A Little President Learns About the Big World Full of Truthful News Beyond His Bubble
“Bubble Boy Disease” is a disease of severe immunodeficiency. The bubble boy would have been extremely vulnerable to disease if he came in contact with the outside world, the world beyond his sterile bubble. To survive, he avoided the outside world, living his life inside the bubble that kept him safe.
Donald Trump rage-tweeted at 5:30 am on August 28th about Google when he learned that if you Google “Trump” you get a lot of negative news about the 45th president. He was so angry he called for an investigation into Google. Not that Trump actually Googled himself. According to reports, he learned about the insult to his wonderfulness from a right-wing media source, PJ Media, that inaccurately claimed that Google was suppressing conservative voices.
There are good reasons why you get negative news when you Google Trump. Most of the mainstream media covers breaking news. And much of the breaking news connected to Trump IS negative. Trump doesn’t need to have an investigation to find out who is to blame for all the negative news about himself. All he has to do is look in the mirror.
Trump, a thoroughly narcissistic, thin-skinned man, is extremely vulnerable when he is not being applauded and approved of. The reason he loves the campaign trail is because when he is up on the podium, exhorting, making mean jokes, and riling up the base, he finally feels loved. This is why you do not want a malignant narcissist as your president. It is all about him all of the time. If his gigantic ego is not being stroked, he gets mad.
With the Manafort trial and Cohen’s confession and alliance with the SDNY and Special Counsel’s office, Trump reportedly spends his days and nights consumed with his legal woes but refusing to take advice from anyone who is not telling him lies, telling him sweet little lies. He is reportedly calling up his friends at night and yelling into the phone about the unfairness of it all.
As reality comes into focus in the public space, with the various trials and guilty pleas that are injecting truth where before, Trump and Guiliani have been pumping in the fog, MSNBC is moving up in the ratings. People want to know what the heck is really going on.
In the month of August MSNBC primetime viewership rose while CNN and Fox declined. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonifitzgerald/2018/08/27/cable-news-ratings-a-week-of-big-developments-lifts-msnbc-to-no-1/#2bb6c6058a0d
The hot news of Manafort’s trial and Cohen’s plea lifted Rachel Maddow to the top show rating for all of cable TV for the month of August for 25 to 54 year-olds. She beat Sean Hannity and every other show of the same genre. The rest of the MSNBC line up is also doing well. Chris Hayes, Lawrence O’Donnell, Ari Melber, Brian Williams, Joy Reid. All of them are breaking records. Even the daytime shows on MSNBC are experiencing substantial gains. Shows featuring Ali Velshi, Stephanie Ruhle, Hallie Jackson, Nicole Wallace and Katy Tur are all gaining market share.
Why is this happening?
I think that people are hungry for the truth and they are getting the truth from MSNBC with some progressive seasoning on top. That translates into hope.
When it comes to Donald Trump, however, he is the bubble boy, trapped in his own self-contained world. He lives in his sterile Fox News Right Wing Media bubble where he is wonderful and glorious and all is well. Trump will continue to live in fantasyland until the day he is either indicted, impeached or resigns. That day may be a long way away and will depend on the Blue Wave, but for most of us who read and watch the real news, it cannot come soon enough.