The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Early Front-Runner Emerges for 2022 ‘Media Gaslighter of the Year’ Award

Posted on | February 18, 2022 | Comments Off on Early Front-Runner Emerges for 2022 ‘Media Gaslighter of the Year’ Award

Gaslighting is . . . loosely defined as making someone question their own reality. The term may also be used to describe a person (a “gaslighter”) who presents a false narrative to another group or person which leads them to doubt their perceptions and become misled (generally for the gaslighter’s own benefit), disoriented or distressed. Generally, this dynamic is possible only when the audience is vulnerable, such as in unequal power relationships, or when the audience is fearful of the losses associated with challenging the false narrative.

Patients in the Trump Derangement Syndrome psych ward are being “treated” (if that is the appropriate word) by the media in such a way as to sustain their delusions, rather than to relieve them. Liberals watching CNN or MSNBC are like schizophrenics seeking out a therapist who will tell them that yes, it’s true that their brains are being controlled by radiation from outer space. The daily drumbeat of updates on the January 6 “investigation” repeats the motif of the Russiagate narrative, where the walls were always closing in, and everybody was going to get indicted, right up until the moment when Robert Mueller issued his report which found that there never was any “collusion.” And then the same perpetrators of media malpractice, who had spent more than two years convincing their audience that it was only a matter of time before the proof of the Trump-Putin conspiracy emerged, moved on as if the collapse of their theory did nothing to damage their credibility.

So here is Nicolle Wallace telling her MSNBC audience that coverage of special counsel John Durham’s recent filing in the criminal case against Democratic Party lawyer Michael Sussmann is “dangerous disinformation” peddled by “right-wing media”:

 

Now, as Karen Townsend at Hot Air acknowledges, there are some problems with the way the Durham filing is being presented by Fox News, in terms of what the filing actually alleges and what it means in terms of the larger effort by the Clinton campaign and its allies to falsely accuse Trump of Russian “collusion.” Rather than explaining any of this, however, what Nicolle Wallace does is to insist that there is nothing of significance in the Durham filing, essentially telling her audience to ignore that whole story because it’s just Fox News “disinformation.”

Permit me to quote a CNN account of what the filing actually says:

Durham says in the filing that Michael Sussmann, the Democratic lawyer, spoke about internet data related to Trump in a meeting with a federal agency, which sources say was the CIA, more than five years ago. Sussmann claimed the information “demonstrated that Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations,” according to the filing.
Durham’s office said it found nothing to support the allegation. The special counsel also noted that the data showed a Russian phone provider connection involving the Executive Office of the President “during the Obama administration and years before Trump took office.”
The data was compiled by a tech firm that had special access to the purportedly suspicious internet data through an “arrangement” with the US government, and that firm was in touch with Sussmann, according to the filing.
An executive at the tech company, Rodney Joffe, and his associates exploited this arrangement by mining domain name system traffic associated with the Executive Office of the President and other data “for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump,” Durham’s prosecutors wrote.

This may not be the “smoking gun” proof of a conspiracy against Trump, but certainly it is significant, and if Nicolle Wallace were actually a journalist (instead of a political hack) she would feel a duty to explain this to her audience, instead of dismissing it as “dangerous disinformation.”

Notice that chyron on the MSNBC screen:

DURHAM COURT FILING SETS OFF
CONSPIRACIES IN RIGHT-WING MEDIA
ABOUT DEMOCRATS SPYING ON TRUMP

Is the contention that Democrats were not spying on Trump? Because I think “mining domain name system traffic” from the president’s office sounds a lot like “spying,” and the allegation that this was done “for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump” suggests that Democrats were behind it. And considering that these allegations are part of a filing in the prosecution of a lawyer for the Democratic Party — well, exactly how are we promoting a conspiracy theory if we add 2 plus 2 and get 4 as the answer?

Nicolle Wallace isn’t interested in facts, or simple common-sense deductions. No, her job is to tell the MSNBC audience — the same audience that they fed lies about “Russian collusion” for more than two years — that there is nothing to see here, no real news, despite the fact that a lawyer for the Democratic Party may go to federal prison for lying to the FBI. Trump Delusion Syndrome forever!




 

Category: Conspiracy Theories, MSNBC

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