Bernie’s Weekly Q&A (1/19)

Nikki Haley, Always Trumpers, Judge Judy, and more!

Welcome to this week’s Premium Q&A session for paying subscribers. I appreciate you all signing up and joining me.

Let’s get started:

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Hi John and Bernie. [This week’s No BS Zone] was thought provoking as always. I may be a little late to this revelation but it's starting to hit home--a number of folks close to me (daughter 55, senior friend in NC, 90 year old neighbor in CT) have just plain ole casually said they're voting for Trump. The common denominator among them is that they only watch Fox News. That is truly their primary (if not only) "news" source. Therefore they are getting "Trump Light" if you will. Somehow this common denominator is just frightening. So when you say what could Trump do to alienate voters, whatever he does is being "cleaned-up" or just not reported in this Fox News world. Scary. — Phyllis C.

From John: Hi Phyllis. Bernie and I have written a lot about this topic. Much of today’s news-media comes in the form of cottage industries that tailor their product and messaging to meet the emotional needs of a specific audience. Each of these outlets knows who their audience wants to be the hero and villain, what brings their audience joy and affirmation, and what triggers their audience’s outrage (to keep them coming back for more). Biases have been around forever, but there at least used to be journalistic and/or organizational guardrails that kept things from flying too far off the handle (at least with the big media-companies). But far too often today, the sky’s the limit.

As our friend Chris Stirewalt wrote a while back, “Americans gorge themselves daily on empty informational calories, indulging their sugar fixes of self-affirming half-truths and even outright lies.”

That’s why, when it comes to people’s perceptions of news stories, issues, politicians, etc., it can feel like even neighbors and friends are living on entirely different planets.

From Bernie: John Daly got it right. People who watch Fox all day or CNN or MSNBC get their opinions validated. So while we call them cable news, they’re not really news outlets. My first book, Bias, came out at the very end of 2001. The bias is far worse today than it was then. But partisans, be they left or right, don’t have a problem with bias, no matter what they say. They love bias. They crave it. And Fox and the others give the customer what the customer wants. This is business masquerading as journalism. And once again, the partisans could not care less.

Nikki Haley just picked up the endorsement of Judge Judy. No joke! This might sound strange, but going by how popular the judge is in our pop-culture (similar to Trump before he got into politics), I think this endorsement could be more valuable than just about any other we’ve seen so far in this election (not that it will necessarily be a game changer). Am I wrong? — Ben G.

Ben, my friend, you’re rarely wrong. We live in the United States of Entertainment, so an endorsement by Judge Judy will mean more than an endorsement from a lot of the Republicans who, in the last few days, hopped on the Trump Crazy Train. So, you’re right again, Ben — assuming, that is, that people who watch her show actually know an election is coming up and vote.

It is clear that the situation in Gaza is complex and difficult. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that a true ceasefire could be achieved if Hamas would release the remaining hostages. I still believe a majority of US population understands and supports the goals and objectives of the IDF. But after reading this article by Andrew Sullivan, I am fearing that the support may soon be waning, and that articles such as this may cause doubt. I don’t think that the majority of the US public will flip to “pro Hamas” anytime soon, but would love to get your (as well as John’s) perspective on how much of a stomach citizens will have, should this get drawn out… and how the 2 assumed political nominees will handle it leading up to the election. — Chris J.