“We create the illusion that being informed is a kind of action in itself. So to wash that guilt out—to eliminate the shame and discomfort you feel over doing nothing as the world goes mad—you'll keep tuning in.” - Matt Taibbi, Hate, Inc.
The other night on MSNBC, Nicolle Wallace reached her breaking point. Something must be done, or we will all live to regret it.
“Something bad is going to happen,” she said. “What will we tell our children and grandchildren when it does”? Then she looked directly into the camera and said, “You good with NOTHING”?
Her face flushed. Her expression, resolute.
What “something” must be done? She didn’t say. Her guests couldn’t come up with a final solution either.
But it’s worth asking Nicolle herself what will finally end her nightmare. Detainment camps for the “cesspool of the MAGA base"? Gulags? How do we dump the dissidents and non-compliant citizens far enough away that they can’t touch the America they once called home?
We already know the Ruling classes are fine with gulags. They shot a January 6th protester point-blank, and that was okay. She had the wrong skin color for it to make the news. She was to be feared, and all the journalists told us so by her social media posts. So why shouldn’t she be shot?
They dumped the January 6th prisoners in solitary, sentenced to decades of prison time because of “spectral evidence,” punishing them on their ideological non-compliance and allegiance to Trump and American Democracy.
And after all of this time, after the American public has mostly complied with the destruction of our norms when it came to “finding something” to charge Trump with, it’s still not a matter of anything Trump did, but always a matter of something Trump said.
In her flushed-faced rage, Nicolle Wallace cited example after example of bad things Trump said on Truth Social, as if they didn’t hang on every word, as if their entire economy isn’t built on the backs of those Tweets, or Truths. Who are you kidding, Nicolle? This is your bread and butter girlfriend. You know it. I know it.
Jack Smith, and his happy warrior Nicolle Wallace decided that their interpretation of what Trump said, “If you come after me, I’m going to come after you,” mattered more than Trump’s own intention. That’s all they’ve been doing for seven years, jumping to conclusions about what Trump said.
What Trump meant, in case anyone wants to know, is that if he’s elected, he’ll spare no one when it comes to weaponizing his own Justice Department. And why shouldn’t he?
Besides, even Nicolle Wallace knows by now that the rhetoric from MSNBC and CNN led to real-world violence against Trump supporters. Chased, kicked, spit on, beaten, egged, and even shot, all because MSNBC has demonized them and convicted them as racists in the court of public opinion.
And we can’t forget the casual murder of Trump supporter Aaron "Jay" Danielson:
This level of dehumanization would ordinarily be shamed and criticized by a journalist class that still had an ounce of integrity. But they couldn’t say a thing after Trump actually won, lest they be accused of “normalizing” Hitler.
That’s why they needed a January 6th. Trump supporters just don’t do this. They don’t rage as a mob. They don’t smash windows or break down doors. They don’t storm buildings. But they needed the image of MAGA to be violent; that day had to end that badly; otherwise, nothing else they’ve done since would have gone over so easily.
The media has sold a lie about that day and has remained incurious as to how any of it could have happened, even if they’ve officially lost count of just how many paid informants by the FBI were there that day, not to mention why it took hours to call in the National Guard even after what their informants told them was about to take place way beforehand.
No psy-ops necesary where the Left is concerned. Their violence is allowable and if it borders on the really dangerous, it’s easily covered up. Don’t look over here. Look over there. How can they live with the hypocrisy of the Summer of 2020 and January 6th? Well, it’s easy. One was “mostly peaceful,” and the other was a violent insurrection.
So what does Nicolle Wallace imagine we should do as a final solution to purge Trump and the cesspool of the MAGA base from polite society? There’s really one way out for them. Maybe they’re pushing Trump and MAGA just far enough so they can finally lock them up and throw away the key.
Game Change
I was one of those people who fell in love with Nicolle Wallace, as portrayed by Sarah Paulson in Game Change. The ethical Republican fighting for John McCain alongside Woody Harrelson as Steve Schmidt was a new brand of hero for those of us on the Left.
Palin, the movie insisted, had ushered a new strand of hate, xenophobia, and racism that they, the Good Republicans, could not abide. They hopped aboard the Team Blue Express, and never looked back. We welcomed her into the fold once she threw Palin under the bus and half of the country along with her.
Game Change was propaganda that I mistook for art. It was a character assassination written by talented people with no other aim but to tell the beginnings of a decade of shaming, dehumanizing, and mocking the underclass who had every right to fight for their share of the American dream.
When you become disconnected from the practical realities of daily life in America, it’s impossible to understand the why of Sarah Palin, the why of the Tea Party, or the why of Donald Trump.
Rupert Murdoch, of all people, nailed it when he stepped down as Chairman at Fox:
“Self-serving bureaucracies are seeking to silence those who would question their provenance and purpose. Elites have open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class. Most of the media is in cahoots with those elites, peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth.”
It isn’t that Fox isn’t responsible for much of where we are today, it’s that Murdoch knows what I know, what MSNBC will never know. These are not two equal sides. Those at the Top and on the Left have everything, and those who watch Fox News have only Fox News.
Wallace’s teary confession to Steve Schmidt at the end of Game Change that she couldn’t vote - not for trash like Palin, not for the dangerous threat of what she ushered in — was all the mea culpa we needed on the Left.
The character smear of Sarah Palin, that she was a virulent racist, stuck, and was then visited upon the Tea Party, and from thence to Trump and MAGA.
How convenient for the Obama coalition, and the establishment government now under attack by two populist movements, Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party to slander them with charges of racism. As Vivek Ramaswamy points out in his book Woke, Inc., their way of wriggling out of the mess of the $700 billion bailout was to pivot to social justice and racism specifically.
The populist uprising was just getting started in 2008 when Wallace refused to vote for Palin and abandoned the Republicans altogether. When you think about it, it’s the perfect marriage, an establishment Republican allying with the establishment Democrats against the people rising up to challenge them all.
Orwell Was Right Again
Orwell appears to be the architect of 2023. Thought police? Check. Big Brother? Check. The Inner and Outer Party and the Proles? Check. 2+2=5? Check. Newspeak? Check. The Ministry of Truth? Yup. The Ministry of Love? Oh yeah. The Ministry of Peace, double-check.
But the one he got really right was the character of Goldstein and the Two Minutes of Hate. Goldstein probably didn’t exist in reality, but was necessary to unite their citizens in hate, to keep them in line, and to keep them afraid.
What is MSNBC’s power lineup now but Two Minutes of Hate sold to the people at the top, trotting out their Goldstein — shout out his name!
MSNBC Junkies
“Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.”
― William S. Burroughs
You can spot an MSNBC junkie from a mile away. Think of Barbra Streisand snuggled up with her cloned dogs, the expanse of the Pacific Ocean sprawled out in front of her.
You know Larry David can’t pull away. He’s often seen shrieking and shouting in public places, raving about the end of the world, and that, of course, being Trump.
Stephen King, who built his fortune by selling books to the very kind of people he now deems human garbage, destroyed his wonderful crime series, Mr. Mercedes, by turning his latest installment, Holly, into an indictment against Trump — yet another.
And the most addicted of all, Rob Reiner.
How does Nicolle Wallace sleep at night? Does she tell herself that she’s fighting on the right side and that Trump and his supporters have deserved every minute of the endless persecution and punishment they’ve received just for staying in the race, not giving up, and never backing down?
Most importantly, does it worry her that she got the story so wrong? Will journalists, fiction writers, and screenwriters ever find their way back to the truth to tell the true story of Trump and his supporters, a scrappy underdog that took on a massive machine?
They’ve sold him as Hitler himself, but Trump was never that guy. Trump is this guy. A guy who stood in the rain - even took off his hat to let the rain wreck his “perfect” hair. He shows humility and kindness to his supporters. He’s funny. He talks to them. He entertains them. They love him for it.
At a time when comedy has disappeared, everything is so rigid and buttoned-up, everyone is so afraid to say anything that will get them in trouble, Trump just lets his freak flag fly - more American now than anyone on the Left.
Trump’s the guy who went to East Palestine and hung out with the townies, ordering fast food and giving speeches on the fly.
The version of Trump MSNBC has been selling does not exist. He didn’t exist when Rachel Maddow’s sincere, collegiate tone sold him as a Russian asset. He didn’t exist when Lawrence O’Donnell sold him as a dangerous fascist. Or when Joy Reid sold him as an actual Nazi. And, he didn’t exist when Nicolle Wallace demanded that “something must be done” or “bad things will happen.”
They all need Trump to make money, the grifters that they are. They had to sell the more profitable version of Trump, the evil one, the baddie, the existential threat, the End of Democracy Itself, the worse-than-Stalin-evil dictator because people at the top are so cut off from everyday life they actually believe that nonsense. I believed it, too.
They ought to think about turning off the lights at the Two Minutes of Hate cable network. Do the country a real favor. Give us half a chance to get to know each other again. Let the people vote for whom they choose. Don’t pretend you’re saving Democracy by destroying Democracy. Because then, something bad really will happen.
//end
Nicolle Wallace Wants Gulags