Tomgram: Engelhardt, The Trump Conundrum Pardon Me? Donald Trump is the Fakest (and Realest) News of All

Tomgram: Engelhardt, The Trump Conundrum
Pardon Me?
Donald Trump is the Fakest (and Realest) News of All
By Tom Engelhardt
Here’s the truth of it: I’d like a presidential pardon. Really, I would. And I think I deserve it more than Michael Milken or Rod Blagojevich or -- because it’s obviously heading our way -- Roger Stone (not to speak of Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort). Unlike the rest of them, I genuinely deserve a pardon because I don’t even remember being tried or know what I did. Yet somehow, here I am sentenced to what, if things don’t get better -- given my age and his luck -- could prove to be life not in prison but in Trumpland (once known as the United States of America).
Or here’s another possibility that came to mind as I was thinking over my predicament: maybe I can still use that old “get out of jail free card” I saved from my childhood Monopoly set. You know, the one at the bottom of which was written: “This card may be kept until needed or sold.” Well, I need it now. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work anymore, maybe because it was produced before financialization stopped being a kid’s board game and became one for presidents, presidential candidates, and those recently pardoned by you-know-who.
If only this were simply a game I found myself trapped in -- Trumpopoly. Unfortunately, it’s no board game, though I must admit that, more than three years later, I’m officially bored with the man who has surely gotten more attention, more words spoken and written about him, than anyone in history. Even if you included Nebuchadnezzar, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong, I doubt he would have any serious competition.
Honestly, who could even contest that statement, given that nothing he does, no matter how trivial, isn’t dealt with as “news” and covered as if the world were ending? When you think about it, it’s little short of remarkable. And I’m not even talking about Donald Trump’s non-stop coverage on his own news service, also known as Fox News. No, what I had in mind was the Fake News Media itself, regularly identified by the president as his major enemy. (“Our primary opponent is the Fake News Media. They are now beyond Fake, they are Corrupt.”)
He’s not wrong, if by corruption you mean the over-coverage of him. The truth is that, whether you’re talking about the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, or MSNBC, none of them can get enough of him. Ever. They cover his rallies; they cover his tweets; they cover his impromptu news conferences in the north driveway of the White House, often as if nothing else on Earth were going on.
“Cover” might not even be the right word for it, unless you’re thinking about a thick, smothering, orange blanket thrown over our American world.
Click here to read more of this dispatch. https://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176670/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_the_trump_conundrum/#more