In recent weeks, there has been a barrage of revelations that has compromised Trump. Of course, that is not new. Trump really is like a clown in a circus act that follows him around. And that circus has become the media - both allegedly friendly and unfriendly to him - which follows him around like puppy dogs, with the obvious desire to obtain ratings. Trump may be many things, but nobody denies that he is apparently a ratings winner. I admittedly do not understand why, because this man has, frankly, no charm or appeal. Yet, even his detractors - myself included - cannot deny that he receives attention (which is to say, numbers, or ratings) everywhere he goes, and with literally everything that he does.
Of course, this worked in favor of Trump for a long time. For a very, very long time. He was able to get away with bad behavior with his business enterprises, with his personal conduct, and eventually, with his political career. Seriously, can you think of anybody who has ever gotten away with as much as Trump has? Not only can I not think of a single example - and I mean in the history of the world that I know - but there is nobody who even seems to come close. Literally, I cannot think of any single person in history who got away with as much as Trump has gotten away with. Think about it: we are supposed to have a free press, and much of it has been critical and has exposed much - surely not all - of his wrongdoings. And he keeps getting away with it, over and over and over again. He was exposed as uniquely and historically unfit to hold high office, and he still "won" an election in which he received 2.7 million fewer votes than the candidate who "lost." Only in America. He continued engaging in criminal and entitled behavior while in office, and kept getting away with it. Then he lost an election, spread a massive lie which effectively convinced many people which reversed the results from him losing in a landslide to him winning by a landslide and getting cheated. He and his team insisted that they had irrefutable proof, but went out of their way not to argue "massive voter fraud" in all 62 court cases, and still managed to lose 61 of them, many of them with judges which Trump himself had appointed. Then he attempted what I feel was literally a coup d'etat, and again, he sure seems to have gotten away with it, once again. Sickening!
Still, we hear more and more news that should compromise him. Lately, we have gotten a glimpse of the extent to which his political supporters - both elected officials in Washington and prominent individuals in the news media who go on the air and support him - actually not only do not like the man, but privately despise him. Everybody from Ann Coulter to Alex Jones to Michelle Ingraham to Sean Hannity to Tucker Carlson, all actually have revealed that, privately, they are disgusted with this man and his conduct.
Well, here is yet one more. And it is none other than Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul and powerhouse behind FOX News, in all of their extremism. Once again, like with the others, Murdoch publicly seems to endorse Trump and his agenda. But privately? He has very strong misgivings which, once we learned of them, were very revealing.
What did Murdoch think privately? It turns out that Murdoch literally felt that Trump was going mad after he lost the 2020 election, that he was increasingly unhinged. Here is some of what we have only recently found out:
Murdoch sent an email on November 19, 2020 in which he wrote that Trump and his then attorney Rudy Giuliani appeared "increasingly mad" - a British and Australian expression for declining mental health.
He added that Giuliani was "encouraging and misleading him."
Murdoch went on:
"The real danger is what he might do as president," Murdoch wrote of Trump, according to legal documents. "Apparently not sleeping and bouncing off walls!"
"Don't know about Melania, but kids no help," Murdoch added.
As for the Big Lie of the claims of "massive voter fraud" championed by the Trump White House and his most loyal and vocal supporters? Murdoch did not believe them, even though you might never know that, given just how much Murdoch's FOX News seemed to air these arguments themselves, and seemed to do everything in their power to give wind to the sails of these boldfaced lies. In other words, Murdoch privately believed that they were nonsense. He (wrongly) predicted that Trump would eventually concede the election. He also wrongly assumed that, once out of office, Trump would finally fade into the background, something that simply has not happened. Certainly not yet. And in large part, that is because of Murdoch's own FOX News, of course. Here are some of the revelations of Murdoch's private thoughts about Trump in the weeks following his 2020 election loss:
Murdoch, in the new messages, said he doesn't believe Trump's election fraud claims, and predicts that Trump will eventually concede and the news agenda will shift.
"In another month Trump will be becoming irrelevant and we'll have lots to say about Biden, Dems, and appointments," he wrote to former Fox executive Preston Padden on Nov. 23, 2020.
That did not happen, however. Trump continued to cast a dark shadow over American politics long after he was officially out of the White House. And he continued to push the narrative that he had been cheated out of another term because of "massive voter fraud," and FOX News continued to air these views by Trump and his supporters.
Why?
Because Murdoch and FOX News were scared of Trump and his influence, once again revealing their consistent strain of intellectual and moral cowardice:
But Trump continued to deny the election results, and Fox News' guests and hosts continued pushing his stolen election claims to their audience. Executives in some messages expressed concern that viewers would abandon the network unless it echoed Trump's stolen election claims.
"Nobody wants Trump as an enemy," Murdoch said in a January 19, 2023 deposition.
When asked why, Murdoch said "because he had a great following, big."
"Seventy-five million people voted for him," Murdoch said.
What a disastrous shit show the King Con Don circus has proven to be. And it is to the detriment of this country, and indeed, likely, to the world more generally.
Let us hope that the silver lining to this very dark cloud is that we learn something from this, and most importantly, prevent it from ever happening again, once this political soap opera/comedy is finally and completely relegated to history.
Rupert Murdoch said he believed Trump was going 'increasingly mad' after he refused to concede defeat in the 2020 election by Tom Porter, March 8, 2023:
Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch told an associate he believed Donald Trump was going "increasingly mad" after the then president refused to concede defeat in the 2020 election.
https://africa.businessinsider.com/politics/rupert-murdoch-said-he-believed-trump-was-going-increasingly-mad-after-he-refused-to/fvr6r52
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