JULY

**21, 2020**

Meyerson on TAP

Murdoch, Goebbels, and Trump

The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum has termed as "performative
authoritarianism" President Trump's deployment of the Border Patrol
and other federal agencies to Portland (the first, perhaps, of many
cities). That's a damn good description.

Trump is seeking to convince his followers that America's
Democratic-run cities (note: virtually every sizable American city is
governed by elected Democrats) are so plagued by crime and protest that
he "alone can save" them by deploying bash-'em-in-the-skull federal
forces. It stands to reason that he hopes his injection of what Nancy
Pelosi has called his "stormtroopers" into the mix will lead to scenes
of violence that the media will convey to his sufficiently credulous
compatriots. He may well have concluded that the only way he can win is
to convince America that a new civil war is sweeping the nation, which
requires him to stage a latter-day version of the attack on Fort Sumter,
while laying the blame on the inhabitants of the fort themselves.

None of this would be possible if our right-wing media hadn't long
been engaged in continual industrial-strength distortion of the news. It
has required outlets like Fox, not to mention Limbaugh, QAnon, and their
ilk, to all but create such "threats" as the New Black Panther Party
(Remember them? Even if they existed only on right-wing media?), link
them to liberal permissiveness, and thereby to whichever Democrats they
seek to bring down. Today, that Democrat is Joe Biden, in cahoots, if
you believe this garbage, with antifa subversives and every stray Maoist
in downstate Indiana.

As far back as the 1990s, I began using the term "Big Lie" to describe
right-wing media's depiction of reality, though some editors
discouraged that term since any usage that called up the horrors of
Nazism was considered an offensive overstatement. We've now passed the
point where almost any usage except Big Lie fails to depict the
conscious deception to racist and authoritarian ends that is the very
purpose of such enterprises as Fox News. Rupert Murdoch may not have
endowed a Joseph Goebbels School of Journalism, but he's effectively
re-created it.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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Will the Republican Party Implode?

The signs are increasing-but first we need a tolerably fair election.
BY ROBERT KUTTNER

Biden Must Bring an End to the Bush Era

It was W who gave federal thugs the authority to terrorize Portland.
Undoing Trumpism will require Biden and the Democrats to repeal Bush's
signature legislation. BY ALEXANDER SAMMON

How to Boost Voter Turnout: Require It

A new study looks at the advantages for democracy if voting is made
mandatory. BY BRITTANY GIBSON

Poll Shows Warren Better for Biden Ticket Than Harris

The key question has been which running mate will help him get elected.
That increasingly seems to be Elizabeth Warren. BY ROBERT KUTTNER

Unsanitized: Why Florida Teachers Are Suing the Governor

Also, the worst coronavirus relief idea yet. This is The COVID-19 Daily
Report for July 21, 2020. BY DAVID DAYEN

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