The Guardrails Are Already Crumpling
The Guardrails Are Already Crumpling
Jeff Bezos’s decision to pull a Washington Post endorsement of Harris is foreboding. But not necessarily for the reasons you think.
People, especially Republicans, love to talk about the "mainstream media". That term needs to die.
There is only "billionaire media" and "independent media".
You're billionaire media if your owned or funded by a billionaire; I don't care if you're only on YouTube, if you're getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from sponsors, you're part of the billionaire media.
If you're funded by a bunch of small donations or have no funding at all, then you are independent media.
Today my trust for billionaire media sank even lower.
I like this term, "billionaire media", because right-wing media likes to use "mainstream media" as a slur to dismiss any other media source that disagrees with them. It's a term that shuts down thinking and gets people to automatically dismiss any claim from "mainstream media".
"Billionaire media" doesn't really work this way, because if Fox News starts criticizing "billionaire media", eventually some viewers are going to wake up and realize, "wait, isn't Fox News owned by a billionaire too?"
Pierre Poilievre is going to do the same in Canada, too. He's been threatening to defund the CBC (Canada BBC, basically). And our current PM, Trudeau, is reviled by so many Canadians that he's unelectable, so the Cons are going to cruise to an easy majority next year.
It sucks knowing that the country is going to be in a worse place 5 years from now but being unable to do anything about it. At least the US has a 50-50 shot of coming out okay, if the polls are to be believed. (I'm more optimistic about the actual election results, personally, but very concerned about a coup/civil unrest of some sort.)
Attacks on the press are attacks on democracy, and the Canadian press is crumbling.
The rise of Poilievre is very depressing because of what it reveals about the Canadian people.
What's wrong with Trudeau?
Nothing, as far as I can tell, but political opponents have been running attack ads and blaming him for everything that's gone wrong in the local (and global, for that matter) economy for the last decade.
I think he did amazingly well in the Trump presidency threading the needle of not giving in to Trump but also not antagonizing him, so Canada had limited personal vendettas and attacks from Trump.
He's very articulate and careful with his words, and his pauses to think carefully about wording are seen as a lack of confidence. And, granted, it does make him a less inspiring/exciting/dynamic speaker.
Contrast that with Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Cons, who's not at all worried about offending minorities and is constantly telling people how Trudeau has ruined everything, is ruining everything, and will ruin everything, for exemple by letting in immigrants, allowing schools to support trans kids (provincially controlled, not in Trudeau's jurisdiction), and for long medical waiting times (also provincial), etc. Literally everything.