MJ Akbar
DONALD Trump became the 47th President of the United States of America because he lost the election in Washington DC by the astonishing vote margin of 92.4 per cent to 6.7 per cent. You read that right! Trump won because he lost in Washington DC by an incredible 85 per cent. This statistic establishes beyond any doubt how far the capital of America has moved from America.
Kamala Harris was the candidate of the capital. She was a protége of the elitist monarchs of Washington DC, King Barack and Queen Michelle Obama, their smug pseudo-strategists who thought that any nominee could slide past any question on policy with a non-sequitur during a campaign of just 107 days, claim that they had done nothing wrong whatsoever in the past four years, and trounce a Republican speaking the language of garbage.
Kamala Harris was being nothing less than sincere when she told America that there was no need to change policy on either inflation or immigration since she and her principals were rich enough to live above the economy, and immigrants in their electoral calculus added to the Democrat vote. This campaign was carried out by cohorts in some of America’s most influential media. Donald Trump is not penniless either. But his mind lived in America, not on Heaven Avenue.
Distorted prism
This American election reminded me of Richard Nixon’s alleged motto: ‘If two wrongs don’t make a right, try three.’ Why? When we say we are watching American elections, we are wrong. We are watching Big American Media watching American elections.
This prism gets distorted when some powerful newspapers and television channels, following an agenda of self-interest, set aside objectivity and manipulate reportage or interviews to suit their preferences. This exercise in power has become a peculiar phenomenon of the golden eggshell between Washington and New York.
Big American Media is now a 21stcentury Moses. It talks to God, and then gives orders to followers on the route to its Promised Land, which is always on the horizon and never within reach. Its Ten Commandments are ten versions of a single commandment: Thou shalt obey because We know what is good for thee. Hellfire descends on those who dare question its lofty pronouncements.
When Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, refused to endorse either candidate, he was eviscerated because he had transgressed the Moses Line. Bezos spoke the “hard truth” when he wrote in his paper that Americans do not trust the news media because it has become too partisan. Members of his editorial board resigned; some 250,000 readers cancelled their digital subscriptions. They were the vanguard of the force which gave Kamala Harris 92.4 per cent of the vote. Bezos has been vindicated by the results.
Skewered coverage
Democracy works because voters keep their eyes open and remember pain. Free media is relevant only when it keeps its mind open. In this election, America’s most important news channel CNN was so skewered against Trump that it refused to believe its own exit poll which showed that 72 per cent of voters had become angry and distraught after four years of inflation. Fox News had similar numbers in its exit poll; 70 per cent put the economy as their principal worry. CNN was so consumed by bias against Trump that it spent most of its coverage on results night praying that its exit poll would be proven wrong. The Almighty is too sensible to answer prayers of the mighty. Unsurprisingly, foreign correspondents who travelled outside the sticky bubble were more accurate.
