BREAKING THE SHACKLES OF THE GREAT PROPAGANDA MACHINE

The corporate media is the true danger to our democracy.

It's been quite a ride during this chaotic presidential race. Two unprecedented and shocking incidents have surprisingly united the American people: the attempted assassination of former President Trump and President Biden's resignation from his second presidential run.

Distrust in the media's portrayal of these monumental events is bridging the deep divide between us. The uni-party gaslighting is no longer working, and the establishment is panicking.

Finally, both sides of the aisle can see they’ve been lied to.

Most Trump supporters have been shouting “fake news” since his first presidential run. Before him, Reagan fans used to call out media bias. And let’s not be cute: there is objectively an overwhelming liberal-leaning bias not only in news agencies but also within the tech giants who run social media companies. For those who cry: “But Fox!”, please stop. Of course, there are conservative-leaning operations as well, however, the Rhino war-mongers who back them are a dying breed. Like it or not, the anti-globalist bedazzled fever dream comprising MAGA is now the reigning conservative party.

The recent distrust of legacy news is new to most NPR-listening, New York Times-loving democrats. If you didn’t pop your head out of the bubble during the COVID propaganda and are still chicken little-ing “the science is settled” even after the revelations about virus origin, the vaccine’s flip-flopping function, or the cost/benefit of keeping schools closed, perhaps it was Biden’s disastrous debate performance that catalyzed some reflection on what you were told vs reality.

On the bright side: we are now witnessing legacy media’s death rattle. Most generations after the Boomers now follow their favorite independent news sources. And while too many algorithms rake in cash pushing us into echo chambers, it’s not too hard to follow a source outside your ideology to balance out the latest whip-lash-inducing headlines.

Gone are the days of calling people “conspiracy theorists” all because you question the mainstream narrative. That put-down has been repeated so often the phrase is now meaningless.

Both Republicans and Democrats alike are awakening from our Matrix pods to the fact we’ve been collectively brainwashed via a sophisticated propaganda machine.

Who can forget the infamous “Weapons of Mass Destruction” mass formation psychosis from 2003? It led Americans to back a costly war based on a lie.

We must stay vigilant in these times to not fall for such widespread mendacity. One common propaganda tactic involves blending truth with falsehoods. Consider the disillusioned followers of the QAnon movement, who were given numerous “intel drops.” While some of these posts proved shockingly accurate (such as early revelations about the Jeffrey Epstein and Mueller Report scandals), much of the info was speculative or outright fantasy. Those who bought into the “sit back and watch the show” narrative now hopefully regret their naivety, realizing that no one, not even Trump, will “save” us.

No. We have to save ourselves—and critical thinking is the first step toward a healthy alliance embracing our collective American ideals.

Meanwhile, manufactured “facts” are finally out of vogue. Take the “Trump is Hitler” campaign—it’s losing steam. Not just because more people are rethinking the out-of-context sound bites that tried to smear him as some Nazi führer, but also because they are realizing, as many of us did during COVID, that if the media can lie so vehemently about one thing, they can lie about anything and everything.

To show you how far the media will go, it’s now effacing the iconic image of Trump rising triumphant after the botched assassination. Regardless of your feelings about 45, it's impossible to ignore the headlines that emerged in the days after this historic event, which flippantly distorted reality to skew public perception.

They are also awkwardly trying to equate Biden’s stepping down as on par with surviving an assassination attempt, labeling him as a “patriot” for retiring.

Interestingly, the pundits have become comfortable using a once-divisive word: "patriotic." In recent years, openly displaying patriotism was vilified due to its unfair association with white nationalism.

These are desperate moves for a fracturing uniparty state backed up by media abettors. Despite all this—or maybe because of if it, I am hopeful these recent peaks behind the curtain will be the shoebox and shovel for Operation Mockingbird.

Now that even the most die-hard progressives are relieved Biden stepped aside, and are entertaining the idea that the media (and Biden’s cabinet) were lying all along about the president’s fitness, we have a path forward to a shared consensus. Even so, we must be honest about deceptive messaging, even when “our side” is in power.