All politicians and political ideologies have blind devotees that will accept anything their political favorite does under the notion that the leader can do no wrong. Regardless of the evidence, the follower blindly ignores the facts and accepts their champion’s point of view without question. The thing is that people are intelligent and even the followers blindly following must intellectually deal with the facts as they become known. Sure, they will try to ignore them and when that fails they deflect away from the facts towards a more palatable reality. But the nagging feeling that they are wrong does not go away. That is when deflection and misdirection come into play.
Last week, Donald Trump banned several news media outlets from his news briefings. This is unprecedented in the history of the United States that routinely accuses other governments of not respecting the rights of a free press. I was stunned at the audacity but immediately knew that it would make no difference to the Trump supporters.
Clearly the country is divided, almost by fifty-percent and yet the ongoing controversies have further entrenched each side and further divided the country. I am optimistically hopeful that the resistance to the Trump agenda continues via lawful protests but intellectually know that they are extremely difficult to sustain over a long period of time.
If they continue past the sixty-day mark, then it would give me much needed optimism that the United States is truly a country where freedom and inclusiveness is the rule of law.
However, the Trump devotees are not wasting anytime trying to keep the national narrative under their control. My various social media news feeds are being bombarded by pro-Trump rhetoric in an apparent attempt to distort the national opposition to Trump.
I wanted to see first-hand how intelligent people deal with the facts when it doesn’t fit the narrative they embrace. Although unscientific, my experiment proved to me that intelligent people understand the facts but choose to ignore them to keep their narrative intact. As a matter of fact, the more they understand the facts the more they resort to misdirection and deflection away from the topic at hand.
When I confirmed, from independent sources, that Donald Trump, had in fact, banned the BBC, CNN and the Guardian, among others from its news briefings I posed a simple question on my two Facebook feeds. I asked if this was not censorship.
I specifically asked that responders ignore the various questions about immigration, public policy and the election. Instead I wanted responders to focus on the issue of censorship.
As I expected, immediately Trump supporters chimed in. Rather than address the question about censorship they chose to argue that Obama had also censored the news media, specifically Fox news. Their argument is centered on the notion that if previous administrations had censored the news then it was fine for Trump to do it as well.
Never mind that the banning of several news outlets is unprecedented in U.S. politics. Several major news media outlets had never been banned before Donald Trump imposed his ban on various select news outlets.
More important is the right argues that everyone should be responsible for their own actions. That is the central thesis to less government and regulations. However, because it is Donald Trump, his actions are excused because someone else had done it before. Never mind that it is an exaggeration, at best.
But I knew that misdirection was the first tool in their arsenal of pretending all is well with their champion. So, I persisted and encouraged responders to focus on the issue at hand – censorship.
Having failed at misdirection they then tried to create the false illusion that the media ban was not as extreme as it really was. Only one was banned was the collective response. Until I pointed out that it was more than one outlet. Of course, the facts are just tedious impediments so they doubled down by arguing that not all news media outlets were banned, only a few some added.
Clearly, they chose to ignore that banning one news outlet is censorship.
Corralling them back to the issue of censorship I asked them to focus on that topic.
Realizing that misdirection wasn’t going to work they started to use their next tool for defending their champion – deflection.
Rather than addressing the issue of censorship they resorted to deflecting away from that issue and instead tried to argue that it wasn’t censorship because the banned media outlets had been proven to publish fake news.
Their argument was that it wasn’t censorship because censoring fake news is not censorship.
Again, never mind that no one could provide proof that the banned outlets were providers of fake news, but again it’s not about the facts but rather about manufacturing perception.
I wasn’t going to let them get away with that so I kept hammering on them about the issue of censorship. They did their best to make the discussion about fake news and when that failed they jumped into making it personal about my feelings. They asked, how would you act if people kept attacking you repeatedly. The argument being that if the news media is attacking me, wouldn’t I ban them as well?
The problem is that I am not the president and thus I do not have the same responsibility to accountability to the country as he does. Seems like that was lost in some of them.
I continued throughout Sunday to try to get them to understand that the issue is about censorship, a central and important theme to any democracy.
When they ran out of platitudes they went silent. They stopped because they understood that they were wrong.
Oh, I’m sure all of them will argue that they weren’t admitting they were wrong just that they were done with the debate. One commenter actually asked me if I wanted Trump’s head on a platter. I didn’t bother to respond because I knew then that I had made my point.
I knew I wasn’t going to get anyone to admit the issue is censorship because to do so would tarnish the Donald Trump armor they so admire.
But it demonstrated to me that they may blindly follow their leader’s political rhetoric while many of them intellectually worrying about what is actually going on.
They just aren’t ready to admit it, yet.
There are many ongoing public resistance efforts against the Donald Trump administration.
I am also participating in the resistance to his politics of hate by taking each piece of propaganda, misdirection and deflection down to its bare bones and forcing Trump supporters to confront the facts of what the ramifications to the nation are each time Trump attacks the democracy of the country.
Eventually, although they may not admit it, the facts will pierce their blind allegiance to Trump.
Well, most anti-administration journalists here are still alive, unlike Mexico where they tend to get whacked. How many is it now? 60 plus in Taco Land?
Martin
The media and the pollsters lied for over a year throwing their journalistic ethics and integrity out the window in having a incestuous relationship with Hillary and the DNC in an attempt to subvert an election. Now the whiners, like yourself, are at a mindless lose why people have turned against media. No Martin we are no blind like yourself who was blinded for over a year to what the media was doing but then again it fit your agenda so you went along with it and did not care.
Also not answering media questions and not cow toeing to the media is not infringement, limiting or restrain of the press for any to imply such is simply non-sense.
Oh a lot of the so called facts you cling to are mostly half baked and poorly or unsupported innuendos as was the case before the election against Trump.Where was your out rage! Such as the big damning report from the CIA which has been proven now to be total bull shit but here again Martin you blindly ran with such bologna.
Oh Martin if Trump was as oppressive and repressive ofr the press as happens in Mexico to people in the press and those like yourself would be pushing up Daisies or missing. Yep Mexico the 5th in the world to the killing of journalist hey the quickest and the surest way to really suppress,oppress, repress, infringe on and limit the press.
Martin as of this morning there has not been any reports of missing progressive left wing propagandist swill media missing in the U.S. or fire bombing or drive byes of newspapers or TV stations for that matter either. Or mass graves of opposition leaders or their supporters being found in the U.S or an reports that any are missing.
Martin on this one you have became down right delusional and may need to go find a safe space and get some mental health care because you clearly have had a disconnect from reality and gone of the deep end if you really believe such pablum.
Mr. Paredes,
Let me help you understand:
El Paso Times
I’d that doesn’t help you understand how powerful a media outlet with an agenda is, then I think your punishment would be to share an office with Bob Moore for a year.
*If
All we need to know is anything that upsets liberals and illegals…WE LIKE! Hay te wacho
Martin,
I have a degree in journalism and have actually worked as a reporter. Here are a few inconvenient facts to counter your arguments. Censorship is not defined by who has access to the White House press room. There are a limited number of spaces in the room and who sits there is determined by the White House Press Secretary and the Administration. Media entities who don’t get a seat still get access to briefing transcripts and have the ability to disseminate that news. Censorship occurs if an entity’s ability to disseminate the news is blocked. For example, decades ago when the Wall Street Journal wrote an article that was critical of a SIngaporean PM and he subsequently pulled their license to print and distribute their paper in Singapore for a few weeks. That is censorship and it was definitely an abuse of power.
But what is more troubling is what is going on in the press. Freedom of the press comes with a responsibility to report the news as accurately as possible. When media organizations choose to slant the news in a way to influence Americans (vs. just reporting it) or to run with information that they have not confirmed (and confirming through multiple sources used to be standard practice for most news organizations), they are abrogating that responsibility. I watch President Trump’s press conferences and I watch the news coverage later on. Some organizations are playing it straight, some are spinning it more favorably and some are editing it in a way that is really inaccurate. A couple of weeks ago, Trump made the point that while some would like him to attack the Russian spy ship off our coast, he didn’t think it was prudent. He also made the point that countries with nuclear weapons should do their best to find ways to get along. Those points were edited on some news channels to make it appear that he was advocating an attack on the spy ship. It was bad reporting and unfortunately, it appears to be intentional. I don’t think Trump is perfect and he actually feeds the fire by responding with lengthy answers that can be edited in negative ways. And Martin, I think you hate Trump to the point that you are spinning him as negatively as possible. I suggest you rent a copy of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and watch it all the way through. Look at what the media does in that movie–it isn’t much different than what is occurring now,
Martin, your piece is exactly the definition of “Fake News”. Making the assumption that the comments many of us made were to deflect the attention about censorship is entirely deflection on your part. My comments about Obama’s history of censorship is recollected by a piece by RT listing the times of what is allowed by the Obama administration. I will surmise what you wanted to hear or read is Trump is censoring the media and he is bad and that action is way too unprecedented, and no other president has done this. I can only make that assumption based on your myriad of constant attacks on Trump. I for sure haven’t seen a “censorship” of the media by Pres. Trump.
However, you give no comments about the fact that many people have been murdered in Mexico to keep them silent. That is dictatorial and is murder to keep people silent. Wikipedia even lists the journalists that have been murdered due to “censorship” or to keep them silent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_and_media_workers_killed_in_Mexico.
Most of the readers have already gotten the message about your hatred of Pres. Trump basically because of what he said and is doing about the wall. You have shown and deep loyalty to Mexico as well, but never address the comments that prove many things the govt. of Mexico has done to its own people. WHY?
Trump is resilient and doing a great job causing a big stir in the District of Corruption, and that is what is needed. However, it will be hard to get things going and done without executive order simply because he is dealing with career politicians who do not want to change the status quo.
James
It all comes down to Martin hating Trump because Trump does not support open borders and illegal immigration that would shut down the illegal immigration import/ export business and the economy generated inside the paradise which is Mexico. See Martin supports the shaking down of the helpless illegal immigrates of their few resources, that takes place ,who are imported and exported in and out of Mexico which is economic supporting industry for Mexico. Martin stance is how dire any one who would want to stop the inhumane trafficking of this helpless population which doing so, at least in Martin’s view, is an affront to Mexico and Martin personally.
Then as the question has been asked many time before if America is so evil,bad and racist why doesn’t Martin live in that paradise which is Mexico?
“News is something somebody doesn’t want printed; all else is advertising” someone said. El Trompas is all about advertising himself as the grand savior of all that is Amerik³a.
Censorship or restrictions should always be denounced, whether these come from one of “ours” or one of “theirs”, an area where we the people should always be in consensus.
It is mind boggling that instead of faulting the new Monarch for calling the media the enemy; the trompatistas dump on Mexico to rationalize his Hugo-Chavez-behavior.
Alas, Mexico, geographically correct, serves as the punching bag for the ills of Amerik³a. Anything/anyone Mexican is subject to denigration when the self-esteem of the Amerik³ans is at stake or when their so called “Amerik³an “Exceptionalism” is questioned.
Pati
Yep typical Progressive thinking if you point out facts then it’s denigration but unsupported innuendos are to be believed and taken as being true.
So Pati are you claiming Mexico is not the 5th in the world in the killing of journalist?
Or that illegal immigrant export and import are not big business in Mexico? Or that illegals in Mexico are raped looted,pillaged, tortured and killed by every one from the Military, Police, to the thugs? Or if you are an Illegal immigrant you can be jail with out rights to any legal recourse. Surely this is not what you are claiming!
Our that there is a true rape culture in Mexico of illegal immigrant women and young girl’s many being force into the sex trade industry in Mexico to pay their way through Mexico? If you say yes that is the denigration of Mexico you are talking about than you are an idiot and wouldn’t know fact or truth if it ran you down in the street and left you bloody!
Then on the other hand you totally support the denigration of America with out question who’s policies and treatment of illegal immigrants for the most part and are down right ultra liberal compared to Mexico.
Nowhere in my comments do I address or allude to the extensive list of items you suggest I support. How you manage to misinterpret my comments is beyond me.
Whenever an essay is a critique of the USA and/or el trompas the commenters rage on Mexico; Mexico is this, Mexico is that. Instead of focusing on the theme of the essay and thinking of what is being said, the commenters go off on a tangent that has nothing to do with the topic.
Why? Is it because the author is a Mexican citizen? Is it because Mexico is deemed “inferior”? What is it about Amerik³a that it cannot handle criticism well? What about a little self-reflection?
Middle school English – do not pee outside the pot, stay within context.
Two questions: At what point does Mexico become responsible for its people?When will Mexico improve conditions to stop the people from fleeing ?
Pati
Once again total pablum and bull shit on your part. Every thing posted about Mexico on this thread can be back up as fact for you to post what you did was to more than imply that what was posted was denigration of Mexico. Pati like most progressive you are not the super genius you think you are.
Oh and there is no problem criticizing America except when those criticizing America such a Martin and yourself are using double standards in doing so.
Take your own advice and do little self reflection and do not try and piss on others leg then claim it’s raining outside. Last throwing the race card that every one is against Martin because he from Mexico is total bull shit too. You your self may want to look up the meaning of double standards because you clearly apply then well when it comes to America. Oh and hypocrite would be another word you may want to brush up on which you clearly have no problem practicing also.
Hijole, Not-my-mate, eres tan risueño y luego te hacen cosquillas.
Ta-Ta, Cheerful.