WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 2024
And yes, you read that correctly: Is it possible that "our democracy" has already died?
Is it possible that it has died in the manner of The Sixth Sense? In a way where it's dead and gone, but we are unable to notice?
As a matter of basic theory, everyone knows that a democracy is more than a bunch of elections. Eventually, the leading authority on the system gets around to the familiar highlighted point:
Democracies may use many different decision-making methods, but majority rule is the dominant form. Without compensation, like legal protections of individual or group rights, political minorities can be oppressed by the "tyranny of the majority". Majority rule involves a competitive approach, opposed to consensus democracy, creating the need that elections, and generally deliberation, be substantively and procedurally "fair"," i.e. just and equitable. In some countries, freedom of political expression, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press are considered important to ensure that voters are well informed, enabling them to vote according to their own interests and beliefs.
In some countries, freedom of the press is considered important. Its purpose:
To ensure that the voters in a democracy get to be well informed.
As a matter of basic theory, you may need a competent press to maintain a functioning democracy. In our country, we have a 59-year-old former editor of Stuff offering a joke like this on a primetime weeknight program on our most-watched "cable news" channel:
GUTFELD (6/19/24): Speaking of the Clintons, Bill and Hillary will headline a fund-raiser for Biden later this month in Virgina.
Hillary hopes to raise money, while Bill hopes to raise an erection.
As you can see by clicking this link, the termagant was at it again! For the record, it happened at 10:01 p.m.
That was the termagant's second joke. His first joke had turned on the premise that Hillary Clinton may murder Kamala Harris so Clinton herself can run for VP with President Biden this year.
In his second joke, he turned to his favorite topic—an imagined state of arousal. By joke 5, hitting his stride, he was offering this:
GUTFELD: Dr. Fauci bragged in a recent interview about turning down a $7 million a year job in the private sector.
He thought about taking it, but it didn't offer him the opportunity to kill millions of people.
So it went last night! One more joke about Governor Hochul's laughable face and the termagant transitioned to the evening's first topic for truncated pseudo-discussion.
In Annie Hall, Alvy Singer owned all the books which had "death" in the title. On this prime time "news" program, the termagant owns all the jokes which turns on death or murder or on accusations of murder; on claims that disfavored women are too fat, too old, or simply too ugly; or on braindead dreams about penises—preferably, Hunter Biden's—in a state of erection.
It would be hard to be dumber or more pathetic. And yes, to borrow from Ezra Pound, and yet this is us.
If our most-watched "news channel" functions that way, is it possible that "our democracy" has already died? Is it possible that the death has already occurred, whether anyone has noticed or not?
We'll let Gutfeld throw that out for discussion by his collection of former VJs and professional wrestlers! Last night, his four-member panel included Tyrus, "a former NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion," but also Chael Sonnen, "an American submission grappling promoter, mixed martial arts (MMA) analyst, and retired mixed martial artist."
If a primetime program of that type gets peddled as news and no one notices, could that mean that our own version of "sacred Troy" has already died?
For today, we offer a tip of the hat to Mediaite's Colby Hall for his thoughtful, thoroughly sensible essay about the current functioning of MSNBC. His essay appears beneath the headline shown below. We think the essay is nuanced and sensible, sane and thoroughly fair:
The Media Labeled Fox News ‘State Run TV’ Under Trump. Is MSNBC Getting a Pass Under Biden?
That's the headline on Hall's piece, in which—for the record—he has nothing good to say about what takes place at Fox.
Sadly, we're forced to score the essay as fundamentally sane and balanced. That said, back over to Fox:
The termagant was in his normal zones as he opened last evening's program. That said, he had made an accurate statement five hours earlier, in his other role as co-host of The Five.
Yesterday, that program's panelists took turns saying that only the liberals distort the news. It's simply never done on Fox, and certainly not on The Five!
Tomorrow, we'll transcribe some of those wonderfully comical comments. We'll also show you the text of something the termagant said—and yes! His statement was perfectly accurate, and his criticism was perfectly fair!
In our view, Colby Hall was tough but fair in his critique of Blue America's dreary, declining "cable news" dreamscape. One day before Hall's piece appeared, Greg Gutfeld lodged a stone-cold accurate complaint, right there on The Five!
On The Five, he had no wrestlers to back up his claim. We'll do that right here, on the morrow.
