Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Taibbi says:
That's not a "self-fulfilling prophecy" unless you pretend that the media causes Trump to do things he otherwise would not do. If the risk of losing power prompts Trump to act like a dictator, that's not the media's fault.
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Actually, it is. If actions have consequences, then saying hyperbolic things all the time might result in extreme consequences.
I agree with you that it shouldn’t. In fact, I think freedom of speech should be so absolute that people should not suffer any consequences for anything they say (that sounds extreme, but it’s actually built on an intellectual argument I don’t have the time to set forth in detail here).
But that’s not the system we have. In the system we have, we have people throwing wild accusations at politicians, and now we have a crazy politician in office. So if this screwball turns into a dictator, to an extent, the extremists in the media bear some responsibility. So do the extremists in the media who said crazy shit about Obama, Bush, and the Clintons. He who engages in a “total war“ with his pen may get it.
I think Taibbi might be a bit hysterical, however, as he misses the most important point: The media as we know it is becoming increasingly irrelevant, at a very rapid clip.
