Will Left-Wing Media Ever Change? WaPo Suggests Trump Wants Russia and China to 'Carve Up the Planet'
As the Age of Trump 2.0 continues, left-wing media outlets are continuing to lose viewership and readership at rates previously unseen. As a result, we've seen varying pledges of more balance, more free speech, and (allegedly) the jettison of so-called "fact-checkers" by some.
From Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos' pledge that the paper's opinions section will now be focused on “personal liberties and free speech" to line-up changes on CNN and MSNBC, to even Meta Corp. (previously, Facebook Corp.) CEO Mark Zuckerberg's announcement that Meta's social media companies, including Facebook, would dump its (hopelessly biased) "fact-checkers" and allow more free speech (which I've yet to see), it's clear that left-wing media and social media platforms either must change, or continue to lose readers or viewers — and profits.
Welp, I don't know when Bezos' pledge was (is) expected to become reality, but if a Monday opinion piece is any indication, the pledge is, of yet, just words.
In the op-ed titled "Trump's Old World Order," the WaPo editorial board asks, presumably with a straight face, if Trump "wants deals with Russia and China to carve up the planet?" If so, the board suggested, Trump should "share this vision with the country when he addresses Congress on Tuesday."
The ridiculous op-ed is replete with references to a "new world order," "rehabilitating Mr. Putin in world councils," "courting [Chinese President] Xi Jinping, the Communist Party boss," and such leftist drivel.
Check it out:
With his first weeks back in office, and especially after Friday’s Oval Office brawling with Ukraine’s president, it’s clear President Trump has designs for a new world order. Perhaps he could share this vision with the country when he addresses Congress on Tuesday.
The conventional view of Mr. Trump is that he’s above all transactional. He wants deals, at home and abroad, that he can sell as great successes. But the way his second term is unfolding, this may undersell his ambition.
[...]
It seems clear that Mr. Trump wants to wash his hands of Ukraine. “You’re either going to make a deal, or we’re out,” Mr. Trump ordered Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday. This will embolden Vladimir Putin to insist on even harsher terms for a cease-fire deal.
Mr. Trump seems mainly concerned with rehabilitating Mr. Putin in world councils, such as the G-7. He wants an early summit with the Russian, though Mr. Putin has made no concessions on Ukraine or anything else.
Shocked? Me neither. What seems clear to me is that Trump is genuinely and first concerned about stopping the never-ending (under former President Joe Biden) flow of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund a never-ending war that Ukraine can't win.
Courting Xi Jinping and Taking Back the Panama Canal
Bezos' editorial board continued its delusional spin:
Mr. Trump is hammering traditional U.S. friends. He plans 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, in violation of his own USMCA trade deal, and his defense secretary has threatened to invade Mexico to pursue drug cartels. He wants to hit Western Europe with heavy tariffs on its autos, and slap reciprocal tariffs on the rest of the trading world.
These tariffs are harsher than those he has put on China. He is clearly courting Xi Jinping, the Communist Party boss, calling him a great leader and talking about a new mutual understanding. He has shown no similar interest in defending Taiwan, and he has said in the past that China can easily dominate the island democracy in a conflict. Watching Mr. Trump and Ukraine, the leaders of Taiwan and Japan should be deeply worried.
Meanwhile in the Americas, Mr. Trump has demanded control over the Panama Canal, which the U.S. ceded by treaty in 1999. And he wants Denmark to sell Greenland to the U.S.
Trump's ultimate goal, according to WaPo?
[Trump's] moves taken together hint at a worldview that has long been the goal of American isolationists: Let China dominate the Pacific, Russia dominate Europe, and the U.S. the Americas. The Middle East would presumably remain a region of contention, a least until Mr. Trump does a nuclear deal with Iran.
All of this would amount to an epochal return to the world of great power competition and balance of power that prevailed before World War II. It’s less a brave new world than a reversion to a dangerous old one.
OK, that's enough of that. The larger issue, as I asked at the top, is whether the left wing can — or even wants to — change.
While MNSBC finally kicked openly racist and blatantly antisemitic host Joy Reid to the curb, it holds onto the ever-smug Rachel Maddow, who felt emboldened enough to blast the network on-air after Reid's demise.
And while in February 2024, then-new CNN CEO Mark Thompson reportedlyprepared to make "ruthless cuts to remake the network as ratings plunge," leaving Anderson Cooper, Chris Wallace, Wolf Blitzer, and Jake Tapper "facing dates with the axman," only Wallace has left the troubled network, the ratings of which continue to swirl down the toilet — as do those of MSNBC.
As I see it, America's left-wing media have no intention of making sweeping, demonstrable changes in the Trump Era. And after Trump leaves the stage for good? I doubt it, even then.
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