Murdoch’s WSJ and the Myth of Lost Trust

This is the most hilarious shit I’ve seen in a long time. Rupert Murdoch – he who has single-handedly helped to steer the US, UK, and Australia to the hard right to the benefit of their super-wealthy elites and the detriment of regular folks, owns the famously anti-elitist blue collar newspaper, the Wall Street Journal.

A key part of the Murdochian assault on civil societies in Anglophone countries throughout the world is the substitution of fear and hatred for facts. It’s why all three of the aforementioned countries have taken such detours into the fever swamps of the far-right, complete with all sorts of various and sundry paranoias. Hatred and fear of immigrants and immigration is a common denominator in the countries whose civic discourse has fallen to unplumbable depths thanks to Murdoch.

So, the hysteria du jour has to do with drone sightings, especially in New Jersey. Chances are pretty good that it’s nothing to be all that concerned about, and that a lot of people own drones and a lot of times people are mistaking airplanes for drones. Whatever it is, it’s now a thing and it has gone so far as to become another Q-Anon-adjacent conspiracy theory about an alien invasion or maybe Iranian malevolence. Iran, which couldn’t protect its proxies in Lebanon or Syria is supposedly technologically astute enough to – what, to fly drones over suburban New Jersey and then do nothing for some unknown reason.

But Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal knows who’s really to blame. Brandon.

The Biden Administration has squandered its credibility to the point that it’s rational not to believe what it says. Remember the Chinese spy balloon that traveled across the continental U.S.? The Administration downplayed its importance while it was courting better relations with Beijing, only to shoot it down over the Atlantic Ocean. It also downplayed Rep. Mike Turner’s warning, based on solid intelligence, about the danger from a potential Russian nuclear blast in space.

The Administration failed for months to be candid about its migrant flights from the border to the U.S. interior. And for months it covered up the truth about President Biden’s declining mental and physical fitness, only to have it exposed in a debate. The government’s attempt to censor alternative views about Covid shutdowns during the Trump Administration also spread mistrust. The more Americans don’t trust their government, the more panic or protests are possible.

It would be funny if we hadn’t just – as a country – re-elected one of the most untrustworthy hucksters ever to be chief executive. Chinese Spy Balloon, Migrant Influx, Biden’s fitness, Covid misinformation, Russian nuclear blast that wasn’t – it’s a fucking hit parade of right-wing scaremongering from the last four years.

The only thing missing here has to do with Hunter Biden and his corrupt ties to Ukranian energy company Burisma. You know why it’s missing? Because the right-wing scaremonger machine’s 8-year-long effort to discredit Biden through his last surviving son turned out to be a big lie, just like the idea that Trump actually won in 2020 or that the January 6, 2021 insurrection was just a friendly and happy outing.

But the American right would never admit that its neverending divebombing of bullshit might have contributed to Americans’ distrust of government.

The American right wing is definitely in its ascendancy despite everyone’s efforts to return to reality and normality. Trump’s re-election despite a booming economy is proof of this. If you’re wondering why the Democratic Party’s response to all of Trump’s novel incompetence and malevolence (see Hegseth, Gaetz) has been so quiet and poor, it has to do with the fact that we Democrats don’t know how to fucking deal with an Orbanist/Putinist coup that is slowly taking place right now. The levels and degrees of unbelievable bullshit that are emanating from the incoming Trump regime make any misstatement or miscalculation by the Biden Administration look like George Washington and the cherry tree by comparison.

Far be it from me to take the time to recount each and every one of the lies told by the first Trump regime and campaign from 2015 – 2024, but for the serious people at the Wall Street Journal to try and suggest that mistrust of the government begins and ends with Joe Biden is just too funny.

And if you don’t believe me, I’ve got a wall that Mexico paid for, bleach injected to kill Covid, and a loving kissy-poo relationship with Kim Jong Un to show you.