of and unconnected with their divine essence.)

Invoke the 25th Amendment

If Vice President Pence and the Cabinet were men and not puppets, if they had any ethics or commitment to American democracy, they would invoke the 25th Amendment, Section 4, and free our country from President Trump.   Trump clearly is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office."  The peaceful transfer of power being one of the most important duties of an American president. 

This would certainly throw the Republican Party and its voting base up for grabs.   But the fact that Trump loyalists took such a move would at least have a chance to quiet the Trump base and result in a peaceful transition to the Biden presidency. 

From what we have seen during the past month since the election, when Trump's defeat becomes final, it will not be accepted gracefully.

Where Do We Go From Here?

This has always been a country that harbored and accommodated a large diversity of thought,  But while there were many fringe elements, the core of the populace, even those who had ample reason to be distrustful of people with power, believed in our democracy and the basic sanctity of the process.   There was respect.   That even though you weren't always, or even often, going to be in the majority, that even though government didn't do what you wanted it to, you could always depend on our leaders and government being reasonable if failed men and women. 

The underlying feeling of belonging, despite all the diversity, all the inequality, all the discrimination, all the disenfranchisement has been dealt a blow by the past four years of the Trump administration.   While every other president, regardless of which party, sought to be a unifier and lead the people, Trump was the great divider.   

He saw his power in his ability to divide people and bring half the people under his unquestioning control.   To be an authoritarian, demagogue, dictator in style and even in fact, to the extent that our democracy and his party gave him that obeisance.  And that they did,

His final days are very much in the dictator mode.   His refusal to say in the run-up to the election that he was committed to the peaceful transfer of power, to put in his supporters' mind the conviction that if he didn't win it would be because it was stolen by fraud, and then to refuse to accept the results of the election all speak to his deranged state. 

That is not much of a surprise.   What is a surprise, however, is the response of the American people.   That 70 million people saw fit to vote for the man despite his catastrophic mishandling of the pandemic, forget about all his other failures, is hard enough to fathom.   But that they believed his lies that the pandemic is all a hoax, when we have almost 250,000 dead from the virus.   And now they believe his claims that he won but that the election was stolen from him by fraud.   It truly boggles the mind.   

We have a large portion of the population whose mind has been taken over by a web of unreality.   In a recent Monmouth University survey, 77% of Trump supporters said that Biden won the election because of fraud.   

Despite no evidence, despite court after court, Republican as well as Democratic judges, throwing out his attacks on the election, this huge mass of people still believe Trump just because of his word.   As indeed they believe every thing he says, whether it's about the virus, or climate change, or white supremacists, or whatever. 

Regardless whether the Senate is controlled by Democrats or Republicans, where does the country go from here?  How do we return our populace to a state of reason, of fact.   How do we return to the feeling that although we may strongly disagree, we all at heart want the best for our country and whether one side wins or the other, the country, our democracy, our well-being will not be damaged?

It we look to history, there is no easy answer.   After the toppling of a demagogue leader, much of the country has remained loyal to him for many years.   If has often taken a generation to free the country from the grasp of his legacy.  Plus, in every other case, the demagogue was gone from the scene; in our case, Trump will be, or at least he intends to be, very much with us in the future, attempting to control the Republican Party and perhaps even run for president again in 2024.

We cannot afford to have our country torn apart for a generation.   While all of Biden's policy initiatives are in the right direction and of critical importance, this issue, which is basically divorced from any policy success he may have, is of great importance to the future of our country. 

So the question remains, what does soon-to-be President Biden do to bring our country back to a state of normalcy?  I don't think he can count on his genuineness, his decency, his talk of unity to move the country substantially back to normalcy.   I don't think his policies will have much of an impact in this regard either. 

One has to understand that the one thing that people loved about Trump more than anything else was that he was fiercely anti-establishment.   And yes, he was in the pocket of the evangelicals.   There is possibly nothing that anyone that is part of the establishment, or even working with it, can do to change their attitude.    They won't even listen to the "moderate" former leaders of their own party.   

This anti-establishment feeling had been brewing for decades and Trump finally gave it a voice, an outlet.   You can't shut back Pandora's box once it's been opened. 

Even if Trump ends up in jail, convicted of tax fraud or whatever, it won't make a difference to his minions.   Indeed, they will just think he was unjustly convicted; a victim of the very establishment that he fought against. 

I fear that only Trump himself could change the dynamic.  And that is truly to dream the impossible dream.   And so i think we, Biden, must settle for just making small inroads, slightly reducing the millions that supported Trump through a variety of positive approaches that they feel are in their best interest.  Those are the facts

But we can nevertheless rejoice that we soon will have a President, a cabinet, and a government that will get this country back on track from a policy perspective.   If a large minority of the people continue in their blind trust and distrust, that will impact their lives and possibly the next election, but this country will move forward.   And we can take comfort in that they did lose the election and next time around, their numbers should be reduced, so that they will lose again.