Karens - How's That Vaccine Mandate Political Payback Working Out For You?

amidwesterndoctor  |  One of the tremendously frustrating experiences I have had during my lifetime has been watching an amazing candidate run for president, be widely liked by the voting base because of their excellent track record in standing up for the working class, and then watch the media systematically torpedo each and every one of their campaigns. 

The only person I have ever seen who was able to address this dilemma was Donald Trump, as he took a rather unorthodox approach where he campaigned on the basis of the media being evil.  As a result, each time the media gave him negative attention it helped rather than hindered his campaign, and before long he was able to pull the mass media into a symbiotic relationship where it could not help but continually provide oxygen to Trump’s campaign.  

The upside of this approach was that it provided Trump with the freedom to advance populist positions that went against the vested interests of the financiers of the corporate media, something very few other presidents have done.  The downside of this approach was that it was incredibly polarizing, and divided the country to the point that the left was willing to force through vaccine mandates as a way of getting back at the right.  While it is important to advance populist positions that go against entrenched interests (and to expose the systemic corruption within the media), there was a tremendous cost to the political polarization this approach created we will likely be stuck with for years to come.

Something that is often not appreciated about the media is that their business model is based upon getting as much viewership as possible and to provide content that appeases their advertisers. For this reason, content that is critical of any sponsor is never allowed to air.  As a result most media programming is meaningless stories that do not challenge any vested interest and are emotionally hyped up as much as possible to antagonize the audience so that the audience is drawn into caring about them.

Given that the largest sponsor of the mainstream media is the pharmaceutical industry, it is not surprising that all news content aggressively promotes the pharmaceutical party line (the only occasional exceptions I know of are Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham).  One of the ethical journalists who has spoken out the most on this issue is Sharyl Atkinson, who in one interview specifically noted that she observed a variety of major changes occur in the media that coincided with her suddenly being forbidden from ever discussing vaccine safety concerns on air.

It is difficult to assign blame for the botched pandemic response to any single party. However, if I have to identify the key culprit, I would argue that the rigid censorship by the mainstream media, big tech and the academic publishing institutions was what allowed the insane pandemic policy is to march forward despite being clearly in opposition to most existing scientific evidence. In the same way that pharmaceutical corruption has gradually taken over the legacy media (the Gates Foundation for example frequently gives media grants to ensure their massages dominate the airwaves), these other media venues are likewise highly susceptible to pernicious influence, which is why independent media platforms are so critical moving forward.