[ncgl]

During dt's first term I believed this as well and eagerly awaited the Mueller investigation.

Then when he won reelection I concluded I was consuming media in an echo chamber.

This fear you're commenting on goes way farther back than dt.

Ballroom, mueller investigation, Benghazi, guantanemo, tan suit, parkland, Alex Jones, mission accomplished, 911. These all got airtime. Some longer than others.

You're commenting on the nature of media to fill silence with noise, and the expectation we place on the reader to triage the news.

[itsalwaysgood]

Biased newsfeeds are one thing, cronyism and flooding courts/weaponizing the judicial system are a different thing.

It could be the case that the level of cronyism and weaponizing we see today is the same amount as in the past.

It's up to the reader to determine how much of their opinion is due to bias, and how much is due to a real increase in nefarious political strategy. Some are more diligent about checking their sources that others.

[lo_zamoyski]

> weaponizing the judicial system

To be fair to Trump, he was the target of lawfare after his election loss in 2020, for instance. He claimed later that he would have vengeance. Not a magnanimous move, but Trump is not magnanimous. He has stated before that he enjoys destroying his enemies, with relish and verve.

In any case, when we fixate on one political figure or party, we lose sight of the general picture. In sociological terms, Trump is not very important. He is more of an expression of the times than their cause. He may catalyze certain changes, but he's hardly alone in doing that. In the broad sense, the general historical trajectory is not really deflected by him.

A wiser perspective is to look at broad trends. One should read Plato's Republic. The decadence of society described in that book - degenerating into timocracy (rule by honor), then oligarchy (rule by wealth), then democracy (rule by freedom), ending finally in anarchy - are a good context for understanding how these processes tend to play out.

[potato3732842]

Speaking of Mission Accomplished and 9/11, I recently watched Tucker Carlson's 9/11 series. I was expecting garbage but it actually did an amazingly good job building off of Fahrenheit 9/11 using the stuff that's come out in the 20yr since. If you take a step back the contrast does a really does a good job illustrating how just by sprinkling bullshit into the data the state, the media, etc, can do a sufficiently good job keeping people from connecting the dots or knowing what questions they ought to be asking.

Moore knew something stunk, but he was groping around in the dark in a totally different political climate less receptive to questioning authority.

[tremon]

What's the intention behind your second paragraph? It seems to suggest that the current political climate is more receptive to questioning authority?

[jayd16]

Why would losing an election mean you were wrong?

[cosmicgadget]

Mueller report unfortunately got way too little coverage.