The news media’s unhealthy fixation on Trump has turned them all into fanatical, bitter, obsessed cranks with the impulse control of a high-strung cat.
The feckless news media’s obsession with everything President Trump says and tweets is often compared to a cat chasing after a laser pointer. And with good reason.
I have a cat. She goes insane chasing after any kind of light. Whether a laser pointer, a flashlight, or even the sun reflected in the face of my iPhone, Willow chases them all. And if I stop suddenly, she will sit forever staring at the last spot the light landed on, patiently waiting for it to reappear.
So, yeah. The cat and the laser pointer is the perfect metaphor for the media’s relationship with President Trump.
Yesterday, after the media went chasing after the “Trump is taking hydroxychloroquine” laser pointer, Vanity Fair “special correspondent” and MSNBC contributor Gabe Sherman tweeted this:
Oh, it’s so obvious!
Well, if it’s so obvious, Gabe, why do you idiots keep falling for it?
And what specifically is “outrageous” about taking hydroxychloroquine?
Good grief, these people and their obsession over this anti-malarial. There’s a reason I call this Hydroxychloroquine Derangement Syndrome.
It’s only a “distraction” because the media has assigned something nefarious to a medication that has been in existence for decades.
You know, the “it’s a distraction” claim could really be said about the media.
Couldn’t we say that the media is using the “Trump is taking hydroxychloroquine” talking point as a way to distract from other current news stories?
It isn’t as if the Wuhan flu is the only thing happening in the world. But if you turn on the news, you’d certainly think that’s the case.
Who gives the hairy ass of a rat what medication Trump’s doctor put him on?
The rest of the world’s news doesn’t cease to exist simply because Trump is taking hydroxychloroquine.
And in the grand scheme of things, his drug regimen matters about as much as a June bug in July.
What is really troubling Gabe here isn’t that Trump is trying to “hijack the news cycle” or “distract from 90K dead Americans.”
What really has Gabe’s knickers in a twist is that Trump doesn’t need the news media; but, boy howdy, do they need Trump.
They can’t make it through a day without him.
Many of them have built their entire public profile and celebrity on a foundation of Trump.
One only has to observe the behavior of members of the White House press corps to know how dependent they are on Trump’s existence for their own notoriety.
Would anyone on Planet Earth know who Yamiche Alcindor is if she didn’t use her place in the WH press corps to showboat and play the victim? Ditto Paula Reid and Weijia Jiang. And, of course, the king-freak of “Trump is my ticket to fame,” Jim Acosta.
They need him in an obsessed, stalkery way.
It’s why they comb through his Twitter feed daily – eagerly hoping for something to be scandalized over, or for a typo to mock.
Why would President Trump need to “hijack the news cycle” when these dimwits hijack it for him over something he might tweet?
Their entire raison d’être is Trump.
And he knows it.
In fact, even before he decided to run for President, he knew it.
He’s identified their weakness. And their greatest weakness is their all-consuming obsession with him.
It’s been that way all along.
Now after three years of playing the high-strung cats chasing the laser pointer, they want to blame the laser pointer?
My cat Willow loves to eat. She greets mealtime with the same effusive delight Stacey Abrams must experience at an all-you-can-eat buffet. But if I open the back door to let the dog out and the sun reflecting off the window sends a beam of light across my office, Willow abandons her food and chases the beam. She can’t help herself.
So if Gabe thinks the media’s obsession with everything Trump says or tweets is some diabolical attempt to “distract” them, who’s to blame for that?
If Gabe is so convinced that the only reason President Trump mentioned that he’s taking hydroxychloroquine is because he knew the media would work itself into a frenzied lather over it, then it isn’t Trump that’s the problem; it’s the news media’s obsession with Trump that’s to blame.
They’re the ones who cannot resist chasing the laser pointer.
The only thing that is “so obvious” is that journalists are no longer journalists. Their unhealthy fixation on Donald Trump has turned them all into fanatical, bitter, obsessed cranks with the impulse control of a high-strung cat.