The media literally exists to generate ratings and page views and the revenue that results from ratings and page views. So of course it pushes whatever ratings-driven doomsday narratives it can latch onto...
....The mainstream media spent months chasing ratings and page views by insisting that the Arizona election audit debacle was going to cause unspecified “danger” or “damage” even though it was clear all along that nothing would come of it and zero minds would be changed.
Then on Thursday the audit nonsense ended with a whimper, predictably having no impact of any kind.
So what did the media do? ...[it] did what it always does whenever the public is finally about to figure out that one of its big scary ratings-driven non-stories isn’t real: it ratchets up the doomsday hysteria in order to cover its tracks.
The Washington Post, declarred on Friday that we’re suddenly in a “constitutional crisis” and that Donald Trump absolutely be the 2024 Republican nominee, and… well, you know...None of this is anything new.
– and once the audience is finally in a position to figure out that the narrative never was anything, the media covers its tracks by inventing a new reason why the audience should be scared shitless and remain tuned in. But at this point the media isn’t even being subtle about it.
The real shame of it is that if we allow the media to spend the next few years paralyzing us with doomsday narratives and keeping us glued to the screen out of fear, then we’ll lose track of the fact that we’re supposed to be fighting and winning – or even that we can win at all – and we’ll end up not putting in the work required to win.
These phony ratings-driven doomsday media narratives are not “vigilance.” In fact they’re the opposite of that. Vigilance is when you keep an eye on what’s going on, and put in the work required to steer things toward the best outcome possible. Staring paralyzed at a screen is how you lose elections, because it means you’re not out there convincing people to support and vote for your side.