General Discussion

People think the economy sucks because its all they HEAR and SEE and are TOLD.
The objective facts are that the American economy is in better shape than anyone else in the world, BUT...because we did not somehow follow up runaway inflation from the collapse of supply chains and the pandemic impacts with an equally massive and MORE destructive DEPRESSION and economic CONTRACTION that really would have been catastrophic, people believe nonsense and propaganda instead.

Elon Musk and others like Peter Thiel and the P2025 zealots have gained exactly what they wanted - a foolish, easily manipulated titular head of a neutered and mean government. To keep people's minds off of how bad things will get for them, they will parade around a host of "others" to blame and to promise that despite their own pain, the pain dealt to those 'others' is greater.

And people fucking BOUGHT it. Hook. Line. Sinker.

If you believe 'messaging' = lie to and manipulate, then I might accept your conclusion. But I have watched in horror as he media has continued to normalize Trump for 10 years and eviscerated two of the most accomplished and qualified women candidates ANYWHERE in the FUCKING WORLD at the same time - first with "her emails" and then with "her interviews".

The cold hard truth is obvious - Trump gets a free pass and women get beat down. It is not a fucking secret that in three elections Trump won twice while being abetted by allies attacking and denigrating women and lost to the only male candidate he faced. If Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris EVER said "They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there." their candidacies would have ended before the clips finished airing the first day... instead, Trump is normalized as he did more and more and more outlandish shit.

If the media and the pundits and the intelligentsia all conspire to give one person a pass and the other the riot act, I'm sorry, but that is NOT a 'messaging' problem, its a media problem and there must be consequences for it. I truly hope that every single network, newspaper, magazine and reporter involved in the last 10 years of politics and news coverage work for outlets that go bankrupt in the next 4 years. I hope they all lose their cushy jobs, expensive NYC apartments and cocktail party lifestyles and end up bankrupt and unemployed as a result of this catastrophe they co-authored with Thiel and Musk and the crazies.

Who knows, maybe one of them with have hidden writing talents and can write a modern retelling of Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" in the new depression United States of the 2020's that is coming like a freight train. But blame the messaging if you wish...its not like we haven't heard THAT before either in 2016...