Anderson Cooper Wants Trump to Urinate On Your Floor
Anderson Cooper Wants Trump to Urinate On Your Floor
Don't retreat to your silo!
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper looked earnestly into the camera on his show yesterday and explained why his network had allowed former president Donald Trump to ooze on to the air and lie to the nation for an hour.
"Do you think refusing to let Trump come into your house and piss on your floor is going to keep piss off your floor?” Cooper demanded. “Do you?! Your silo will not protect you from trump piss! Here at CNN we understand the value of bathing in orange urine! That's free speech!"
Okay, maybe he didn’t put it precisely that way. But that was the gist. If you don’t watch Trump from every platform all the time, you’re “staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with.” Cooper acknowledged that Trump again defamed the woman he raped, E. Jean Carroll, and spread election lies. He’s done both those things over and over and over, of course, but CNN had to let him do it again so that you would see it in your home. Don’t cower behind that chair! Get out there and let Trump upchuck directly into your virgin ears! Now you know! NOW YOU KNOW!!!
We’re constantly hearing these “You can’t handle the truth!” speeches from Very Important journalists and Free Speech Trumpeters who seem to think that the only way we can understand and respond to fascism is by letting fascists have every single platform they ask for anywhere on earth. We can’t defeat fascism unless we let fascists lie to us 24/7, all the time, from everywhere. Only by bathing in the bodily fluids of our enemies can we know them, and become stronger.
This is all nonsense of course. Trump has been belching forth election lies for over two years now, and he’s lied constantly for his entire public life, which stretches back decades. He’s been constantly in the news for years; everyone knows who he is, and everyone who cares even a little bit knows he’s running for president. You don’t need to give him a friendly forum stacked with his supporters to understand who he is or what he’s doing. You don’t need to drown your living room in piss to know that you would like to avoid being pissed on.
Cooper has every incentive to tell his bosses that they’re brave truth tellers, and to tell his critics that they’re afraid of vigorous debate. But no one was enlightened or informed by that disgusting spectacle. Instead, the most direct result of the town hall is almost certainly that people Trump targeted—E. Jean Carroll, capital police officer Michael Byrd, moderator Katilyn Collins—are going to get a substantial uptick in death threats and hate from Trump’s minions. What benefit did we gain from watching Trump lie to us again that offsets that harm exactly? No one at CNN will answer that question. They’ll just keep repeating that having our living room smeared with excrement is good for us. Because, like Trump, they are full of shit.
Cooper set the terms of the argument, and people responded as if his terms made sense, but they don’t because the issue isn’t whether or not to cover Trump, it’s how to do it without handing him more of the unaccountable, free coverage he got in 2016.
To argue that we’re a bunch of pussies who can’t handle the truth is absurd. We’ve all been soaking in Trump’s and his minions’ and cult members’ garbage for some years now. Those of us the media are completely uninterested in—the minority who invest a lot of time in following news, particularly politics—have endured the most, but even normies shrink from the disturbing behavior and malevolent presence of Trump.
The issue isn’t whether or not to cover, it’s how to do it and not let him steamroll the journalists. No reference to Trump should run without mentioning that this man who wants back in the WH tried to overturn a legal election by inciting violence. What’s pernicious is the insistence on treating him either as a normal candidate or worse, giving him a situation that feeds his most destructive behavior and makes holding him accountable impossible.
Just for starters, to repeat what every sensible commentator has said, you don’t give him a live platform, where stopping the firehose of bs is impossible. And you most certainly don’t provide him with a claque of superfans who cheer as he takes a pi** on the interviewer.
Lawrence O’Donnell did a great segment last night on how awful Collins’ questions were—several, including the all-important first question, focused on Trump’s feelings. Why does he feel he should get to return to the WH? Did he FEEL he owed Pence an apology? There were one or two others similarly framed. These were simply invitations to monologues, and he obliged with gusto.
The most specific questions are best. You want to narrow possible responses, not offer a boundless field for filibustering. This also allows the interviewer to bring video and other refutations of his lies.
The matchup I yearn for will never happen: Mehdi Hasan and Trump.
I’m not a big fan of Collins, but to put her alone on that big stage with him was throwing her to the lions for its theatrical value.
O’Donnell also pointed out that the event and questions were developed over months in countless meetings. That they ended up with what we saw Wednesday night is appalling. The whole mess should be used as a blueprint going forward for how not to cover him.
I hope it will be used as such, but Cooper’s remarks show the usual blinkered perspective, self-serving and blaming the viewers somehow, and I fear the industry-wide arrogance and inability to look inward and question their own assumptions won’t permit the essential shifts we’d need to get responsible coverage that doesn’t help him as it did in 2016.
I'm exhausted with the 🍊 💩 invading my life since 2016.