US Mass Media: Trump is Not Always Wrong.

Even a Broken Clock is Right Twice a Day

Trump with his friends from the Building Trades Unions. Have We Heard From Them at All?

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

Back during the debates there was a collective “gasp” from the US capitalist class and its mass media as Trump suggested on national television that he might not abide by the election result if he came in the loser.  He repeatedly made the claim that the system was “rigged” the electoral process, the media, all of it.

Trump is a problem for the more strategic thinking sections of the US capitalist class who fear that he is undermining stability and the limited equilibrium needed for profit taking to continue unabated. They have welcomed his tax breaks hoping that they would be able to control his more destructive impulses and habits, but Trump is not a normal bourgeois politician; he is far from the slick, educated, classy individual that preceded him. Trump, this accident of history, arising in a period when the era of the dictatorship of the two capitalist parties over US political life is coming to an end, will say whatever necessary to stay afloat. He says what he wants when he wants and changes his mind any time he wants. Trump will not passively sail off in to the sunset----his ego won’t let him.

The collective gasp was genuine. Trump by threatening to violate the result of a “democratic” election was questioning the legitimacy of the system itself. He was threatening the legitimacy of bourgeois democracy and continues to do so.  A senior intelligence official says that there is concern within the Trump Administration itself that Trumps public comments are, “….threats to our institutions and values”

Trump went on a rampage against a New York Times report published this weekend that the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, had at least 30 hours of “voluntary” interviews with members of the Mueller inquiry. Using his usual line of defense Trump called the report fake but didn’t deny its accuracy and reiterated his oft used claim that the US media is the “Enemy of the People” This is yet another attack on a crucial institution of the capitalist class, the control over ideas and therefore mass consciousness. Calling the capitalist press the enemy of the people” is very dangerous indeed.

This assault on capitalism and its institutions is the main concern of the more strategic thinking sections of the US bourgeois, not Trumps misogyny, his racism, his contempt for working class people. John Dean of Watergate fame stressed this point once again in an interview with Slate Magazine. Defending this voluntary move by the White House Counsel, Dean said that “Don McGahn is doing exactly the right thing, not merely to protect himself, but to protect his client. And his client is not Donald Trump; his client is the office of the president.”  The top office of the most advanced form of social organization in the history of humanity must be defended against Trump the Usurper.

The concentration on Russian interference in the US elections and its reasoning would need more space but Dean’s tweet in response to Trumps attack on the NYT  is in itself a lie. He tweeted   “I still have trouble using the title Mr. President for someone installed by Putin."  Mr. Dean knows very well the Electoral College elected Trump. But that institution must be protected, the Democrats and the capitalist class regardless of party, will need it again someday, focusing purely on Russian meddling is a better option.

This approach to the office of President,  almost a holy body, is fueled by the ruling class and its media, much like the royal rulers of feudal Europe or China and the rulers of ancient Rome who were deified on their death. All ruling classes use religious mythology to justify their position as the rightful governors of the governed. Every ruling class holds that the system it rules is the apex of human civilization.

What is the carving of the faces of the early founders of the modern US nation state, capitalists and slave-owners, on mountains but a confirmation of their greatness; cementing their right to rule the nation state they have created and indeed the world.  They are who they are by god’s will. The so-called Supreme Court, the top legislative committee of the US capitalist class is given the same treatment, portrayed as some honorable, and as I say, divine like body as opposed to a group of lawyers and judges whose job it is to defend the primary interests of a social system and the class that governs it.

Trump is undermining this charade. He is doing it crudely and without serious thought, but he is on dangerous ground as he calls in to question the very legitimacy of the structures that help maintain the rule of capital. The electoral process, the media, the judiciary----it’s all phony or “fake” as he puts it. His is not doing this with any serious effort at replacing the system with an alternative, a more humane and fair system. He is at the head of a family business and he does whatever he needs to do to stay there.

He has called the mass media the “enemy of the people”.  Well, he’s half right, but even then it is for the wrong reasons. In the capitalist system, the mass media is owned by capitalists and has a bias, a bias that ensures the supremacy of the capitalist class just as the Supreme Court does. It reports events from a free market point of view and ensures no serious threats to the ideology of the capitalist class and profits arise. In the 2016 elections there were many more candidates running for president than we saw in the media or at the debates. We never hear alternative views on politics or the economy and certainly not socialist ideas, or even social democratic views. Candidates of the two parties of capitalism, Republicans and Democrats go along with this censorship, this media blackout of any views but their own.  I don’t recall Trump complaining about the barring of alternative candidates from the debates leaving us only with capitalist views on the economy from representatives of the two Wall Street Parties. Green Party candidate Jill Stein was even arrested fro attempting to force her way in to the debates at one point.

The mass media lies by its very nature; that is its purpose. More often than not it lies by omission, by what it reports on and how it phrases things. Look at the reporting on the Iraq War, an illegal assault on a third world country that had not threatened the US or American workers in any way. The same with Yemen, Vietnam and the horrific brutality the Zionist regime wages against Palestinians.

Anyone that’s been through a strike must surely recognize the extreme bias in the media reporting on these events. Workers on strike are usually painted in a negative light, not crudely as the Trump offensive does, but in an insidious dirty way through language and innuendo. I recall during the PATCO strike that Reagan smashed, a reporter interviewing someone at a small airport somewhere where flights had been held up, “What is it like being held hostage by the Air Traffic Controllers?, the reporter asked. No bias there is there?

And what about the workers that join the military due to lack of other opportunities or to get an education as public education is starved of resources and higher education is priced out of reach of working class youth? They are referred to as heroes, defenders of our rights and given some mythical warrior status. It is never explained that they are being used by US capitalism in its rapacious quest for profits and global plunder.  It is never suggested in their mass media that unemployment and the lack of opportunity is a conscious scenario that makes the military the best option for poor and working class youth. In this writer’s view, Pat Tillman died in Afghanistan because he was about to expose these lies. He was not going to be a useful recruiter for their predatory war that they thought. Tillman was a genuine hero and strong leader; he had to go.

A workers’ or genuine labor paper would also have a bias, it would represent the views and interests of the working class. This would conflict with capital as capital exploits labor; lives off it like a tic on a dog. There’s nothing immoral about having an agenda.  It depends which class that agenda benefits.

Mush of the US mass media is fighting back against Trump’s accusation that it is the “enemy of the people”. Trump’s constant undermining (albeit unconsciously) the system and its institutions are creating divisions among the bourgeois and their media.

"Our news team presents the happenings and issues in this community through the lens of objectivity. And like any true friend, we refuse to mislead you. Our reporters and editors strive for fairness." the Morning News of Savannah Georgia says in response to Trump’s assault. This is nonsense; of course they mislead people, that’s their job. To mislead, to divert attention to safer areas, to convince people we are “all in this together”.

The Fayetville Observer writes that "……we hope all the president's supporters will recognize what he's doing — manipulating reality to get what he wants,".

And some 100 media outlets have responded to a call by the Boston Globe (owned by the NYT) to publish opinion pieces about the dangers of Trump's accusation and to challenge them.  Some are arguing that he is encouraging violence against journalists and he is just as he has encouraged violence against blacks, women and immigrants.

The majority of the US ruling class would like Trump gone. But what can they do?  The Democrats are pretty much powerless as that party is complicit in the rise of Trump as are the heads of organized labor who have refused to defend workers interests openly supporting concessions and the attack on gains workers made over a century or more of struggle. The trade union hierarchy clings to the Democrats coattails in the hope of getting a few crumbs from the 1% that will keep the dues money coming in and their social positions safe. 

The political landscape is so bleak and has been that Trump could portray himself as some sort of outsider, as a champion of the working class and poor. Trump has applauded fascists, was endorsed by the KKK and the Nazis, has demonized immigrants, gays, the disabled and yet the big offensive from the Democrats is Russian interference in elections and possible campaign violations.

Trump’s working class supporters, and there are plenty of middle class business types that voted for him as well, know they are all liars. They see how they’re all rotten. Suddenly, government institutions that have served as the front line of offense against workers, unions, the poor and millions of disenfranchised people are now to be defended against Trumps insults. It’s no wonder millions of Americans have completely abandoned politics, have drawn the conclusion, albeit a mistaken one, that we can’t win, we can’t change anything. All politicians are corrupt.

In our Facts For Working People’s weekly conferences calls, we discuss this deepening political and social crises engulfing US capitalism. It is impossible to predict the outcome of it, how they will get rid of Trump etc. But there are some general conclusions we think are likely.  It seems very likely that the Republican Party will split and its quite possible out of this Trump could form a right wing semi-fascist party. He has the base to do it and a base that would supply money and significant voluntary labor power. We have also discussed the possibility of numerous candidates in 2020 including wealthy celebrities.

A split in the Democrats to the left also seems likely. Either way, the left liberal pro-market split from the Democrats or the Democratic Party as a whole cannot, will not, reverse the concessionary tide and the general offensive against US workers.  As Marxist economist Michael Roberts points out, “….global debt (including financial sector debt) has reached $247trn, nearly 250% of world GDP.” A New Global Credit Crunch to Come.  This cannot continue and US capitalism’s vast military war machine has to be paid for and both parties of capitalism consider it sacrosanct. The next slump will intensify the crisis of US and global capitalism.

Of course, as a last resort it could never be ruled out that Trump might have a nasty accident. US politics is not a stranger to outright violence in a pinch.

In conclusion I think there is reason to be optimistic given the strength of the working class at home and internationally and the multitude of movements arising in opposition to the capitalist offensive.  The recent strikes and protests of educators, despite subsiding at the moment is a game changer.

Optimism doesn’t mean ignoring reality. The working class in the US and internationally suffers from a leadership crisis. The union hierarchy defends capitalism and we have no political party of our own. In the US, despite numerous single-issue movements arising, there is no national formation linking up these movements, bringing them together in a united front against capital. Also, the ideology and influence of the petit bourgeois is very strong and dominant at this point among most sections of the working class. and their argument is for a fairer, nicer capitalism and more influence in shaping it for them.

This objective reality means that the road to the mass movement and a workers' counter offensive against the assault on our living standards and nature itself will be a rocky one. We are already seeing open struggles and clashes in the streets and this will increase as the capitalist class responds to opposition by organizing and promoting right wing, anti-worker, racist and outright fascist groupings.

Their first choice would be to be rid of Trump and a return to normality----for them that is. Normal racial tension, normal sexist divisions, normal xenophobia that sows division among the working class but maintains it within the framework of their institutions, their courts, their system.

Trump won’t let them return easily if at all. In one way, he has helped us. He has given the racists and the most backward elements of US society a voice and the confidence to use it. We can see them more openly now. So far they have been shut down, from Charlottesville to Boston where 40,000 drove a handful of fascists off the street they have been on the defensive, but that needn’t always be the case.  They are a base for Trump in the years ahead.