Turning off the News
It's time to break up with the mainstream media.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Quick quiz: what do these three statements have in common?
1) Donald Trump won in a landslide.
2) Kamala Harris lost because she ran a terrible campaign.
3) The Democratic brand is toxic.
Answer? They've all been spread by the mainstream media. And they're all false.
Let's take a moment to factcheck these classics of the gaslighting genre.
1) Donald Trump won in a landslide. FALSE. As of this writing, Trump's popular vote margin over Harris is only two percent. As votes from western states continue to trickle in, his margin may be even tinier (insert Stormy Daniels joke here). This election will likely wind up being the closest since the 2000 contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
As for the Electoral College, Trump's margin there was far from a landslide by historical standards, as I showed here. What's more, only 780,000 votes separated the two candidates in all swing states combined . That's how close Kamala Harris came to being president.
Why does this matter? The fact that this election was so close means that the 2026 midterms are eminently winnable for Democrats. If, on the other hand, the media convince you that Trump won a huge mandate, you might feel hopeless. And hopelessness is not a plan.
2) Kamala Harris lost because she ran a terrible campaign. FALSE. No campaign is flawless, but Harris's came pretty close. She had to mount hers in a mere hundred days and did so brilliantly, with a masterful convention and a dominant debate performance.
So why did she lose? For starters, Harris was linked to Joe Biden, who was deeply unpopular. His approval rating was a lowly 40, which she wildly outperformed. She also had the misfortune to run in a year when incumbent parties were swept out of power around the world.
And last—but certainly not least—she made the fatal error of being a woman. That's no small data point in a nation that has yet to choose a female head of state—something that 88 other countries have somehow managed to do. Even macho Mexico just elected a woman, and—eek!—a Jewish one at that.
3) The Democratic brand is toxic. FALSE. As Democratic "strategists" (euphemism for "unemployed gasbags") bloviate on cable news about why their party lost, I'm reminded of a famous quote from the great political humorist Will Rogers: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."
The mainstream media have been amplifying the lazy critiques of this circular firing squad to attract clicks and viewers. But there's no evidence that the Democrats—who have a stellar bench of popular elected officials including Andy Beshear, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, and Wes Moore, to name just four—are in such dire straits.
And there was good news for Democrats this cycle. In North Carolina, for example, Democrat Josh Stein defeated MAGA Republican Mark Robinson by a thumping 15 points. If that proves anything, it's that the Black Nazi brand is toxic.
If you're like me, you're sick of being gaslighted and have decided to turn off the gaslight.
Since the election, cable news channels have seen their ratings crater. And hundreds of thousands of Washington Post readers have cancelled their subscriptions to protest the craven behavior of the paper's owner, Lex Luthor wannabe Jeff Bezos.
So you might be wondering: now that I'm over mainstream media, where do I get my news?
Answer: mainly from BBC Sounds, the app from the BBC, which delivers high quality radio reporting from all over the world, for free. It's not perfect, but it's a huge upgrade over what the for-profit American media companies have been dishing out.
For example, you could watch MSNBC's entire primetime lineup and never know that there's a continent called Africa. Tune in to the BBC and you'll learn all about the civil war in Sudan, which is affecting a huge swath of your fellow humans. Such coverage will make all those cable roundtables about whether Tim Walz was the right choice seem pretty silly.
But I wouldn't recommend consuming the news—even from an excellent source like the BBC—around the clock. I'm not a neuroscientist like George Santos, but in my experience, turning off the news is good for your mental health. And you'll have more time for things you actually enjoy. Read a novel. See a friend. Walk your dog. Which is what I'm going to do right now.
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I use an RSS reader (in my case Inoreader, but there are others). There are RSS feeds from news sources, sports, tech... anything you can think of.
This lets me skim hundreds of headlines every day, reading the maybe two dozen articles that catch my attention. I get a decent overview of what's preoccupying the media, just from the (often-conflicting) headlines, and details on stuff that I think deserves my time.
Apparently the Mexicans are nowhere near as misogynist and antisemitic as Americans are.
Do you know any Mexicans?
What difference does that make? The proof is in the pudding - Sheinbaum won in a landslide. It's now been proven twice that a woman can't be elected as PofUS and it was even contrary to Alan Lichtman's prediction that she would win, and do you really believe that if a Jew ran, like say Josh Shapiro, who is fairly popular, that he would be elected if the opposing candidate were Christain/Catholic? I stand by my opinion.
How depressing is that?
Don't ask me. Ask an American.
An enormous amount. It's like me generalizing to you about Chinese people.
Sheinbaum wasn't a terrible candidate.
Kinda like saying it's been proven Americans can't dunk basketballs based on Danny DeVito and Rudy Giuliani.
Both Hillary and Kamala could only get their nominations because the Democratic Party disregarded its own voters. They wanted Bernie in 2016, and were never even asked who they wanted in 2024. They were so committed to not letting the voters choose that they filed lawsuits in dozens of states to keep RFK off the ballot.
Back when Harris did actually run for the nomination, she was a terrible candidate who was forced out of the race very early.
And?
Alan's metrics don't account for "told everybody our clearly senile president was perfectly fine" or "couldn't begin to explain or answer questions about what she intended to do".
Absolutely. Most people don't give a shit about that anymore. It's not 1960.
It's ridiculous, but you go right ahead.
I will go right ahead. I can't even imagine the voters in any civilized nation choosing to vote for a convicted criminal AT ALL, let alone a majority doing so. And what WAS the reason Josh Shapiro wasn't chosen to be Harris' running mate?
Nelson Mandela says hello.
You'd have to ask her handlers. Ask about the rest of her strange decisions, while you're there.
She needed a far better running mate than they chose for her.
LOL. Touchee, Jack, you're absolutely right. I totally forgot about him. In fact, haven't I read that Trump holds himself out as being like Mandela? However, there is a difference. South Africa's government at the time was a horrid apartheid government, and Nelson Mandela was elected to turn a horrid apartheid government into a civilized inclusive one. America's government until now has not been THAT horrible, and Trump's election will in the opinion of many turn it to shit.
No. Jesus.
My whole point is that it's not going to be 1% as bad as the doomsayers claim and not 1% as good as the Trump worshippers say.
"If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same."
LINK -> Fact Checking Donald Trump’s Claim He’s Like Nelson Mandela
Can I get a "touchee" from YOU now Jack?
It was a joke, but sure. Touche.
yes, retreating into an even smaller ideological protective bubble than the msm affords progressives will do wonders for their mental health and relationship with reality. Can’t wait to see how this goes
Liberals and progressives have little problem with reality, they just never imagined there would be such an insurgence of hypocritical lying rightwing conservative morons who have crafted their own reality and presented it as fact. Now it seems like all we hear from rightwing conservatives is their incessant whining, crying and screaming every time their fantasy reality is fact checked because nothing pisses off those who wallow in conspiracy theories and conservative fiction like being fact checked. You can tell because they take far more issue with the fact checking than they do with the facts.
" Conservatives are not happy with all the Trump fact checking"
Conservatives are not happy with the Trump fact checking happening on the debate stage - Live Updates - POLITICO
Trump and Vance's ridiculous crusade against fact-checking debates - Los Angeles Times
Trump wages campaign against real-time fact checks - The Washington Post
Facts and reality are simply inconvenient truths to be rejected or ignored by Trump and his witless gullible 'Storm Troopers'.
It would be difficult to prove, but my take would be that in previous elections (previous to Trump) anyone who said they didnt want to be fact checked would be a longshot to be nominated let alone win the election.
The brainwashing of the American public by right wing media runs deep.
The fact checks were wrong and lies from Democrats were not challenged.
The fact that Democrats expect other to accept lies as facts tells you all you need to know about their ability to handle reality.
Imagine how witless and gullible you'd have to be to believe that the "fact checking" provided by progressive moderators was accurate or applied in good faith. I guess that's why they need an even more protective bubble. Don't have to worry about reality penetrating.
Again, high comedy to make that claim in an article that wants progressives to avoid the MSM.
If you really take a good look at the "Trump lies" list they like to put out all of the time, you will find out that many of the explanations they give simply boil down to "I don't like what he said".
The vast majority of them are opinions not based on fact.
Yeah. they can't grasp that either.
The best are the ones that are 100% accurate facts, but the fact checker still calls them misleading.
Or "needs context"
We hear that a lot on here, too.
Some facts and inconvenient truths for the Dems to process. Trump won the EC and popular votes. He won all the swing states. The Republicans won control of the WH, Senate, and the House. That's mandate enough. The inept leftists got their collective asses whipped by a diverse electorate.
Kamala got beat because she was another out of touch hard left liberal, who ran a terrible campaign trying to promote a rejected left wing agenda. She really was Biden 2.0, not very bright, with no charisma or gravitas.
The democrat brand was indeed toxic enough to cause them to lose everything....in a big way. Why do they think they will win back political power without changing their failed policies and beliefs?
Look on the bright side. When that big, red wave comes crashing down on America there won't be an immigration problem because no one will want to live in the degraded, fascistic kleptocracy that America risks becoming under the Trump regime.
From the AP , Updated at 3:51 PM EST 11/16/24
winning by 2+% of the popular vote isn't a mandate, it's a warning ...
Hate and garbage voted for hate and garbage
Yep, it's a warning to the democrats that the very fine and normal people of the USA have finally seen enough of the left's lies, hate, and garbage
Exactly...
For the entire campaign, we heard Harris and leftists scream that it was time for a younger generation to take over. Now that Trump won and he is putting in a younger generation in his cabinet and other positions, they are bitching about that too.
I think that is all we are going to hear for at least the next twelve years.
Projection.
And they lost the Presidency, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.
And just like last time, they will get nothing done.
They will destroy the US government.
It is false actually. But journalists are frequently terrible at math. CNN commentators repeatedly said "it looks like Trump is going to win the popular vote by 5 million", sitting in front of a screen with zero California votes yet counted. (If you don't understand why that's terrible math, you probably went to journalism school.) The best part of election night was the poor girl covering Georgia for CNN who clearly couldn't work out that the "100k votes still outstanding, most from Fulton County" was not going to be enough to overtake Trump's 150k lead. Credit to Anderson Cooper for not making her feel stupid on camera.
No, this one is pretty much true. She was catastrophic at key moments and generally poor the rest of the time. We haven't seen a choke artist like this since Rick Perry ranted about Ponzi schemes. She told us all that 2/3 of Americans had died of Covid. You would think "oh, she must have just misspoken"... but then she repeated it in a second speech. She could never explain a plan. It was though she had rehearsed 5 sentences and she was only allowed to choose from one.
What are you going to do about high prices?
Well, we've been doing things, but we have more to do.
What, specifically?
We have more do to.
Yes, but what is that "more" you're talking about?
Look, I grew up in a middle class family.....
At which point absolutely everyone understood she had no plan at all.
And when asked what she would do differently, she said.... on national TV... in front of a VERY friendly interviewer..... "I can't think of anything". It was one incident of 100 where she was completely bereft of ideas and looked incapable of thinking up any.
Meh. Partially false. It's a brand that far too often rejects common sense, suppresses free speech, and weaponizes government against it's enemies. Whether it's women's swimming champions with testicles, drag queens performing for children, burning cities in "peaceful protests", threatening to make parody illegal, canceling anybody who has ever said anything funny, or kangaroo courting political enemies, they just can't get out of their own way. Wisdom is chasing them, but they are faster.
Absolutely true. So why the fuck didn't they run one of those people for president?
That was in 2020. She said 220 million instead of 220 thousand (the number of deaths at that time). We are going to go back to 2020 and bring up an obvious brain fart and ignore the stream of intentional falsehoods (lies) from Trump? Compare Harris' misstatements with those of Trump's.
She stated that she was going to go after extant price gougers. That was her plan. Realistically, other than flat out lying, what could a PotUS do about consumer prices across the board? (At best, a PotUS can mitigate inflation (partially, indirectly, and loosely) by curtailing federal borrowing.) This is a market economy, not a command economy. And now, again, we turn to her opponent. What was his plan?
This election was not based on fact or even semi-reasonable analytical comparisons of the candidates. It was based on propaganda. Much of the electorate bought the bullshit that Trump was selling. And those who did not buy his bullshit and voted for him anyway are likely mostly partisans who would never vote for a D (or maybe bigots who would never vote for a minority female). And I wonder how many Trump supporters were low-information voters who voted for name-recognition or on naive notions such as 'my personal finances were better when Trump was PotUS'.
Clearly this election was not based on a realistic assessment of the character, intelligence, presidential demeanor, responsibility, integrity, youth, or behavior of the presidential candidate. If any Trump supporters articulate why Trump is better than Harris, I predict the answer will be based on propaganda such as "Trump will fix the economy (without stating what, specifically, is broken" or "Trump will close our 'open' border (pretending our border is wide open)" or "Trump will end the wars (presuming an actual negotiation rather than forcing Ukraine to essentially lose)" or "Trump will put money in my pocket (e.g. no taxes on overtime, magical reduction in prices, magical increase in wages, ...)" ...
If this election were based on reality then right off the bat Trump would be disqualified. What he has done far exceeds what was normally acceptable for a presidential candidate. But even with the new much lower bar (at least for Trump), his claims were all over the map and largely ridiculous. The worst claim is his stated intent to impose excessive, gratuitous tariffs as a way to generate all the funds he needs for his initiatives and to produce a balanced budget. And this moron even insisted that such tariffs will not raise consumer prices. And then we have more indications of his stupidity by claiming that climate change is a hoax and if it were not a hoax, the rising ocean levels would simply provide more oceanfront property (
). Quite the genius. On and on, the absurdity is truly mind-blowing.
I think the only sort of positive thing that comes from Trump winning the election is that we won't have months or even years of election denialism like last time. Is there anyone here who thinks that if Trump had lost by the exact same numbers within a day of the election as Harris did, that he would have conceded? If so, then they should have their head examined because Trump conceding no matter how badly he lost was about as remote a possibility as rubbing a random lamp at Walmart and finding a Genie willing to grant a thousand wishes.
So at least we don't have to live the next four years with the prior loser of the election refusing to admit he lost and potentially inspiring another attempt to overthrow the government and install their dipshit dumb ass into office. That's the one and only positive I can find when looking at the November election. Otherwise, the next four years are going to be one sloppy cluster fuck after another in the Whitehouse. The next outrageous thing Trump does will simply replace the last outrageous thing he did and four years from now he will leave the oval office like a fat red faced sweaty octogenarian leaving a hotel room with multiple half deflated sex dolls covered in baby oil and hotel staff wanting to just incinerate the room instead of trying to clean up after him.
Yes we will and we already are or haven't you been reading many of the comments here, the articles seeded on this site or listened to any left wing news.
So what will be different this time?
Bullshit. Harris already conceded.
People expressing how sad they are that a convicted felon was elected President of the United States is not "election denialism". Stating the fact that Trump is nothing but a disgusting fat greasy convicted felon and accused rapist isn't election denialism. Pointing out that those who elected such a monumental piece of shit to what should be the most respected position in our nation, must have their heads shoved up the fat greasy pigs ass because nothing else makes sense, is not election denialism. Stating an opinion about how those who voted for such a gross sexual predator who talked about wanting to date his daughter and who said his friend, convicted pedophile Jeff Epstein was a "terrific guy", must clearly support sex with children and rape because that's what they voted for, isn't election denialism. It's simply stating facts about the half of this nation who clearly don't give a fuck about honesty, fidelity, honor or hard work because they would rather reward the exact opposite and that pisses off the people they hate with a passion since those they hate know exactly what those slimy racist fascist pieces of shit really are.
Do show where I said anything about Harris. I'll wait.
Trump has said himself, many times, that if you lose, you never blame yourself, always blame someone else. Trump is a coward.
In the US, the news is turning itself off. Scripps News is the latest casualty in the quest for profits. News sources are drying up on broadcast television. News publishers are locking themselves away behind paywalls. Headlines are still abundantly available but actual news reporting is withering behind paywalls. And infotainment opinionating disguised as news is actually more biased than what's available on social media.
People get their news from social media because there isn't a paywall. And there's just as much advertising on pay-per-view news as there is on social media so news media doesn't have a competitive edge. Infotainment news reporting/opinion isn't any less biased than what's available on social media for free. People on social media can actually talk about the news for free; the news publishers shutting down their discussion boards didn't help them at all.
Bob
Good article with points worth debating and discussing for sure
1) Donald Trump won in a landslide.
Absolutely untrue - I think an argument is to be made of a "mandate" since the Republicans won the Senate and the House as well, but unless they get things done without infighting (figure the odds) the mandate means nothing
2) Kamala Harris lost because she ran a terrible campaign.
Mistakes were made, but hardly "terrible". In my view too much time was spent belittling Trump rather than specifying what she would be doing to make things better for the fringe and independent voters who ultimately swung the election to Trump.
3) The Democratic brand is toxic.
I do not believe this - I think the traditional Republican and Democrat brands mean nothing close to what they each meant in earlier decades. Identity politics is in vogue at this point, but after this election there may be a move back to defining the parties more along traditional lines and appealing to the general public rather than groups within the larger group to the exclusion of others.
I don't think Harris lost. Trump won. People didn't vote against Harris. They voted for Trump.
The American people want an authoritarian racist misogynistic... leader. That's necessarily a dictator, but the American people have an amazing capacity for denial. So they imagine that if they change their minds, they can be done with Trump.
The American people intentionally elected Trump.
Bob
You can do better than that
As to your first point - a distinction without a difference
As to your second "point" - 😂
As to your third point - they absolutely did, which means that whether one likes it or not he is the President of all the citizens of the U.S. and each if the citizens of the U.S.
Throughout history, all democracies have eventually fallen to elected demogogues. America is just the most recent on a long list.
I do not think that people realize that the whole idea of America is imperilled. They are too worried that someone else is getting something that they deserve "More". Just look at Trump's proposed cabinet.
Bob
So your point here seems to be, "it has always happened like this and always will"
Next you will retort "because I said so"
I say again, you can do better than that.
Athens. Rome. Venice, Italy, Germany.
There have also been some coups d'état - Spain (and then civil war), Portugal, Chile, Greece, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, ...
Africa?
This isn't my opinion. It's history.
And I will say it again, the U.S. is not on that list and never will be on the list.
And that's a fact regardless of what you see in your crystal ball
I hope you're right.
While I can say that I seriously hope that you are right, we are much closer to the actuality of the idea of America being imperilled since the election again of Trump. (I am surprised that there is no word for the specific election, loss, election again besides reelection.... Reelection does not make the distinction that there was a period of time between the two... OK. I have geeked out enough)
And can you say why we are imperilled?
Could it be that we are going to be engaging in lawfare? No the left already tried that.
Could it be someone Increases the number of Justices on the supreme court and packing with those that support their causes ? Nope the left already proposed that.
Maybe it will be by letting our borders be open so anyone and everyone that wants in can come and then allowing them to vote? The left tried that to.
They could try to give everyone sums of money in an attempt to buy their votes. Again already tried
They left could always demonize their opponents and scare voters that their rights will be taken away and democracy will be destroyed. The democrats already have tried that and continue to
So tell me exactly just how is democracy going to be imperilled?
She could not do that. She doesn't have a clue as what to do. Didn't for the last 4 years, doesn't now.