The President’s Brain Is Missing
This past week, as I tuned in at far-too-frequent intervals to watch the news and updates from Davos, I continued to marvel at how the world is just sitting and watching this insane spectacle. The president of the USA gives a much anticipated speech about a policy brain fart initiative regarding Greenland, an announcement that could presage the destruction of NATO, and in the speech he gets the name of the country wrong four times! This isn’t a case of mistaking Nigeria for Niger: the topic of Greenland was the most important part of his speech, will he or won’t he invade??!! It’s like introducing your wife to your new co-workers at the office Christmas party, except you get her name wrong four times. People will start asking questions like “are you ok?” or “did you just meet your wife and marry her on the way over?”.
But in this day and age, it just gets reported and accepted, and this is part I really can’t understand. I realize that CBS News is now co-opted by Larry Ellison, and that Fox was always the communications department for the Republican Party (check out the texts in the depositions during the Dominion Voting Machines lawsuit proceedings), but for crying out loud, do I have to hear this normalization and sanewashing when I listen to or read Bloomberg? Michael Bloomberg is a billionaire several times over: his media empire could report Trump’s daily inanities, Truth Social posts and Air Force One “press conferences” and add crucial context such as “this is a lie” or “this directly contradicts what he said two hours ago”, or “these kind of ramblings are a sign of dementia”. So why doesn’t he? I honestly have no theory or movie in my head to explain it. As William Cohan said earlier this month on Pivot, “what’s the point of having Fuck You money if you don’t actually say Fuck You?”
I am so disappointed with Bloomberg the media company. None of what we are seeing out of the USA is normal, and will have a negative impact on the US and global economy. But they just report on it like reporting the weather or NFL scores. And Bloomberg the person, well it’s one big disappointment to see a powerful person choose to not be powerful when the times require it.