When Donald Trump Farts, the Media Reports

Evanescence:"I can hear you in a whisper. But you can't even hear me screaming."

It seems that every time I turn on the TV I'm always hearing Donald Trump's name. The reporters for CNN and MSNBC wait for his appearances at campaign rallies and streams his speeches LIVE like it's "Breaking News" — and so it's then that I usually change the channel to monitor Fox News — just to see what else might be happening around the country and the world.

TIME magazine believes Trump "most influenced the news" — but it has been the media itself who made Trump the biggest story with all their free air time. And despite winning all the TIME polls, they snubbed Bernie and chose the Chancellor of Germany (and leader of the Christian Democratic Union) as their "Person of the Year." While Donald Trump was wayyyyyyyyy down on the list for the reader's preferred choice — but yet, Trump still made TIME's short list.

There's a Credo petition to tell MSNBC and CNN to stop providing free publicity for Donald Trump's presidential campaign at the expense of hearing other candidates speak: CNN and MSNBC have an obsession with Donald Trump. They have been relentlessly chasing advertising ratings and devoting a massive amount of airtime to Donald Trump's interviews and live coverage of his speeches.

MSNBC and CNN should be covering Trump like any other candidate, not giving him a near 24/7 national platform to promote his candidacy. The media’s obsession with Donald Trump has real consequences for our Democracy when they broadcast nearly-continuous coverage of Donald Trump’s campaign at the expense of giving real issues the coverage they deserve.

As policy fights play out in the halls of power in Washington, DC, large swaths of the electorate remain uninformed, with cable news coverage largely limited to live coverage of Trump campaign rallies and shouting matches between TV pundits over whether Trump’s latest outbursts will help or hurt him among Republican primary voters.

Bernie Sanders also has a petition to tell the corporate news networks to start covering Bernie.

Below are a few excerpts (edited for length, etc.) from an article posted at The Nation by D.D. Guttenplan on December 15, 2015: Can Bernie Sanders Win Back Iowa’s Working Class? If he can’t, Donald Trump’s brand of right-wing populism looms large.

For over a century, Maytag washers and dryers spread the gospel of high-quality American manufacturing across the globe. At its peak, the Newton plant in Iowa employed 4,000 workers in a town of 16,000. You didn’t have to go to college. You could start working at Maytag for $18 an hour. Nancy Brown’s husband worked at Maytag for 34 years.

But after the North American Free Trade Agreement, the company started moving production to Mexico. In 2006, Maytag was bought by Whirlpool. Brown's union contract stipulated that he would receive health insurance for the rest of his life as a retirement benefit. But Whirlpool eliminated his coverage.

The following year, Whirlpool shut down the plant, laying off a workforce that had shrunk to 1,700 — ending Maytag's 112-year history. The headquarters has remained empty ever since.

When Donald Trump visited Newton for a forum, the moderator asked the audience (mostly over 50 with a sprinkling of young people) how many had once worked at Maytag or had family members who did. Two-thirds held up their hands. When Trump pledged to “take back” American jobs from China and Mexico, the crowd was aroused; but when he said, “Maybe we can get Maytag back,” the cheering stops — because not even Trump can sell that fairy tale.

A retired factory worker said, "I walked away after the state [Democratic] party went with Bill Clinton instead of Tom Harkin in 1992. Then we had NAFTA, and now we have both parties doing the same thing. And I thought, ‘Why bother?’ So I just stayed away.”

For 30 years now, working-class voters have been told they were on the wrong side of history — that globalization was the wave of the future, information and innovation the source of all wealth. Manufacturing was passé. Then, the “rising American electorate” of 2008 apparently obviated the need for class politics. Only it turns out women, people of color, and young voters aren’t any happier working longer hours for less pay than aging white men.

If keeping disaffected Democrats at home is a recipe for a Republican victory — as happened in Iowa in 2014 — what would it take to bring them back? It was Hillary Clinton’s husband, after all, who deregulated the banks and turned welfare over to the states.

Hillary herself has been sounding a more populist note lately, vowing to “make our economy work for every American,” while invoking “factory workers and food servers and nurses who work the night shift.”

But her Wall Street ties continue to haunt her. And in Iowa, where Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations litter the landscape and Big Agriculture calls the shots, her long-standing friendship with the Tyson Foods family (whose company recently lost a class-action lawsuit to workers at its Storm Lake plant) probably doesn’t help.

When Bernie Sanders tells audiences “we have got to transform the Democratic party,” that's going to be difficult to do because the current Democratic establishment party members owe their places to the current system [which is basically owned and operated by Hillary Clinton].

When Bill Clinton told party regulars at the Central Iowa Democrats Fall Barbecue up in Ames, Iowa “I’ve watched all these debates, and I think I’m going to vote for Hillary,” he has them in the palm of his hand. This crowd cares about offices, not ideology.

So long as Clinton looks invincible, no one is going to ask about her false claim “I was the only one on the stage last night who would commit to raising your wages, not your taxes” squares with her refusal to back a $15 minimum wage. And why should they? Clinton’s insistence on settling for $12 hasn’t stopped the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — the union behind the Fight for $15— from endorsing her.

Robert Becker, Bernie Sanders Iowa state director, said: "If you’re in the same caucus with the president of your local, it can be difficult to defy your boss. Otherwise, it doesn’t really mean anything. We feel strongly rank-and-file folks are going to come through for us.” [Editor's note: See my post, Union Members aren't Happy with Hillary Endorsements]

D.D. Guttenplan at The Nation writes: "Driving around Iowa City later in the week, I see dozens of Sanders lawn signs, only a couple for Clinton."

Jeff Cox, a Texan who teaches history at the University of Iowa, said: “I put a lot of those up." A former Democratic county chairman, Cox is a veteran activist who says Bernie Sanders should expect no quarter from the Democratic party establishment. He said: “We’ve been fighting a losing battle, nationally and locally, against the neoliberal takeover of the Democratic Party.” [Editor's note: See my post, Our Corrupt Political Duopoly Denies Voters Real Change]

Sanders doesn’t have to win Iowa. He does need to do well, though — and a loss here for Clinton could shatter her claims to electability beyond repair. Clinton’s strength among women and the Democratic party's establishment loyalists. Whereas Sanders appeals to younger voters and college students.

* Be sure to read D.D. Guttenplan's entire (unedited) post, who was reporting from Iowa. There is a lot concerning labor unions and local politics.

Trump had been averaging about 30% in the GOP polls, and he gets most of the media coverage. But some GOP candidates (who are getting 1% in the polls, but still included in the GOP debates) are getting just as much coverage as Bernie, who also gets about 30% in Democratic polls (When I say "polls", and mean the corporate sponsored polls. Bernie overwhelmingly beats Hillary in literally ALL online polls.)

Maybe if the mainstream corporate media gave other (more serious) candidates equal time in getting their message out, Bernie Sanders and other candidates would also be more "electable". Maybe if the media wasn't trying to influence the election (and/or just trying to boost their ad ratings), the American people would have a better chance to properly assess all the candidates and make better and more informed choices as to who they'd like to vote for in 2016.

Personally, I don't think Hillary has near the same enthusiasm from her supporters as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders does; and so, if Trump becomes the RNC's nominee and Hillary becomes the DNC's nominee, voter turnout could be low for the Democrats, giving the GOP a big victory and a Republican president in the White House in 2016.