This should not go unnoticed:

I don’t know who needs to hear this but the president said “bullshit” yesterday on network television https://t.co/roeRHWcV6E

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) February 7, 2020

To be fair (as I always am to Donald J. Trump), the full context of use of a common profanity by the President should be presented. Therefore

We can take that home, honey, maybe we’ll frame it. It’s the only good headline I’ve had in the Washington Post. Every paper is the same, does anybody have them, because they’re all like that and I appreciate that. Some of the people here have been incredible warriors, they’re warriors. And there’s nothing from a legal standpoint. This is a political thing, and every time I say this is unfair, let’s go to court, they say, sir, you can’t go to court, this is politics. And we were treated unbelievably unfairly, and you have to understand we first went through Russia, Russia, Russia. It was all bullshit....

We then went through the Mueller report, and they should have come back one day later...

Wikipedia notes

Free-to-air networks in the U.S. can be divided into four categories:

Commercial networks – which air English-language programming to a general audience (for example, CBS);

Spanish-language networks – fully programmed networks which air Spanish-language programming to a primarily Latin American audience (for example, Telemundo and Univision);

Educational and other non-commercial broadcast networks – which air English- and some foreign-language television programming, intended to be educational in nature or otherwise of a sort not found on commercial television (for example, PBS);

Religious broadcast networks – which air religious study and other faith-based programs, and in some cases, family-oriented secular programs (for example, Daystar)

.

Each network sends its signal to many local affiliate television stations across the country. These local stations then air the "network feed," with programs broadcast by each network being viewed by up to tens of millions of households across the country. In the case of the largest networks, the signal is sent to over 200 stations. In the case of the smallest networks, the signal may be sent to just a dozen or fewer stations.

Most notably missing are Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. That is of no little import because as cable networks, they are broadcast on the basis of subscription services. Therefore, the Federal Communications Commission does not regulate cable networks.

Still, it wouldn't be wise for a host, or even a contributor, on a cable news network to begin spewing profanity.  But that is not what happened yesterday. The President of the United States of America, until at least recently the leader of the free world, uttered a profanity in the opening scene of his victory lap following failure of the US Senate to convict him of abuse of power or contempt of Congress. Moreover, he did it in context, denouncing the probe of the Special Counsel into interference by Russia in the 2016 election.

It's not as if Donald Trump's response to the Mueller probe is being ignored by cable news. We've heard, both in his own words and those of reporters, that he believes it was a "hoax" or a "witch hunt" and yesterday that "we went through hell unfairly." The President thus gets his point across and he does so forcefully, reinforcing his image as a guy who won't back down to his enemies- whom he defines as enemies of the USA.

It's a masterful strategy, demonstrating yet again that Donald Trump is not stupid and probably not deranged.   Cable networks which should know better- MSNBC and CNN- broadcast President Trump's message delivered with what appears to be righteous indignation- and without profanity.  He gets to have it both ways, with his supporters, disproportionately elderly, exposed to his storyline without being exposed to the crass language.

The public needs to hear the President's words, unsanitized. Reporting that Donald Trump used profanity, blotting out part of the word- as in "bull****," doesn't get it done.  He has said it, and he's President of the United States of America, president of the 359+ million people of the country.

Cable news networks could ignore the President's speeches entirely, which understandably they won't do. So they should broadcast all of it and treat Trump's use of obscene language as newsworthy- because it is. They do sometimes but far too infrequently (video from March, 2019).

To do less is to give Donald Trump a free pass. They normalized him in 2016 and repetition in 2020 likely would have far greater, more devastating, consequences.

<
Share |