Glenn Greenwald on How Media's Trump Fear Mongering is Reminiscent of Bush Era Tactics

There's so many folks that are dependent upon these large institutions, whether it's newspapers or television shows or whatever it is, and they can't freely express their concern with the way things are going, because in many people's eyes that's insignificant compared to get Donald Trump out of office. So everything goes by the wayside. Get Donald Trump out of office. That's number one. After that we can concentrate on all those other things, but whatever you have to do to get Donald Trump out of office, save democracy. Someone actually sent me a message, someone I really like, and they sent me a message saying that they could get me an interview, but they want me to vote for Joe Biden. Come on, save democracy. This was the message that I got. And I was looking at this message, I'm like, what the fuck is, is there a virus going on besides the coronavirus? Is there something that's infecting people's minds and snipping wires and disconnecting trains of thought? What the fuck is happening? But guys like you, guys like Matt Taibbi, there's a few people out there that are sticking their neck out, and it gives me help. It gives me help that people are listening to you and people are reading your words and people are paying attention, and hopefully it's resonating. And hopefully some of these people that are doing this are realizing with shame that they're a part of this really disgraceful act, that they're a part of this cowardly way of thinking and not calling out all this shit. And if Joe Biden does get in office and they do see it declining even further and sliding even further down this disgusting trend that we find ourselves on right now, I hope they realize the error of their ways. But by then it might be too late. But here's the problem. Here's what's worrying me the most, which is instinctively, that is something that you can kind of put your hope in, right? Is to say, well, look, I mean, there's an election in a week or a few days, and all the polls suggest Biden's like, oh, to win. And once Trump is out of the way, a lot of this insanity is going to disappear and things are going to kind of return to some degree of normalcy. And here's why I don't think that's true. So many institutions are profiting. I don't just mean financially, but in terms of power and control from elevating fear levels over right wing fascism, over white supremacists, domestic terrorism, whatever you want to call it. And obviously, I mean, it's not doesn't take a lot of insight to observe that historically, the way you consolidate your powers, if you can put people in fear, during the Cold War, you make everybody fear that the Russians and the communists are coming to take away your right to believe in God. And everybody says, you know, build up a huge nuclear arsenal and don't use the money for our schools and our communities use it for, you know, the greatest military in the world and spy on everybody and whatever you need to do to defeat this existential threat to do it. Obviously, after 9 11, that was the strategy of the Bush-Shaney administration. It's the way they consolidate a lot of power by elevating people's perceptions way beyond what it was real of the threat of Islamic terrorism to allow them to do essentially everything they did. The same exact thing is happening now, which is people in media have had their careers saved. I know cable hosts who are on the verge of being fired because nobody was fucking listening to their dumb shows in 2007 and 2008 when all they were doing is talking about how great Obama was because who wants to listen to that? Trump, or 2015 rather, Trump was a godsend to them because Trump enabled them to elevate everybody's fear level and say this man who's coming isn't just another president. He's a grave threat to everything that's good in our lives. And it's not just him, but his entire movement behind him, hundreds of tens of millions of people who are racist, who are hardcore white supremacist, white supremacy, domestic terrorist. It caused MSNBC and the New York Times to explode with money. It caused the CIA and the FBI and tons of those neocon scumbags to rehabilitate their reputation and get back within the halls of power. Even if Trump loses the election, they're not going to just go back to now talking about Joe Biden because they know people are going to cancel their subscriptions and turn the TV channel again. They're going to continue to say not maybe Trump or at least his movement still pose this existential threat. You know, they're out there plotting to kill people and impose white supremacy. And it's not that it's not true. There's no, it's not like there's not a kernel of truth to it. There are people doing that, but they're going to inflate it wildly so that any questioning of Joe Biden, even with Trump out of the picture, is still going to be depicted as endangering American liberty, as helping fascism, as serving the agenda of the Kremlin. And the need for censorship as a result is going to be accepted by more and more people because of that fear that these media outlets and government institutions with whom they partner are going to be still instilling in people for their own benefit, for their own aim. Episodes of the Joe Rogan experience are now free on Spotify. That's right. They're free from September 1st to December 1st. They're going to be available everywhere. But after December 1st, they will only be available on Spotify, but they will be free. That includes the video. The video will also be there. It'll also be free. That's all we're asking. Go download Spotify. Much love. Bye bye. Bye bye.