What Card Will Be Played Next?

I ask for the free press to inform me and what do I get?  Card games.

The Mainstream Media can't pigeonhole the news into a known framework and it's resulted in some very illogical responses.  I still don't see many of the Elites-Who-Intuitively-Understand-Everything-Going-On-In-The-Country actually trying to figure it out or question their own assumptions.  Nope.  What I see is attack after attack being made, usually in the form of a static, baseless, Ad Hominem statement that can only be called some kind of card.  Toss out a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card and hope for the best.  It doesn't matter if the card applies or not.

A helpful tip...

Tossing a card down in an narrative is done either 1) for purely cynical reasons, 2) due to personal or institutional projection, or 3) as a knee-jerk statement of prejudice.  I'm willing to give folks the benefit of the doubt and operate under the assumption that it's the first one most of the time.  No matter the cause, this leads to a credibility gap when it comes to the information we hear and the reality we see. 

And what happens when the card fails to work?  The media completely ignores their own statements and then just throw out another card.  They have done this so many times, I'm beginning to think they are just picking cards at random now, since they obviously don't know what is going on - therefore don't know what insult/accusation might work.  Treating each card as if it were a Joker - able to do whatever they want - is their current strategy and expectation.

Here's a few of the cards that have been played over the last couple of years (in roughly the order in which they were played).  Some are still being thrown down, but the older ones can currently produce laughter and other uncomfortable effects, so their use is becoming less frequent.  The card playing strategy of the media also seems to include the hope that people will helpfully forget any past plays made.

Those first three cards are an all-but-constant mantra, aren't they?  Some of these cards have been so over-played that they risk losing all meaning!  Which would be sad when they really apply - but that's the danger of crying "Wolf!" all of the time, isn't it?  The voice becomes first annoying, is relegated to irrelevancy, and then is totally ignored.  A quick look at subscription and ratings data are all too clear indicators that this slide to oblivion is happening.

Of course, when these cards fail to work and the incumbents lose big this November, I predict we will see some new kinds of cards such as those below (Indeed, they are already being played in some venues as early ballots are cast).  A focus on money has already begun, as has the groundwork for being able to claim that any election lost was 'stolen' - a very common practice by both parties.  All sorts of evil is being imputed to candidates, in some cases quite comically by calling people literal witches and Nazis.

It's really amazing to watch.  I'm wondering what they still have in their hands at this point.  Either they are going to have to start reporting (as opposed to simply tossing cards on the table), or we're going to see some really odd cards being played like "That photo was taken by a mythical creature - ignore it or it will eat your soul!!!" or something even weirder...  Who knows?


One thing is for sure: I don't expect the media to suddenly stop playing the game that they obviously are enjoying so much.  And I can't say that they aren't consistent.  They not only ignore facts when it comes to their reporting - they don't seem to have a clue about what is happening to their ratings and subscription levels either (or what that means).

Huh.

I guess the problem will self-correct once they go off the air and stop their presses...

But I'm against that - I don't think suicide is the answer for anyone.