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FIREWALLS OF IGNORANCE AND DISAPPEARANCE: CORPORATE MEDIA IN THE AGE
OF FASCIST POLITICS  
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Henry A. Giroux
June 21, 2024
CounterPunch
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_ Deceit, ignorance, and the death of civic responsibility now
function as the perfect storm enabling fascist politics. America is no
longer ashamed of its ignorance; it is now a matter of fondness and
serves as a measure of loyalty. _

,

 

If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the
people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing
the oppressing.

– Malcolm X

Bearing witness is a crucial marker of a responsible press and media.
It brings to light the unnecessary suffering and hardship of those
rendered voiceless and disposable, as well as the underlying forces
that produce such conditions. It also serves to challenge those who
“wallow in willful ignorance.”[1]
[//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_edn1] Shattering the lies
concealed by claims of innocence is a powerful weapon for holding
power accountable, making it visible and subject to exposure and
resistance. Bearing witness does not guarantee justice, but it
provides the awareness necessary to turn propaganda against itself and
mobilize people to function as a collective force of resistance.

The corporate media undermines moral witnessing by often prioritizing
the discredited notion of balance over the more crucial goal of
seeking truth in the service of accountability and democracy. This
retreat from holding power accountable not only discredits the pursuit
of truth in the service of justice and the strengthening of democracy
but also tends to fall prey to the seductions of corruption, political
theater and entertainment.[2]
[//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_edn2]

The dialectic within journalism encompasses what could be termed, on
one hand, a politics of erasure and distortion, and on the other, a
politics of moral witnessing. The politics of erasure is apparent in
how corporate mainstream media disproportionately covers Israel’s
aggressive actions in Gaza and portrays Trump as a conventional
political candidate rather than an authoritarian threat to democracy
both domestically and internationally. This erasure is also evident in
how far-right journalism consistently distorts the truth when
reporting on issues that conflict with reactionary conservative
politics.

Conversely, the pursuit of truth and moral witnessing is exemplified
by journalists from sources such as The Intercept, CounterPunch,
Truthout, LA Progressive, and other alternative media platforms. These
journalists engage deeply with critical social issues and consistently
hold power accountable. Despite their commitment to journalistic
integrity, these outlets are often marginalized within the media
landscape dominated by corporate control.[3]
[//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_edn3]

In what follows, I will comment briefly on how these two modes of
journalism operate. First, I will briefly focus on the reporting of
Scahill and Grim in The Intercept, which exposed how _The New York
Times_ and several other major newspapers underplayed the despair,
suffering, and death that Israel is brutally imposing on Palestinians.
On the other hand, I will examine how corporate-controlled media
failed to address historically, contextually, and critically both
Trump’s delusional ramblings and his clear and dangerous threats to
democracy.

Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim reported in _The Intercept_ that an
internal memo from the _New York Times_ “instructed journalists
covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the
terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid”
using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian
land…The memo also instructed] reporters not to use the word
Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to steer clear of the
term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza historically
settled by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of
Palestine during previous Israeli–Arab wars.”[4]
[//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_edn4]

Scahill and Grim also note that major newspapers such as the _New
York Times_, _Washington Post_, and _Los Angeles Times_“reserved
terms like ‘slaughter,’ ‘massacre,’ and ‘horrific’ almost
exclusively for Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians, rather than
for Palestinian civilians killed in Israeli attacks.”[5]
[//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_edn5]

This is more than mere style guidelines; it is censorship in service
of partisan reporting and moral irresponsibility. Instances of war
crimes, the horror of genocide, and the reality of Israel’s violence
against Palestinians are being distorted and erased. Critical of the
babble of balance, Scahill and Grim highlight the importance of
reporting on Israel’s savage war against Palestinians while making
clear that the mainstream press represses such reporting, enabling the
slaughter to continue.

 Rather than “hating the people who are
oppressed,” _CounterPunch_ is another truth-seeking media source
that has covered the war on Gaza in great detail, providing both
personal accounts of the suffering while placing the conflict in a
broader history and political narrative.

The punishing state now wraps itself in censorship, propaganda, and
cruel invective parading as a mix between political theater and both
sides journalism. Americans are bombarded with the babble of liberals
who are too cowardly to name Trump as a budding fascist or as a
racist, treating him as either a normal candidate or a bullying clown
rather than as a symptom of a deeper malaise of fascism, echoing a
pernicious and frightening past. Corporate media normalcy bias treats
Trump as simply another choice in the run for the presidency. Under
the false insistence on balance, Trump and Biden are treated as two
candidates with simply different views, rather than treating Trump as
a dangerous and unbalanced threat to democracy itself.

Meanwhile, the corporate-controlled press focuses on the release of
thankfully freed hostages and the unfounded charges of antisemitic
politicians, who use the guise of antisemitism to undermine free
speech and transform higher education into centers of indoctrination.
Almost no coverage is given to the indictment by the International
Criminal Court (ICC) of “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes
against humanity in the Gaza Strip.”[6]
[//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_edn6]  Bombs explode, and
blood flows freely over the bodies of more than 37,000 Palestinians,
including thousands of women and children in Gaza. Ten children in
Gaza lose a limb daily to war; according to the World Health
Organization some “citizens in Gaza are now reduced to drinking
sewage water and eating animal feed.”[7]
[//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_edn7] These horrors
disappear from mainstream news in their cycle of erasure,
misrepresentation, and politics of balance.

It is truly alarming to see and hear how Trump’s frequent lapses
into babble and gibberish are either ignored, barely commented on in a
serious way, or treated as normal. It has become uneventful in the
eyes of the corporate media to acknowledge critically that at his
rallies Trump substitutes meaningful discourse with oratory that
suggests he has “fallen off one verbal cliff after another, with
barely a ripple in national consciousness.”[8]
[//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_edn8] He has spoken
incoherently about sharks and electric boats in the same sentence. He
rants about Taylor Swift, claiming she is beautiful, but liberal and
that he is “more popular” than her. He has made cruel remarks
about Nancy Pelosi’s husband, joking about the violent attack he
suffered at the hands of a right-wing conspiracy theorist. He has
attacked Jack Smith and his wife. In a “bizarre, moment. Trump
called Pelosi’s daughter a ‘wacko,’” and referred to the
Department of Justice as “dirty no-good bastards.”[9]
[//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_edn9] Rarely do these
comments get the coverage they deserve in the mainstream media. There
is little commentary about how unfit he is emotionally and what the
consequence for the country might be if he is elected to the
presidency. As Tim Nichols noted in _The Atlantic_, Trump’s
delusional behavior should “terrify any American voter, because this
behavior in anyone else would be an instant disqualification for any
political office, let alone the presidency.” He further adds:

I am not a psychiatrist, and I am not diagnosing Trump with anything.
I am, however, a man who has lived on this Earth for more than 60
years, and I know someone who has serious emotional problems when I
see them played out in front of me, over and over. The 45th president
is a disturbed person. He cannot be trusted with any position of
responsibility—and especially not with a nuclear arsenal of more
than 1,500 weapons. One wrong move could lead to global
incineration.[10] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_edn10]

A dangerous right-wing firewall protects Trump and his delusional
ramblings and reactionary policies from being identified as a
dangerous authoritarian who poses a serious threat to democracy at
home and abroad. The cowardly politics of normalization shield him
from the criticism and exposure the public deserves. Additionally, he
is protected by a right-wing echo chamber that legitimizes,
propagates, and celebrates his lies, corruption, and criminal
convictions. They also lie for profit. But there is more at work here
than a politics of disappearance, there is also a relentless barrage
of lies and distortions. Thom Hartman refers to the dominant
right-wing echo chamber as “The GOP’s MAGA lie machine,” one
that represents “dark side of politics.”[11]
[//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_edn11]  False claims by
mainstream conservative media became more visible with Fox News’s
nearly $800 million dollar settlement with Dominion for lying about
the 2020 presidential election. Unfortunately, the distortion machine
continues with impunity. For instance,  Judd Legum recently reported
that the Sinclair Broadcast Group is engaged in a systemic campaign of
presenting misleading stories about President, which are then
distributed on a range of social media. He writes:

This month, Sinclair Broadcast Group has flooded a vast network of
local news websites with misleading articles suggesting that President
Biden is mentally unfit for office. The articles are based on specious
social media posts by the Republican National Committee (RNC), which
are then repackaged to resemble news reports. The thinly disguised
political attacks are then syndicated to dozens of local news websites
owned by Sinclair, where they are given the imprimatur of mainstream
media brands, including NBC, ABC, and CBS.[12]
[//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_edn12]

 Trump has transformed the Republican Party into a cult of morally
vacuous and politically maligned sycophants who are complicit in his
actions and cover for him. Trump and his followers live in a bubble of
deceit, hidden through a powerful and expansive culture of ignorance
and hatred. This is a party that spreads false and deranged stories
about Jewish space lasers, voting machines corrupted by alleged
Venezuelan communists, and Democrats who drink the blood of kidnaped
children, among other insane conspiracy theories.

The mainstream and right-wing media have emptied language of any
substantive meaning, turning it into a poisonous cacophony of lies,
bigotry, and deranged conspiracy theories. One crucial caveat must be
made. While Trump’s bizarre ramblings rightly suggest an unstable
and unhinged mind, this criticism should not but used to overshadow
his fascist politics and the conditions that have given rise to
Trumpism. The latter is a historical and political issue that cannot
be reduced to psychological language.

More to the point. There is more at play here than Trump’s
delusional ramblings. There is also his attack on the justice system,
his lies about the election, his role in the assault on the Capitol on
January 6, his history as a sexual predator, his support for Project
2025 and its planned subversion of democracy, and his history leading
up to his thirty-four felony convictions. While these events receive
critical commentary, they are rarely analyzed as part of a larger
program that supports an upgraded fascism. Deceit, ignorance, and the
death of civic responsibility now function as the perfect storm
enabling fascist politics. America is no longer ashamed of its
ignorance; it is now a matter of fondness, provides a sense of
community, and serves as a measure of loyalty.[13]
[//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_edn13] What does it take
under these circumstances for struggling to prevent democracies from
dying? What questions do we need to ask to rethink the meaning of
politics, struggle, and collective resistance?

How do we account for this dramatic refusal by liberals and others to
name and recognize the ongoing threat of fascism in the U.S.? What
institutions under the regime of gangster capitalism have surrendered
their educative, political, cultural, and economic responsibilities?
How has white supremacy, with its logic and politics of hate,
exclusion, and violence once again been able to define who counts as a
citizen in the United States? What conditions have allowed the
collapse of civic culture into a culture of commodification,
surveillance, and punishment? What will it take to develop a world
where democracy can breathe again? Where are the public spaces calling
for a revolution of values that challenge the war machines and
expansive militarized propagandistic cultural apparatuses? What kind
of mass movement is necessary to shift public consciousness and the
centers of corrupt politics in American society? How can these
questions be answered within a broader understanding of the connection
between neoliberal capitalism and fascism?

Where is the language we need to bear witness to resist the
country’s death drive while affirming the need for justice? How can
the language of compassion and solidarity overcome the discourse of
institutionalized neoliberalism, rancid individualism, greed, and
self-interest? Where are the spaces,  emerging institutions and
social movements that will create the conditions to say yes to justice
and no to cruelty, systemic racism, mass ignorance, and unfettered
greed? What will it take to cultivate a willingness to say no, and the
energy necessary to put our minds and bodies on the line for a future
in which our children can experience dignity, justice, and joy? What
might it mean to inhabit what James Baldwin called a “despairing
witness” and, at the same time, to be prepared to lose everything in
order to struggle for a world in which economic, political, and social
rights are guaranteed for everyone?

All of these questions pose challenges that need to be addressed given
the historical crisis facing the U.S. Baldwin never despaired of the
struggles and potential danger of being a moral witness, and his words
offer hope in the ongoing individual and collective efforts to be
strong, brave, and willing to continue the fight for a radical
democracy. His words are more urgent and powerful than ever:  “Not
everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be
abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again.” In the age
of emerging fascism, there is no other choice but to begin again to
fight the ghosts of a fascist past that have returned with a
vengeance.

NOTES.

[1] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_ednref1] Eddie S. Glaude
Jr., _Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons
For our Own _(New York: Crown, 2020).p.53

[2] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_ednref2] This issue has
been discussed in great depth by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman in
their landmark _Manufacturing Consent_. See also the work of  Jason
Stanley’s  _How Propaganda Works,_ and Robert McChesney’s _Rich
Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times,_ and
too many other critical sources to mention.

[3] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_ednref3] Sonali
Kolhatkar, “When Corporate Media Fail, Independent Media Rise
Up,” _Counterpunch _(June 15, 2023).
Online: [link removed]

[4] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_ednref4] Jeremy Scahill,
Ryan Grim, “Leaked NYT Gaza memo tells journalists to avoid words
‘genocide’ ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and ‘occupied
territory.’’ _The Intercept_ (April 15, 2024). Online:
[link removed]-…
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[5] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_ednref5] Ibid.

[6] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_ednref6] Jon Quellay,
“93 Nations Back ICC as Israel Faces Charges for War Crimes in
Gaza,” _Common Dreams_ (June 15, 2024).
Online: [link removed]

[7] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_ednref7] Cited in
Jeffrey St. Clair, “Whoops, They Did It Again–The Scourging of
Gaza: Diary of a Genocidal War,” _Counterpunch + _(June 8, 2024).
Online: [link removed]

[8] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_ednref8] Tom Nichols,
“Let’s Talk About Trump’s Gibberish,” _The Atlantic_ (June
12, 2024).
Online: [link removed]

[9] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_ednref9] Annie Grayer,
Melanie Zanona, Lauren Fox and Kit Maher, “Inside Trump’s
gripe-filled meeting with House GOP and his reunion with
McConnell,” _CNN_ (June 13, 2024). Online:
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[10] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_ednref10] Ibid. Tom
Nichols.

[11] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_ednref11] Thom Hartman,
“The Dark Side of Politics: The GOP’s MAGA Lie Machine,” _The
Hartmann Report_ (June 17, 2024).
Online: [link removed]

[12] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_ednref12] Judd Legum,
“Sinclair floods local news websites with hundreds of deceptive
articles about Biden’s mental fitness,” Popular Information (June
17, 2024). Online:
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[13] [//F1ACD847-EBDF-46A8-8352-4C44ADAEA7C7#_ednref13] Mark Slouka,
“A Quibble,” _Harper’s Magazine_ ( February 2009).
Online: [link removed]

_Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for
Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies
Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical
Pedagogy._

_CounterPunch is reader supported! Please help keep us alive
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is offered at no charge to the general public over the world wide web.
New articles, from an independent left-leaning perspective, are posted
every weekday. _

* corporate media
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* Fascism
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* Donald Trump
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