Elon Musk’s purchase of X/Twitter and his creeping control of what gets amplified or suppressed on the platform — one of the biggest media companies in the world — has been the proverbial icing on Donald Trump’s cake.
We have become numb to so much these last 9 years. This should scare all of us.
Read here, no paywall.
In his Oct. 3 piece for the New York Times, veteran columnist David Brooks opens with, “I travel a lot. Just over the last several weeks, for example, I’ve been in some rural and redder parts of America (in Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, Texas) and some bluer parts (in California, Illinois, New York). My overall impression is that the social, economic and psychological chasms between these two zones are wider than ever.”
I have no issue with the meat of Brooks’s column, which attempts to parse the Harris/Trump economic agendas and delves into industrialism, but with the premise. What is it about white, educated, east coast, elite men in the media who continue to think that occasionally parachuting into rural, red America makes them subject-matter experts?
I am a white, educated woman living in rural, red Kentucky. I have been a freelance opinion columnist focused on Kentucky politics for almost a decade (which I consider a short period of time). If I published a column that began with the words “I travel a lot” and then opined on my deep knowledge of New York City politics, I would be laughed out of New York City.
Yet this kind of reporting remains acceptable, even lauded.
And then there is the shift in the media landscape post-2015.
The national political media’s sustained ecstasy since Trump — one of their own, a NYC, elite, educated, wealthy, white man — rode down that escalator in 2015 and announced his candidacy has been pure lunacy.
Even today, with the first Black/Asian woman running for president, Trump and Trumpism dominates the coverage of national politics. East coast media elites are addicted to him, addicted to his antics, addicted to his constant social media blathering, addicted to his long-curated knowledge of how his machine and their machine feed each other.
It is something to behold.
In an industry still dominated by white male elites, Trump is both king and kingmaker. The man who drives the media and the money. And it is devastating to watch the rolling travesty from afar, here in rural America where it often feels like we are bleeding out and all of the ambulances are out of gas.
I watched the vice presidential debate. I then saw about 10 minutes of CNN commentary when the debate ended, and it was like watching kids who’d shown up for a circus and walked into an empty tent. They all looked so deflated. What would they talk about? The candidates had been so … cordial.
Where was the bloodsport so desperately needed and counted on by anchors, journalists and pundits in the Trump years to fill the hours upon hours of post-debate airtime?
I cut my own addiction to cable TV news in January 2021 after President Biden’s inauguration. January 6 had been shocking, and the normalization in the coverage even more shocking. The Trump era had been exhausting. I think we all, Republicans and Democrats alike, hoped it was over. That “he” was over. I went back to reading national political news in my preferred outlets: New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, and sometimes The Daily Beast though I soon lost interest in the latter and let my subscription expire.
When I tried to explain these new habits to friends, there was little to no interest. Fake news, many said. Newspaper subscriptions are too expensive, they would say, and there are just too many to choose from. Who should they trust? Wasn’t it all biased? And why pay to read when you can watch cable TV news for free, 24/7, and get the same information?
In red, rural places like where I live — where men like David Brooks drop by during election season — we were also experiencing the death of our local newspapers which have been bought out and run bone dry by companies with seemingly little interest in journalism.
When I started writing for my small, local, weekly paper back in early 2017, The Anderson News had an office right here in the middle of town, someone who answered the phone, an editor who lived in town and came to work everyday, a reporter and, if I remember correctly, someone who covered sports.
I met the editor at a Mitch McConnell event in town and soon started writing a regular column for free. I had personal reasons for doing this: I was new to rural Kentucky so there was a big learning curve; I had never in my life written about politics; the editor, even back then, had no budget to pay me but was interested in having a new voice in his newspaper.
Our newspaper operated like a real newspaper. If I went to a school board meeting, either the editor or his reporter was there. Reporters followed up and connected dots in the way that can only be done when there is a consistent journalistic presence and reporters get to know the players. If a tragedy happened, factual reports were posted immediately in the paper’s online edition and citizens had access to a central repository of facts.
Fast forward to today. The Anderson News still exists but is owned by a consolidator, there is no office, no local editor, no opinion page or letter to the editor page, and the one reporter we have is not from here and does not live here.
Our newspaper is, in a word, useless.
I tell this story because national media outlets like the NYT — with their David Brookses occasionally traveling to red, rural America, blessing us with their attention and thinking they can learn about us on such a trip — have continued to thrive compared to the local news deserts so many of us now live in.
How bad is it? If you live here and something has happened — a police shooting, a hit and run, a drug deal gone bad, school lets out early due to a threat, a car accident at the big intersection by Kroger — you need to know who to call locally or which Facebook feed to follow, and even then there is a very real feeling that you are not getting the full picture of what has happened.
The Facebook comment section (with no fact checking) is our primary local news source.
Let that sink in.
The steady decline of local news outlets in rural counties like mine (pop. 24,000) coinciding with the Trump era of “fake news” and “alternative facts” and the constant drumbeat of Mr. Trump stating that news organizations are the “enemy of the people” has not only been dangerous, it has fractured our communities. Without central points of fact, how are neighbors expected to have civil debate?
The answer is that many have stopped talking to each other altogether.
Meanwhile, there remains the old guard of older, white, male columnists like David Brooks from the NYT who lazily begin columns, for which I assume he is handsomely paid, with declarations like “I travel a lot”.
Red America is not just red. Blue America is not just blue. There is no monolith. And believing these monoliths exist and reporting on them as such is irresponsible and inaccurate.
An example: I am not red, though I live where 70+% voted red for Trump in 2016 and 2020. Many of my neighbors aren’t red, either, but how would you know? There are Kentucky Democrats who register as Republicans and Republicans who register as Democrats. And if you don’t know them personally, they would never tell you how or why they’ve registered as they have.
Which leads me to the myth of the undecided voter. There is no undecided voter. No one in today’s saturated media and social media climate is undecided; they are simply not telling you who they are locked in on (because they do not want to be judged) or they are not voting at all (and don’t want to be judged for that, either).
The undecided voter exists in the dreamscapes of places like the NYT or Washington Post and on CNN, MSNBC etc… because they need those dreamscapes as fuel to feed the horserace that feeds their bank accounts.
Follow the money. Isn’t that what they teach in journalism school?
I make pennies writing about politics, but I continue to write about politics because I am a white woman living in rural Kentucky and I am enraged.
I am enraged at the mindless destruction of local newspapers.
I am enraged at east coast media corporations who continue to employ, to the detriment of all Americans, primarily east coast, white men.
I am enraged that, in the United States, a former president and candidate for president can regularly call journalists “enemy of the people” and nobody cares, not even the journalists.
I am enraged that billionaire elite social media magnates like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk control so much of our political discourse, with no end in sight.
I am enraged that someone as vacuous and destructive and as lacking in political knowledge or vision as Donald Trump has so easily co-opted the national conversation and national media outlets, which has made us dumber, angrier and more disconnected.
I am enraged that the reportage on red and blue America, as though we are year-round sports teams and not human beings, is often so obviously lazy.
I knew that David Brooks had been with the NYT for a long time, but I knew few details so I googled him, as we do these days, and read the following on Wikipedia:
“According to a 2010 article in New York Magazine written by Christopher Beam, New York Times editorial-page editor Gail Collins called Brooks in 2003 and invited him to lunch. Collins was looking for a conservative to replace outgoing columnist William Safire, but one who understood how liberals think. “I was looking for the kind of conservative writer that wouldn’t make our readers shriek and throw the paper out the window,” says Collins. “He was perfect.”
Columnists like Brooks make me want to throw my laptop out the window.
I say ‘my laptop’ because we have never, in the almost-decade we have lived here, been able to get dependable delivery of the paper version of the NYT or even Kentucky newspapers.
And reading newspapers online in rural America is not necessarily easy. At my house, for example, we still do not have cable access. We get our Wifi via still-slowish internet that we access via an expensive AT&T hotspot, which required a one-time $2,000 booster installation for enough signal.
I deleted my Twitter account to get away from Elon Musk — who campaigned for Trump this weekend — and yet the only solution to our rural, red state, internet woes is Musk’s Starlink.
See how it works?
I am enraged. And I am not alone.
___________________________
Sadly, this day always comes.
We said goodbye to Nugget, a senior rescue who came to us 3 years ago, shy, deaf and scared, with heart worms and other maladies, but with a huge, snuggling personality and a profound fear of doorways.
What a sweetheart she was, and very funny with her quirks, living out her golden years here at the palace like the queen she was. We will miss our snuggle bug.
Please, please consider rescuing senior dogs.
What we witnessed at the capitol on Tuesday was shocking. Even the presidents of our top universities are caving and kowtowing to the racist, culture-war whims of our most extreme legislators.
Personal note: As much as I love writing, I absolutely hated writing this one. It was also hard to sit politely in this meeting and believe what I was seeing. Outside in the hallway, one Black man said it better than I can: “This is BULLSHIT! Isn’t anyone going to say anything?! Is it always like this?!”
It is now, I thought. It is now. And there are too few doing a damn thing about it.
Story here. No paywall.
I was listening to the radio today when I heard someone ask a NYT journalist why the former president would spread lies / conspiracy theories about Haitian immigrants during the presidential debate with VP Kamala Harris, effectively doubling-down — as he often does — when challenged on the facts.
The journalist gave a wordy, unmemorable, polite answer as is common on TV.
But the answer is simple. Mr. Trump is a racist.
In the presidential debate this week, he boasted a lie that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating pet cats and dogs, because he is a racist.
In the same debate, he expressed no regrets for calling for the death penalty for 5 Black kids even though they were found innocent in the Central Park Jogger case, because he is a racist.
He began his political career, which had not existed prior, by spreading the Obama birther lie, because he is a racist.
In an Oval Office meeting, he called African countries “shit hole” countries, because he is a racist.
He called neo-nazis “fine people” after they marched in Charlottesville, screaming “Jews will not replace us!” because he is a racist.
He instituted a Muslim ban during his first weeks in office, because he is a racist.
He said that Judge Curiel, the judge in the fraud case against Trump University, could not be impartial because he is of Mexican heritage, because he is a racist.
He shakes his fist about immigration in lieu of working on immigration (a real problem) not because he cares about the economic impact but because he is a racist.
He targeted Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, effectively destroying their lives, because he is a racist.
Mr. Trump is a racist, and he uses his racism to fuel anger, resentment and division for his own personal gain. And his racist behavior provides cover for others.
The fight over Critical Race Theory (CRT) was racist.
Book bans are xenophobic, homophobic and racist.
The fights today over DEI in education are racist, and it is infuriating to watch Kentucky’s universities bowing to the pressure.
In the opening minutes of Mr. Trump’s recent interview with the Association of Black Journalists, he was hostile, vulgar, and disrespectful of the Black women interviewing him and said about VP Kamala Harris, “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
It’s not like there is some looming mystery to solve. He behaved this way and spoke in this manner because he is a racist.
Racist.
Not racially charged, not racially motivated, not tinged with racism. The word you are looking for is ‘racist’.
Today is Mary Oliver’s birthday, and I am not writing a news story. I am here for a chat, going old school, back to blogging on this here old blog, and writing like I am talking to you over coffee in my kitchen.
To quote Mary Oliver, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Let’s have that coffee.
A week ago — just one week — a 14 year old boy brought a firearm to school and shot his classmates and teachers. His father bought him the gun for Christmas last year after law enforcement had been to their house and questioned online threats the boy had made.
There were screenshots of text message exchanges between scared children and their parents. There was the teacher who said a potential shooting was why she had a couch in her classroom for kids to hide behind. There were the kids who described trying to save their teacher as the teacher bled to death and the kids with law enforcement, the ones there to save them, describing what it felt like to have the police point guns at them to prove they did not have guns and then, on shaky legs, had to walk out of their school with their hands in the air.
One week, and this story is no longer news. Tell us again how it was one year of a pandemic and not this decades-long, absurd way of life that made our kids anxious.
What am I doing with my one wild and precious life?
Saturday was our 28th wedding anniversary. I spent the day writing and factchecking and re-factchecking a news column about a preacher/lobbyist and an upcoming constitutional amendment. Then we went out to dinner. Here’s to us, to 28 years.
When we left the restaurant, there were news alerts of a sniper shooting at cars from a perch on I-75 in or around Laurel County, Kentucky, which is not near us. Traffic was at a standstill. Many law enforcement agencies were on the scene. A 32 year old white man had purchased an AR-style weapon and 1,000 rounds of ammunition the same day.
Today is Tuesday. Police have found the man’s car and his gun, but the man remains at large in a heavily wooded, expansive area. Law enforcement agencies continue their search. The community is still on alert. Schools in the area remain closed.
This is how our legislators spend our tax dollars, genuflecting to extremists.
When asked about this situation at an event on Monday, KY House Speaker David Osborne said the following: “We have to do more to address the root cause of these issues, which is mental illness. We’ve done a lot, we’re doing a lot, but clearly, we’re not doing enough,” and “It’s always a conversation” … “We’re always looking for ways to close loopholes and things like that.”
There is nothing our legislature can do to keep a mentally disturbed man from the same-day-purchase of an automatic weapon and 1,000 rounds?
Let us call Speaker Osborne’s impotent comments what they are: lies.
This year, during the 2024 General Assembly, there were bills for safe storage of firearms and the CARR bill (SB13) filed by one of his own Republican colleagues to prevent mentally unstable people from making such a purchase. House and Senate leadership buried these bills in the Veterans and Military Affairs committee so they were never even heard.
Tell me where “It’s always a conversation” … “We’re always looking for ways to close loopholes and things like that” jives with reality?
If there were followup questions from the reporter, it was not noted.
And this is how we continue to do absolutely nothing, including holding powerful lawmakers to account. They know they will never be pressured by the public or the press to answer for their lack of action.
I used to wonder how these guys sleep at night, but I’ve done this long enough to believe they sleep just fine. So long as they keep their seat in the legislature and everyone bows to the buttons on their lapels as they pass, they’re getting the 8 hours a night that the people in Laurel County or down in Georgia near the school shooting are not getting, and they seem to be just fine with that.
Another news org. asked KY Rep. Savannah Maddox for her thoughts on the situation. Reporters always get a quote — though they know exactly what she will say — from Maddox because hey, you gotta both-sides it.
Here’s the Maddox quote: “We know that things like waiting periods, in addition to creating an additional barrier for law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights, there is no evidence that they reduce crime or suicides or anything of that nature. So the evidence is not there. But even if it were, we have to uphold the Constitution.”
This isn’t true, but no matter. Maddox could give this meaningless quote in her sleep.
And again, where are the follow up questions begging to be asked? It’s like we have all become robots when it comes to talking about guns. God forbid we would have tense exchanges or upset someone in power or lose access to a lawmaker who can give us a quote when we’re on deadline.
The Kentucky sniper remains at large. No one is even talking anymore about the Georgia school shooting. Let’s pour ourselves another cup of coffee and sit here until it happens again.
This is what we are doing with our wild and precious lives. Happy birthday, Mary Oliver.
If it’s election season it’s Randy Adams, showing up yet again to plant the seeds to fund Christian schools with our tax dollars.
Read here, no paywall.
One year ago, on September 21, 2023, I joined this group at the Kentucky Capitol to talk privately with several Republican lawmakers about firearm access, specifically safe storage laws and a crisis aversion bill that would soon be filed by one of their Republican colleagues.
We were there most of the day.
One lawmaker gave us the following speech: He informed us that nothing will happen in Kentucky with regard to gun legislation because there is too much pressure on our politicians from GOP top party organizers (read: the folks with the purse strings) and gun rights organizations like the NRA. Then he said it’s not even about the money, it’s about the pressure and the power. It’s about marketing. That if he were to even broach the possibility of firearm legislation, the NRA would publish negative information about him in their magazines and newsletters, which go to his voters, and which would, in turn, get him primaried and removed from office, and then we would be stuck with a lawmaker even less amenable to this conversation than he was.
Then he told us about the gun he carries to work everyday, bragging like he’s some kind of macho superhero.
Another lawmaker told us that day that there are no guns allowed in the capitol or in the capitol annex where they work, which is why they feel safe there. We told them this was not true. They did not believe us and called security to find out what the law is.
Yes, a Republican lawmaker had to call capitol security to ask what the laws are.
The lesson here is this: Your GOP lawmakers do not care about you, your family, school safety, your kids, teachers, or even the safety of your law enforcement officers. What they care about is keeping their own seat of power.
Remember that.
Vote accordingly.
When Democratic Rep. Daniel Grossberg’s attorney said that he has no plans to resign after multiple sexual harassment allegations, my first and only thought was: He deserves due process, and he should resign.
But why would he? Powerful men behaving badly, arrogantly and even offensively in the Kentucky legislature is today’s norm.
Full story here. No paywall.
Yesterday I stopped at a small Kroger in rural Kentucky to get my Covid vaccine. They asked if I’d also like to get a flu shot. I said yes.
While they got the paperwork together, and again after my shots, I sat down near the pharmacy door to wait with another gentleman. As folks stepped forward to pick up prescriptions, they were told that covid and flu vaccines were available if they’d like to get one. While I was there, not a single person said yes to the Covid vaccine. Most of them, all senior citizens, proudly snickered while answering. One woman said, “I’ll take the flu, but I don’t want that covid shot, no thank you!”
My dad and I have not talked about politics since about 2020. We long ago agreed to disagree, to not be Facebook friends, and to have a relationship. But when I called him last week, he said Harris had picked a clown as VP. When I said that neither she nor Gov. Walz are clowns, it was like striking a giant match in a conversation I could not wait to end.
I love my dad. He’s 80. I don’t want to fight with my dad about anything, including politics, but it seems lately he’s spoiling for an argument. Reminder that, pre-Trump, I do not recall my dad ever talking about politics, candidates, voting … nothing. But here we are.
Last week, Kaitlin Collins of CNN was on Bill Maher’s show. I watched her interview with one question in mind: Why is a serious reporter doing this interview? My takeaway is that Collins was there as a young professional to make CNN palatable to a younger audience and to promote CNN as fair and balanced.
Admittedly I spend little time anymore watching cable news (entertainment) shows, but I watch enough to know that CNN, with their panels of 6 or 8 talking heads is like watching dogs fighting and thinking, sure, this is great, let’s have more of this.
CNN is, in a word, a mess.
And in another word, unwatchable.
Last night CNN finally got their chance to interview VP Kamala Harris and Gov. Walz. I don’t know that I have ever seen a weaker interview by Dana Bash, a seasoned, professional journalist, of a presidential candidate. There were a couple of substantive questions, but it was mostly “Donald Trump says this, what do you say?”
As a voter, I don’t know any more about Harris/Walz today than I did yesterday.
I also believe that Bash did exactly the interview that CNN wanted her to do. They have 24 hours a day to fill and dozens of anchors and pundits to organize and pay. The interview was simply a means to keep the financial wheels turning and to — like the Kaitlin Collins interview last week — promote CNN as a brand.
And in service to their brand, Donald Trump has been their cash cow for almost a decade now. What will they do, who will they be, when he is gone?
I would ask the same of MSNBC which, with few exceptions, is also a waste of time if what you are looking for is new information. There are just too many hours of television to fill.
So the Covid vaccine, my dad, the CNN interview … unrelated spokes on a wheel dominated by Donald J. Trump.
How many family relationships have you lost since this man came down that escalator in 2015? How many friends? How many gatherings or dinners missed? How much turmoil has this one, vile man — who believes in nothing and no one but himself — caused in our lives, and for what?
His racism, misogyny, proud ignorance, and daily disregard for basic humanity isn’t even news anymore for news people.
And I didn’t even mention the news du jour, which is not the big CNN interview but Trump’s smiling, thumbs up, campaign visit to Arlington National Cemetery to make a vulgar video which, we all know, will give TV news orgs like CNN, MSNBC, FOX, etc… and their overly-populated panels of paid pundits something to talk about until he does the next horrifying, unimaginable thing that they will then — by talking about it 24/7 — normalize by talking it to death with “both sides” arguments and clips that news orgs and panelists can post on their social media pages.
There is no news. It’s just an attention gig economy.
I am exhausted.
I think we all are.
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