As I am sure most people know the IG report on Comey, the FBI, the Clinton emails was released today. This whole affair makes me sick to my stomach and I’m not following it very closely. But my phone buzzes. I pick it up and look at it (my computer programmer wife calls it machines training humans). A short blurb, first one on the report, saying there are reports the FBI said “We’ll stop Trump.” This sounds familiar. I go to Talkingpointsmemo (which is where I go to get most of my up to date news on this. I find this article (before the report is released). This isn’t new. I know this. It has been reported again and again. It’s not the FBI. It’s one agent sending a private tweet to another agent. There’s a whole lot of context. The agent who sent the personal text is trying to play to alpha male, which many men in an affair look to do whenever they can. But yeah, I know this, everybody knows this.
Then I think, this misleading headline of old news was the first new I, and maybe millions of people, got about the IG report. A lot of people aren’t going to be listening as closely going forward. The Washington Post used a misleading headline about old news to set a narrative. Then they partnered with Verizon to make sure millions got it before other new about the report came out. Trump is not the reason we are heading towards authoritarianism. He is just the vehicle. It could have been a hundred other people. How would somebody smarter be taking advantage of this?