Trump VS CNN

The battle lines are drawn and combat engaged in the epic battle between US President Donald J. Trump and the global news network, CNN!

I stayed up on the night of November 8, 2016 watching CNN reporters, analysts and pundits announcing early results of the US presidential elections. It was evident as the results began to favour the Republican candidate that CNN had not prepared itself for such an outcome! The shock and confusion on the faces and in the voices of CNN anchors was undeniable as the results especially from Florida, Michigan, Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania were called in for Trump. Indeed Trump’s victory was a slap in the face of CNN. Several CNN polls had concluded that there was “no viable path” for Donald J. Trump to reach the 270 Electoral College votes required for victory. CNN had paraded analysts upon analysts who touted similar conclusions. Any regular CNN viewer, who did not have a critical mind, would be forgiven for assuming the election was a non-event with a predetermined outcome-Hillary Clinton’s victory and the historical inevitability of a first female US presidency. Trump’s victory put paid to much political correctness however, not least the shaming of the pollsters, pundits, mainstream media and establishment politicians and insiders who had staked their reputations on the establishment worldview.

With Trump’s victory, and as he made an initial speech calling for national unity and reconciliation, I hoped all parties could call a ceasefire, and an effort would be made to re-unite the divided American people, but I was wrong. The battle was about to escalate to a war! To be fair to Trump, after his victory, he did not fire the first shot. The very next day after Trump’s victory, liberal protesters, many of whom had not bothered to vote in the election, were on the streets denouncing Trump’s victory. They seemed to have implicit support if not explicit instructions from outgoing Democratic President Barrack Obama and losing candidate, Hillary Clinton who urged that they should “make their voices heard” and “do the work of citizens” or words to same effect. From then on, the liberals, supposed champions of democratic virtues circuitously arranged electoral recounts using Jill Stein, an inconsequential candidate as decoy! They blamed FBI Chief Comey, Russia, fake news, and racism/xenophobic/sexism and other isms and actually tried to mobilise electors to denounce the mandates of their states. We are lucky the liberals did not succeed in frustrating the will of the electorate because I have no doubt that may have precipitated an American civil war!

CNN on its part, (actually CNN, Washington Post and New York Times principally but the whole of the “mainstream media” of liberal persuasion including Huffington Post, Politico and others as well) then declared war on the incoming/new Trump administration. Watching CNN since (and prior to) Trump’s inauguration became more or less a 24-hour inquisition, disguised and by-then mostly undisguised, designed to destroy Trump in the infancy of the administration! Trump, it must be said, often plays into the hands of his adversaries –with his spontaneous tweets, many of them controversial, unpresidential language and demeanour, occasionally mixed-up facts and at some point it was clear the new president was sensitive and emotional about the unrelenting attacks on him and particularly his wife, Melania and family. On the other hand, I think CNN/NYT/WaPo are also making a grievous mistake, at least in so far as regards their long-term credibility. I increasingly find it difficult to watch CNN! It has been clear since the campaigns that CNN is biased and partisan, and at least regarding President Trump and the Republican Party, it is undeniable that CNN is not an independent news media. No media that cherishes its long term reputation should put itself and more importantly, its audience in such a position! It has always been possible to argue that CNN was engaged in implicit propaganda based on some possible agendas. Now the propaganda is explicit and the agendas obvious. It is easy to deduce two or three central pillars underpinning CNN’s contemporary reporting-promotion of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) homosexual agenda; protection of religious minorities in Western societies particularly Muslims; and promotion of liberal political objectives in Western societies and all over the world. The only qualification to this three-point agenda is with respect to the protection of religious minorities-CNN typically concentrates not on Jews, Sikhs or Buddhists for example, but almost exclusively on Muslim minorities and does little or no examination of the fate of non-Muslims in Muslim majority countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa!

Back to CNN and Trump! It will be interesting as a political case study to see which side will prevail in this war between the liberal media and an outsider US president. CNN and its allies may have smelt blood with regard to one potential Trump vulnerability-the Russia issue, and if they are lucky and Trump has done anything particularly stupid, will do whatever it takes to escalate the matter to Watergate proportions. If on the other hand Trump survives “Russiagate”, I won’t bet against the destruction of CNN, or at least the long term erosion of it credibility and viewership! Trump has taken the unprecedented step of declaring CNN and its allies as “fake news networks” and enemies of the American people! Trump has another strategic vulnerability-establishment and congressional Republicans who distrust him and could turn against him if a major scandal emerges. And who have zero objections to the possibility of a President Mike Pence! Trump is perhaps aware of this risk and as his “campaign” blitz to Melbourne, Florida and (as his contentious but effective press conference the day before showed), his real defence is the populist base who upended the Republican establishment and voted for him on November 8, 2016. It is because of this base that Trump stays on Twitter to by-pass the political and media establishments and stay connected to his voters; and it is because of this dynamic that we will probably see President Donald J. Trump regularly on “campaign” visits across America.