They're Eating The Dogs Presidential Thread

[Memorex]

I can absolutely understand opposing a president on grounds that you disagree with policy. Fight about health care, war, taxes, etc. But to work so much against a president that was legally and fairly elected is criminal, in my book. Obama had people working against them, same with Bush, Clinton, etc. But it wasn't this.

You wanna see another civil war? This is how it's going to start.

For whatever people think of Trump, he is who he is. He's probably been the most honest about who he is that we have seen. And people saw that and elected him. They made their choice. If some deep state or some plotting behind the scenes attempts to take that away, well then we are in for a ride.

Frankly, I can't understand why anyone would want to be president of this country at all. It's a pretty thankless task. I never understood why Hillary wanted it. With all her money and the power based on her husband, it seemed like nothing but a headache.

At the end of the day, on all sides, our government has become so far removed from the people that it really may take a civil war to get it back. It is so incredible how hard it works against the citizens. Sad.

[slucero]

Trump's ascent is simple to explain.

It is the result of the failure of the Republican party to put forth a true candidate that represents its whole constituency. The Tea Party movement was never alt-right, it was a conservative grassroots largly middle class movement that the Establishment leaders in the Republican party saw as a threat to their control. So they joined the Democrats in subverting and minimizing it. Guess what.. didn't work. The pissed off folks simply found a candidate who campaigned their values and is now delivering on the campaign promises he made. Novel concept.

Hillary's loss is a result of the failure of the Democratic party to put forth a true candidate that represents its whole constituency. HRC has always been an establishment neocon (ironically more hawkish than Trump!). This is why she never appealed to extreme liberal or true conservative (think JFK) Democrats.

HRC was to most true Dems what Romney was/is to conservative Republicans. Uninspiring.

Trump is not alt-right inspired... nor is he the threat. Lest we forget, he was equally attacked by both Democrats and Republicans. Why is that?

For conservatives and liberals alike to realize what the real "threat" is would require a sea change in critical thinking in a country that now treats unsourced, unvalidated sound bite, Facebook driven media as the truth.

Governance is hard. It is supposed to be. It is the very reason the Framers made the Constitution so very difficult to amend. They KNEW that failing to force dialogue and consensus would only result in accelerated failure of the government being restrained. The last 100 years of American history has shown just how much the government itself will attempt to subvert and marginalize the Constitution (the very document that CREATED the government) in its never ending attempt at existence and omnipotence.

Every single politician (regardless of political party) who is first politician, then public servant, is guilty of this. But they not only represent us, they MIRROR us. It is "We the People" who equally share the blame.

This is all our fault.

The result is two morally reprehensible candidates who represent a country that has completely lost its own fucking moral compass.

[Monker]

Trump's ascent is simple to explain.

It is the result of the failure of the Republican party to put forth a true candidate that represents its whole constituency. The Tea Party movement was never alt-right, it was a conservative grassroots largly middle class movement that the Establishment leaders in the Republican party saw as a threat to their control. So they joined the Democrats in subverting and minimizing it. Guess what.. didn't work. The pissed off folks simply found a candidate who campaigned their values and is now delivering on the campaign promises he made. Novel concept.

First, the "Tea Party" represented a minority of the Republican Party. So, what you are saying is there was a failure of the Republican party to nominate somebody who represented a minority in the party who felt they were not being represented. That is true...but, it should also be expected.

Yes, the Tea Party backed Trump. But, he is NOT advancing their agenda. In the FIRST LEGISLATION he is trying to pass, TrumpCare, it does NOT have the support of the Tea Party. His other agenda items were advainced by executive order and congress has little say in that.

Republicans have a problem...they have a split party, just as they have for years. They are fighting against each other and all Democrats have to do is watch.

Hillary's loss is a result of the failure of the Democratic party to put forth a true candidate that represents its whole constituency. HRC has always been an establishment neocon (ironically more hawkish than Trump!). This is why she never appealed to extreme liberal or true conservative (think JFK) Democrats.

Trump said he wanted to "bomb the hell" out of ISIS, bring back torture, take Iraqi oil, etc. Some of his spoken foreign policy is going beyond being a neo-con and into being a dictator because it is illegal.

Hillary lost because the electorate as a whole was disenchanted with the election. More Democrats stayed away than Republicans. That is what happened. Trump "didn't lose" the election more than he "won".

HRC was to most true Dems what Romney was/is to conservative Republicans. Uninspiring.

Possibly.

[/quote]Trump is not alt-right inspired...[/quote]

If "alt-right" is Breit Bart, than that is bullshit. The birther movement that he LED was alt-right. He allows alt-right news to influence his presidency, from his insane comments about Obama tapping his wires to terrorists in Sweden. He IS alt-right.

nor is he the threat. Lest we forget, he was equally attacked by both Democrats and Republicans. Why is that?

He is a 'threat' due to his erratic actions, his random thoughts that are spoken as policy that Kellanne, Spicer and others have to explain and walk back. He is a threat because he has command of our military and has said he wants to bring back torture, allow nuclear proliferation, take Iraqi oil, and on and on and on. And, yes, he could be a threat if he is continuing to do business with Russia in a way that conflicts with his duties as President.

He is attacked by both sides because he says and does STUPID things. It's really that simple. He should actually be "attacked" more and be held MORE accountable for his words and actions.

For conservatives and liberals alike to realize what the real "threat" is would require a sea change in critical thinking in a country that now treats unsourced, unvalidated sound bite, Facebook driven media as the truth.

If you are implying the Russia thing, it's a FACT that both houses of congress are investigating him. It's a FACT that the FBI is investigating him. It's a FACT that it all started with the NSA hearing Trump people talking to Russians.

This is a serious thing.

So, now Comey is going to speak. Is Trump going to try to fire him when he says there was no tapping of wires at Trump tower?

Governance is hard. It is supposed to be. It is the very reason the Framers made the Constitution so very difficult to amend. They KNEW that failing to force dialogue and consensus would only result in accelerated failure of the government being restrained. The last 100 years of American history has shown just how much the government itself will attempt to subvert and marginalize the Constitution (the very document that CREATED the government) in its never ending attempt at existence and omnipotence.

Every single politician (regardless of political party) who is first politician, then public servant, is guilty of this. But they not only represent us, they MIRROR us. It is "We the People" who equally share the blame.

This is all our fault.

The result is two morally reprehensible candidates who represent a country that has completely lost its own fucking moral compass.

If you look back at American history, I don't think things are any worse now than they were 100yrs ago (which would be the start of WW1). You simply believe it is because you are living it instead of reading about it.

[Monker]

Trump wants to open up oil for example. The more oil, the more the price drops. The better for us, yet no oil company checks to stuff in the pockets of Washington to keep the price up.

First of all, the US has very little impact on the price of oil. The middle-east, OPEC, and especially Saudi Arabia has control of that. We have done more to lower the price of oil by consuming less oil than we do by producing more.

As far as "releasing" our oil. A while back I was talking to somebody who said that we have all kinds of oil wells capped off and not producing. Why? Because the price of oil was already low and we would rather dry up the wells in the rest of the world then dry up our own.

That's a better long term strategy then simply producing more oil now because we can. Trump has proven to me over and over again that he has a very simplistic mind that does not think very far into the future at all.

In the end it won't matter...we need to get off our oil addiction anyway.

Just one example, but again, Trump ran on the Repubican ticket, but he's in the center for sure. Liberals voters just won't let that "Republican" label go.

Look at his POLICIES. THAT is what is being protested....not his party affiliation.

Maddow was frankly the biggest liar I've ever seen tonight. That story will blow up in his/her face, when it does, he/she will move on to the next lie. Remember when liberals whined about talk radio going to get someone killed?

[/quote][/quote]

What are you talking about. Everything I saw was about Trump's taxes.

[Boomchild]

I can absolutely understand opposing a president on grounds that you disagree with policy. Fight about health care, war, taxes, etc. But to work so much against a president that was legally and fairly elected is criminal, in my book. Obama had people working against them, same with Bush, Clinton, etc. But it wasn't this.

You wanna see another civil war? This is how it's going to start.

For whatever people think of Trump, he is who he is. He's probably been the most honest about who he is that we have seen. And people saw that and elected him. They made their choice. If some deep state or some plotting behind the scenes attempts to take that away, well then we are in for a ride.

Frankly, I can't understand why anyone would want to be president of this country at all. It's a pretty thankless task. I never understood why Hillary wanted it. With all her money and the power based on her husband, it seemed like nothing but a headache.

At the end of the day, on all sides, our government has become so far removed from the people that it really may take a civil war to get it back. It is so incredible how hard it works against the citizens. Sad.

The reason that they are going to the lengths they are now is because Trump is an outsider and isn't bought and paid for by globalist elites. If anyone else that was running would have won we wouldn't being seeing what's been happening. As far as why Hillary would want it, politicians crave power. For them it's like a drug addiction. Once they get a good taste of it they crave it more and more.

[Boomchild]

Every single politician (regardless of political party) who is first politician, then public servant, is guilty of this. But they not only represent us, they MIRROR us. It is "We the People" who equally share the blame.

This is all our fault.

The result is two morally reprehensible candidates who represent a country that has completely lost its own fucking moral compass.

I think this a great assessment and totally agree with it.

[Monker]

Low producing wells that cost more to get oil out then they will make are capped, also we now have more refineries coming.

You're wrong...that is NOT what he was talking about.

Just one example, but again, Trump ran on the Repubican ticket, but he's in the center for sure. Liberals voters just won't let that "Republican" label go.

That is just not true. Your example is expanding oil drilling and production is the opposite of what Democrats want: to move off of fossil fuels.

Trump could fart and you guys would protest it and want him impeached.

That is not true. Look at replacing the ACA. He repeatedly promised that EVERYBODY would be covered in his plan. The proposal being debated is FAR, FAR, FAR from doing that. So, people protest because they do not want to lose their health insurance.

As for impeachment, that is up to the two BI-PARITISAN committees to judge. In fact, the Republicans control them. It is also up to the unpartisan FBI. That has nothing to do with the Democrats.

[Monker]

Thats exactly what I'm talking about. Maddcow tried her best to make a scandle out of it. She was a total liar.

What did she lie about, specificly?

I did not see her scandalizing anything. I didn't watch much of Maddow but she broke the story and was obviously excited about it. In the end, it just shows why we need all of the tax forms released, so we can see what is behind the numbers.

The only huge negative thing is the only reason Trump paid 28million in taxes is because of the alternate minimum tax. Without it, he was at 3.5% That is ridiculous...and one of his proposed tax changes is to remove the alternative minimum tax. Obviously, it should stay.

[JBlake]

Thats exactly what I'm talking about. Maddcow tried her best to make a scandle out of it. She was a total liar.

What did she lie about, specificly?

I did not see her scandalizing anything. I didn't watch much of Maddow but she broke the story and was obviously excited about it. In the end, it just shows why we need all of the tax forms released, so we can see what is behind the numbers.

The only huge negative thing is the only reason Trump paid 28million in taxes is because of the alternate minimum tax. Without it, he was at 3.5% That is ridiculous...and one of his proposed tax changes is to remove the alternative minimum tax. Obviously, it should stay.

$38M in taxes is what documents support as being paid. Trump has paid more in taxes then Sanders, Obama and the shoe-in hag Hillary. And the entire Maddow thing was nothing but a great big scandalizing bust. Some Dem lib media outlets are now reporting headlines such as "Trump releases tax documents before Maddow", which is completely false, unless you want to believe Trump sent them to someone in the mail as some Dem Libs are trying to say.

So Maddow has a Breaking News moment but doesn't elaborate on that for a while. Get's morons to tune into her show and then finds that actually Trump paid more in taxes then most. Maddow and the dem libs now run to the next bs with the conspiracy of Trump being who released the documents and that the tax documents Maddow has in her possession are not a complete set. Fucking wackos!

[JBlake]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksR9kfKbZgY

[Monker]

Thats exactly what I'm talking about. Maddcow tried her best to make a scandle out of it. She was a total liar.

What did she lie about, specificly?

I did not see her scandalizing anything. I didn't watch much of Maddow but she broke the story and was obviously excited about it. In the end, it just shows why we need all of the tax forms released, so we can see what is behind the numbers.

The only huge negative thing is the only reason Trump paid 28million in taxes is because of the alternate minimum tax. Without it, he was at 3.5% That is ridiculous...and one of his proposed tax changes is to remove the alternative minimum tax. Obviously, it should stay.

Sums up NBC "News" nicely. You could add ABC, CBS, CNN, ect to the list.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/535973616700 ... show-clips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd6QzG4KWgo

WHAT DID SHE LIE ABOUT? I'm not going to watch your stupid YouTube videos for something you can answer in one sentence.

[Monker]

Hillary clinton wanted it because she would rule over the DOJ and FBI, and have her AG under her thumb. Then her and Bill would rape the world through the Clinton Foundation. How's that doing since she lost....... AGAIN?

This is simply a lie. If the President has the FBI and AG "under their thumb", how is it that the FBI is investigating the Russia thing RIGHT NOW?

Yes, the President appoints the AG but the day to day operations are not under the scrutiny of the President. Clinton could have been investigated just as Trump is currently.

[Monker]

$38M in taxes is what documents support as being paid. Trump has paid more in taxes then Sanders, Obama and the shoe-in hag Hillary.

First of all, that was in 2005...what about 2015 and 2016?

Second, the amount is not in question. The effective tax rate is. At 25%, his effective rate is probably lower than yours.

And the entire Maddow thing was nothing but a great big scandalizing bust. Some Dem lib media outlets are now reporting headlines such as "Trump releases tax documents before Maddow", which is completely false, unless you want to believe Trump sent them to someone in the mail as some Dem Libs are trying to say.

I have not heard ANY Democrat say that IS what happened. They are saying it is POSSIBLE. And, it wasn't Maddow who first said it - it was the fat tax guy who received the forms...HE said it and then accused Trump of doing the same with other documents...which Maddow made him clarify was his opinion.

So Maddow has a Breaking News moment but doesn't elaborate on that for a while. Get's morons to tune into her show and then finds that actually Trump paid more in taxes then most.

So what? Good for her...she scooped a lot of people by getting a 1040 document on Trump.

Maddow and the dem libs now run to the next bs with the conspiracy of Trump being who released the documents and that the tax documents Maddow has in her possession are not a complete set. Fucking wackos!

He may have sent them...that is entirely possible. Remember he was the goofball calling up other media pretending to be some agent or whatever representing Trump and then saying all types of weirdly nice things about himself. So, I wouldn't put it past him.

The documents do not include the varoius schedules that describe where income is from and where expenses go. THAT is what people really want to see to find out his Russia business connections. So, yes, they were 'incomplete'.

None of this is LIES and none of this is "scandalous". Idiots.

[JBlake]

Roughly 10% to 15% of what I earn is taken from me to pay my Federal. I'm no where near having 25% of my income taken in taxes. Now maybe after I pay sales taxed when I spend my money may raise that percentage overall. Obama was only at 19%. Sanders was I think 24%. Trump paid more.

[tj]

Trump's playing the media, Democrats and government people like a master. He knows that he paid his taxes, but leaves the question out there so that when they do get stolen and released illegally, they show that he did and the people who have been harping on him for a year now look stupid. He will do it again and again with each year's taxes, Russia contacts, Obama wiretaps, etc. Give the critics enough rope to hang themselves and then release the "nothingburgers" to show how stupid and desperate to find ANYTHING on him they are.

[Monker]

Hillary clinton wanted it because she would rule over the DOJ and FBI, and have her AG under her thumb. Then her and Bill would rape the world through the Clinton Foundation. How's that doing since she lost....... AGAIN?

This is simply a lie. If the President has the FBI and AG "under their thumb", how is it that the FBI is investigating the Russia thing RIGHT NOW?

Yes, the President appoints the AG but the day to day operations are not under the scrutiny of the President. Clinton could have been investigated just as Trump is currently.

What you said is simply a lie, at least under Obama. The Clintons had no chance of being investigated under Obama's joke of a DOJ, or AG.

No, it's not a lie...you are simply clueless and do not know what you are talking about.

The President can not dictate to the AG what they pursue and what they don't. He can ask and suggest, but he can NOT force them to bend to his will. What he CAN do is fire an AG who is not doing what he wants, as Nixon did, and as Trump did...and when that happens, they put themselves under a lot of scrutiny...as both Nixon and Trump were.

The Clintons are not being investigated (by Obama, OR Trump) because most people are not burying their heads into tabloid journalism and believing every conspiracy theory they come across.

[Monker]

Maddow is busted. She was the joke of the day.

And, you STILL haven't answered my question about what she said that was a lie.

You're just all talk.

[Monker]

Trump's playing the media, Democrats and government people like a master. He knows that he paid his taxes, but leaves the question out there so that when they do get stolen and released illegally, they show that he did and the people who have been harping on him for a year now look stupid. He will do it again and again with each year's taxes, Russia contacts, Obama wiretaps, etc. Give the critics enough rope to hang themselves and then release the "nothingburgers" to show how stupid and desperate to find ANYTHING on him they are.

Bullshit.

What is happening is when things seem to go his way, Trump is a mast of the media. When things don't go his way, the media is against him and presenting 'fake news'.

Trump is a master of nothing. He just plods along, doing what he does best; being an asshole.

[slucero]

wow look at Monker post... looks like he finally got his pay stipend from the DNC...

[Boomchild]

Monker is lying, and Sanders was at 13%. Mr.Pay Your Fair Share must have taken every deduction he bitches about other people taking. Certainly he paid far less taxes then most people percentage wise.

Sanders like all of the establishment politicians are "do as I say, not as I do". In short they are hypocrites.

[Boomchild]

wow look at Monker post... looks like he finally got his pay stipend from the DNC...

[JBlake]

wow look at Monker post... looks like he finally got his pay stipend from the DNC...

LOL, isn't that the truth! It's either that or meth. Maybe a combination of both.

[JBlake]

Maddow is busted. She was the joke of the day.

Sesame Street's Big Bird is more credible than MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.

[JBlake]

Donald Trump’s private legal team is weighing a case against MSNBC and reporter David Johnston for leaking his 2005 tax forms on television this week.

As reported earlier Rachel Maddow stepped on a rake earlier this week by releasing Trump’s 1040 tax return form from 2005.

Rachel’s attempted hit piece enlightened the country that President Trump paid millions in taxes; he paid a higher tax rate than Socialists Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders.

The Hill, which is no friend of President Trump, reported last night that what Rachel did may be illegal – “Disclosing a taxpayer’s information without consent IS ILLEGAL.”

Now this… Donald Trump’s private legal team is weighing a case against MSNBC and reporter David Johnston who fed the documents to Rachel Maddow.

26 U.S. Code § 7213 - Unauthorized disclosure of information

(3) Other persons

It shall be unlawful for any person to whom any return or return information (as defined in section 6103(b)) is disclosed in a manner unauthorized by this title thereafter willfully to print or publish in any manner not provided by law any such return or return information. Any violation of this paragraph shall be a felony punishable by a fine in any amount not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.

I hope he shuts them down hard! Interestingly, so many left-wing media outlets are "reporting" that Trump himself released the documents before Meddow's piece aired in sort of a "beat them to the punch" sort of way. Totally BS!

I watched the Youtube video of Maddow's piece two days after it aired. Notice within the first minute of the shmuck who was featured on the show goes into talking about receiving them in his mailbox and that it is not a crime to release something publically that is received in "your" mailbox. Obviously this was done to cover their asses from the very start. They need to crack these bitches in two.

[tj]

Trump's playing the media, Democrats and government people like a master. He knows that he paid his taxes, but leaves the question out there so that when they do get stolen and released illegally, they show that he did and the people who have been harping on him for a year now look stupid. He will do it again and again with each year's taxes, Russia contacts, Obama wiretaps, etc. Give the critics enough rope to hang themselves and then release the "nothingburgers" to show how stupid and desperate to find ANYTHING on him they are.

Bullshit.

What is happening is when things seem to go his way, Trump is a mast of the media. When things don't go his way, the media is against him and presenting 'fake news'.

Trump is a master of nothing. He just plods along, doing what he does best; being an asshole.

And yet, for all of their attempts to get stop him, he won the nomination, won the election, is at 52% approval rating this week. Him being a master of the media and them being against him are not mutually exclusive. They are against him, which is fine, but he is using their blind allegiance to bringing him down at any cost to make themselves look like the petty whiners they are.

[Memorex]

This says a lot about our country - and this occurs on both sides.

http://deadline.com/2017/03/rachel-madd ... 202043860/

Maddow had her biggest night ever over that tax return. And she's been on air a long time. And I guarantee you most of those people wanted it to be bad news., Bad enough to ruin him. Imagine the psychology of that. It's so common now, it's hard to see how disgusting it is.

If I disliked the president, I can't imagine sitting around hoping they find bad news on him. Isn't it right to hope they find redeeming things about him? If this was Obama's birth certificate, shouldn't the collective nation that he leads be praying for his citizenship? But many people don't. Many people are begging for a Kenyan birth certificate. Why? Should we want our leader to be proven honest?

So this massive audience tunes in and our let down because it does not show Trump as a monster. It shows him paying more taxes than all of "their" leaders. Hope it was fun. I heard about it and thought, who the fuck cares? Create jobs. Don't go to war. Move the fuck on.

Anyway, good on this guy Maddow for the ratings jump.

[Monker]

And yet, for all of their attempts to get stop him, he won the nomination, won the election

Again, he won the electoral college but lost the popular vote. That is not much of a mandate at all.

is at 52% approval rating this week.

Not true...he is at a poor %42 average:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -5493.html

Him being a master of the media and them being against him are not mutually exclusive. They are against him, which is fine, but he is using their blind allegiance to bringing him down at any cost to make themselves look like the petty whiners they are.

Not true. In response to the tax form he was incredibly defensive in everything he said. He was not manipulative in any way. It's nothing but wishfull thinking to believe that he is some kind of "master of the media". He's not, he gets pissed off and goes on Twitter rants or blows up in other ways. That is the only strategy he has.

[Monker]

Maddow reached into her magic rabbit hat and pulled out Trumps credibility.

If Hannity, O'Riley, or Carlson pulled in the piss poor numbers Maddow is bragging about, Fox would ax their shows.

Maybe Carlson, but FOX will never fire Hannity or O'Reilly.

[Boomchild]

[Monker]

http://news.wgbh.org/2017/03/15/politic ... right-wing

WGBH News

Credit: CJR
MEDIA GUY
A Major New Study Shows That Political Polarization Is Mainly A Right-Wing Phenomenon
March 15, 2017
Dan Kennedy DAN KENNEDY
A major new study of social-media sharing patterns shows that political polarization is more common among conservatives than liberals — and that the exaggerations and falsehoods emanating from right-wing media outlets such as Breitbart News have infected mainstream discourse.

Though the report, published by the Columbia Journalism Review, does an excellent job of laying out the challenge posed by Breitbart and its ilk, it is less than clear on how to counter it. Successfully standing up for truthful reporting in this environment “could usher in a new golden age for the Fourth Estate,” the authors write. But members of the public who care about such journalism are already flocking to news organizations like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and, locally, The Boston Globe, all of which have experienced a surge in paid subscriptions since the election of President Trump. That’s heartening, but there are no signs that it’s had any effect on the popularity or influence of the right-wing partisan media.

The CJR study, by scholars at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, at Harvard Law School, and the MIT Center for Civic Media, examined more than 1.25 million articles between April 1, 2015, and Election Day. What they found was that Hillary Clinton supporters shared stories from across a relatively broad political spectrum, including center-right sources such as The Wall Street Journal, mainstream news organizations like the Times and the Post, and partisan liberal sites like The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast.

By contrast, Donald Trump supporters clustered around Breitbart — headed until recently by Stephen Bannon, the hard-right nationalist now ensconced in the White House — and a few like-minded websites such as The Daily Caller, Alex Jones' Infowars, and The Gateway Pundit. Even Fox News was dropped from the favored circle back when it was attacking Trump during the primaries, and only re-entered the fold once it had made its peace with the future president.

The authors of the study refer to their findings as “asymmetrical polarization,” and they point to some deleterious effects. The Breitbart-led sites were able to push the traditional media into focusing on Trump’s favored issue — immigration — and to frame it on their terms: overwrought fears about crime and terrorism. Clinton, on the other hand, was defined mainly by scandal coverage in the form of her use of a private email server, the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the Clinton Foundation. The authors of the study, Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris and Hal Roberts of Berkman and Ethan Zuckerman of MIT, write:

It is a mistake to dismiss these stories as “fake news”; their power stems from a potent mix of verifiable facts (the leaked Podesta emails), familiar repeated falsehoods, paranoid logic, and consistent political orientation within a mutually-reinforcing network of like-minded sites.

Use of disinformation by partisan media sources is neither new nor limited to the right wing, but the insulation of the partisan right-wing media from traditional journalistic media sources, and the vehemence of its attacks on journalism in common cause with a similarly outspoken president, is new and distinctive.

Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, writing about the study earlier this week, recalled talking with a Trump voter in Pennsylvania who said she didn’t support Clinton because “I didn’t like how she stole those emails and it got people killed in Benghazi” — a perfect storm of misinformation.

But Sullivan’s prescription is unsatisfying. “There’s another way that the traditional press has allowed right-wing media to flourish — by moving too far to the left itself,” she writes. Though it’s true that studies show most mainstream journalists are liberal, she offers little evidence suggesting that the situation has changed much over the years, although longtime media observer Tom Rosenstiel did tell her that there are fewer Republicans in newsrooms than there used to be.

Besides, in contrast with the partisan right-wing media, mainstream journalists are dedicated to the proposition that facts should be verified and errors corrected. Let’s not forget that it was the Times that exposed Clinton’s email habits — an overblown story that almost certainly cost her the presidency when FBI Director James Comey reopened his investigation on the basis of zero evidence barely a week before the election.

Then, too, the kinds of people who share stories from Breitbart on social media are politically engaged in ways that the average Trump supporter is not. But never fear: the right-wing media machine is there for them, too. The current issue of the National Enquirer features two front-page photos of Trump and the headlines “How I’m Cleaning Up Obama’s Mess!” and “Amazing Secrets Behind Triumphant Capitol Hill Speech.” (Also: Michael Jackson was murdered.) I would quote from the Trump story, but that would require me to read it.

What's at issue here is not just asymmetrical polarization but asymmetrical news consumption. The left and the center avail themselves of real journalism, however flawed it may be, while the right gorges on what is essentially political propaganda — all the while denigrating anything that contradicts their worldview as “fake news.”

Doing a better job of listening to criticism and being open to change, as Margaret Sullivan suggests, is always a good idea. But it is hardly going to give rise to a new “golden age.”