Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

by Ken Carman
 The headline at the checkout counter read…
World War III (is coming) and Donald Trump Has a Plan That Will Crush All 8 of Our Enemies
 And the biggest suck up award to the Orange One goes to… the National Enquirer!
Inspection the National Enquirer!
 Well, considering the path Trump is dragging an unwilling nation down; “dragging” because a larger percentage didn’t vote for him, I suspect the first part about WWIII may be right, but all 8? Are we talking president or Superman? (Stuporman???) Some all powerful deity? Damn, I never knew Trump was the father, the Son and the Holy Spook come back to… reek… vengeance. (The Spook having been known to eat too much raw cabbage, well, the reason for the smell is self explanatory.)
 OK, we all know the tabloid rags have little or nothing to do with journalism. We expect these septic tank-like repositories for filth to print just that: wild claims, absurd assumptions and, in one case, the poorly cut out “picture” of an alien shaking the hand of whomever was the current president. I think that last one was The Star. Whenever we had a new president, for a number of years, you could expect Mr. Alien to reappear.
 I suppose the bigger, more focused, political skew to Enquirer was enabled by the elevating of Bannon; who responsible for publishing a race baiting, misogynist, promoter of fake, dishonestly edited, documentaries, rag: (not so) Breitbart. Now NE wants a piece of the presidential pie. Since CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, NY Times, and pretty much any other regular news organization, are supposedly “fake” and “failing,” something has to fill the huge humongous hole. Why not a propaganda source offering “news” that would have put a big wide smile on ole Joseph Goebbels’ face?
 I get bored at check out and used to read Time, Life when they were there… anything with at least a hint of substance. Increasingly pretty much all that’s offered is what, in Men in Black, was consider the trades, actual news. In that fictional universe it almost makes sense, not so much in ours.
 A few years ago I noticed the Enquirer promoted some of the most absurd conspiracy theories and claims on their covers; but so did other mag rags, indeed they had even more. What is a rag to do when being out absurd-ed?
 Pull down Donald’s pants in public, open wide and service him with glee, I suppose.
 You kind of get used to sneering headlines. I can’t count how many times the Clintons were about to divorce, go to prison, had cancer, were actually aliens in disguise with toxic plum juice that squeezed out of their nipples. OK, I made the last one up, but I swear I’ve seen as absurd headlines. (“CRUSH 8 enemies?”)
 Barack and Michelle, to lesser extent, received the same treatment.
 Now that Trump is in office The National Enquirer has gotten real good at trying to flip actual news, like claiming Trump discovered a Russian spy in the White House. (Discovered in bed with Tweet-o-lini by his wife, Melonoma, and 5 mistresses?)
 This goes way beyond the Clintons supposedly trashing the White House, or the Obama. Why would I not be surprised if they found out Trump hired exterminators to wash the black out they’d claim it was justified because Obama had the white washed out? Doesn’t matter if it was a lie. It serves the same purpose as blaming the Jews for every ill: real and imagined, did way back when.
 Another day the headline was classic Tweetler bully-ease: Hillary’s the Russian Spy! Pee Wee once used that tactic as a joke, “I know you are, but what am I?” It was marginally funny then, but this was not some joke: it was an attempt to distract.
 With an administration that collectively resembles one massive fumble, Trump going out of his way to appoint those who have conflicts of interest, and his passion for absurd conspiracy theories… well, it’s not much of a surprise that the paper that specializes in garbage spewing to begin with would adopt a Trump sheeple business model.

 ”Look over there! A distraction! Someone or group you can blame other than Trump! Someone, something to hate.”

 Unlike Men in Black, there’s no secret organization controlling some alien invasion. Though I’m sure, at some point, Enquirer might claim Trump started one and this is why we still need that wall. Maybe two?
 I can hear the PSA with lots of canyon-like echo…

  “Trump wall in SPACE, SPACE, space, space, space…!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

 Nothing’s off the table, not for Trump and especially not for a mag rag vying to be a Trump-ian version of both Pravda and Der Stürmer.

                                               -30-
Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 40 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks, and into the unseen cracks and crevasses, that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
©Copyright 2017
Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
all right reserved

By Ken Carman

Retired entertainer, provider of educational services, columnist, homebrewer, collie lover, writer of songs, poetry and prose... humorist, mediocre motorcyclist, very bad carpenter, horrid handyman and quirky eccentric deluxe.

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