The corporate media is in an abusive relationship with Donald Trump.
No matter how many times he attacks with claims of "fake news," and calls journalists the "enemy of the people;" no matter how worked up networks get over how he treats them; no matter how many times it appears as though they are finally gaining the courage to stand up to their abuser, the mainstream networks just can't get seem to muster up the courage to quit him.
Have they not learned anything from 2016?
In February 2016, former CBS executive chairman and CEO, Les Moonves, told the Hollywood Reporter:
"It [Trump's candidacy] may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS...Man, who would have expected the ride we're all having right now?... The money's rolling in and this is fun...I've never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It's a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going."
Indeed, it was a terrible thing to say, if only because the truth hurts.
Moonves was merely articulating a heretofore unspoken axiom: it's not about the issues; it's about the ratings. It's about the personality. It's ultimately about the money.
And so, here we are again.
Before the new year even started, the presidential campaign cycle began with Sen. Elizabeth Warren launching an exploratory committee for a White House run.
Here we have a true progressive with a stalwart reputation for attacking Wall Street banks' greed and perfidy. She wants to "level the playing field," as she has so often said, for average Americans who have been cut out of the neo-liberal landscape. These are people who have given up on the Democratic party due to a quarter century of DLC "Third-Way" capitulation to lobbyists and party power brokers, Republican compromise, and economic half-measures. These are people who yearn to return to the prosperity of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal we practiced from 1933 to the 1980s' Reagan Revolution.
But is the corporate media focusing at all on Warren's plan for universal health care? Is it providing any details about her college affordability plan? Is it concerned even one iota with her stance on the environment, infrastructure, campaign finance reform, criminal justice reform, or foreign policy?
No.
Because she released DNA test results confirming there is "strong evidence" she has Native American blood in her.
So let's instead manufacture an issue over the supposed outrage the Native American community is expressing over this use of the DNA test as a campaign prop.
Perhaps it is the media using it as a prop, as it is obsessed not with where she stands on what keeps Americans up at night, but her "likeability."
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