I've got MSNBC and CNN prominently displayed on my VW's satellite radio -- along with a couple of music stations, Classic Rock and Chill.
I'm a news junkie. Especially political news.
But today I listened to a lot more music than usual, because almost every time I tuned in to MSNBC or CNN they were jabbering on about Trump's morning tweet fest about "Morning Joe" host Mika Brzezinski.
Sure, the tweets were tasteless, crude, and sexist. Which isn't exactly new news when it comes to Donald J. Trump. Yet MSNBC, CNN, and other news outlets rose to Trump's bait in Pavlovian fashion, chewing over the tweets as if they were something actually worth talking about.
Which, they aren't.
The tweets are only interesting insofar as they provide an outward manifestation of the inner workings of our president's mind. Since we've had plenty of insights into Trump's dark, twisted, egomaniacal psyche, I really don't need in-depth coverage of these two tweets, which should be ignored rather than amplified.
OK, I admit that I'm giving them attention through this blog post. But I'm doing this because I want news outlets to stop talking about Trump's tweets.
They must require only a minute or two of his time. What Trump gets for that minimum expenditure of time and energy is hours of discussion on MSNBC, CNN, and other cable news channels (I refuse to watch FOX, which likely covered his Mika tweets also).
Why does this matter?
Because every minute spent talking about a stupid Trump tweet is a minute some news outlet isn't talking about real news. Such as, the Senate plan to kick 22 million people off of health insurance and decimate Medicaid, which would lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of people.
Oh, but Trump said some nasty stuff about Mika Brzezinski, so let's talk about that instead!
No, let's not. This Pete Buttigieg tweet explains why.
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