Trump won … but wait, Albo just got another flight upgrade!

In Australia, where media disinformation rules, crazed despot Trump is equal to Harris and Dutton's hateful record is eclipsed by inane trivia to propel him as a real contender for PM, writes managing editor Michelle Pini.

AMERICAN VOTERS have gifted the world a second Trump presidency.

Many of us are still coming to terms with the reality that our worst fears have materialised and yet here in the land down under, the idiotic obsession with Albo’s flight upgrades has dominated the news.

Aside from the horrific reality of Trump 2.0, the atrocities continue in the Middle East, Spain is drowning and the Crisafulli LNP Queensland Government is preparing to get “tough on crime” by locking up children as young as ten (which is already happening in the NT). Oh, and in case you missed it, overturning abortion is also back on the agenda up there.

Denying hungry kids and women’s rights with David Crisafulli et al

There is something wrong with our national priorities if we allow Crisafulli's LNP to prop up mining and development interests, and decide women's reproductive choices while denying hungry children.

Nonetheless, so far "down under" is the real news buried, that on the same day, the Roy Morgan daily bulletin announced:

'Coalition takes lead from Labor as Prime Minister Albanese deals with Qantas scandal’

Our traditional media’s ongoing demonstrations of ignorance and bias are not coincidental. They are the result of one-sided seeds systematically sown over many years. They are synonymous with a slow but effective recalibration of focus further and further Right until even the so-called parties of the Left are really centrist, or even somewhere to the right of that. And in order to stand a chance of getting elected or staying there for any length of time, if they’re not already doing so, progressive parties are required, on a regular basis, to demonstrate a commitment to neoliberal and otherwise suitably conservative positions.

From the onset of the appalling Trump campaign for re-election – one based primarily on fear and hatred, and fuelled by misinformation – our media has predominantly presented this as an ordinary, even natural development when nothing could be further from the truth.

How is a convicted criminal who incited a bloody coup, a sexual predator and a crook whose hate-filled speeches become more bizarre and incomprehensible each day, able to run for president of the United States? A man who regularly calls for the shooting of his adversaries. How can such a man be the best candidate offered up by one of the two major parties in the world’s most powerful democracy? How is it that this person is seen as a serious contender at all, let alone that he can be elected?

Trump is a sexual predator who is responsible for setting women’s rights back 100 years.

He is a climate denialist able to singlehandedly derail any progress on climate action.

Trump is a deranged racist, who appears unable to control himself long enough to get through a campaign speech without calling for someone to be shot or spiralling into insane rants about illegal immigrants eating everyone’s cats and dogs.

And he is a nihilist who will soon have his hands on the nuclear codes.

A second Trump term is not only disastrous for Americans, it is disastrous for the entire world and the future of our planet.

EDITORIAL: Trump won … but wait, Albo just got another flight upgrade!

Yesterday, American voters gifted the world a second Trump presidency.

Kamala Harris is no socialist and in keeping with the global swing to the Right, the Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyns of the world are quickly put in their place. But Harris is at least a credible politician who, unlike Trump, can make rational decisions based on facts rather than fantasy and would have at least saved women’s reproductive rights — until the next Trump emerged, anyway.

Yet from the outset, our media’s U.S. Election coverage presented both candidates as equal. Trump’s bizarre behaviour was frequently glossed over and even his most disastrous campaign performances were deemed to be successful.

And journos like the ABC's David Speers and Sarah Ferguson have taken the "sane-washing" a step further, displaying obvious satisfaction at his successes, cosying up to Right-wing Trumpists and even sharing disinformation as fact:

This is why Kamala Harris could never be elected. There are many things the Democrats could have done better, but in the end, a woman, a black woman, could not be elected U.S. president in a world where Trump's obscenely racist, misogynistic and psychotic ramblings are routinely presented as logical arguments.

This is how Trump got elected.

It is how Australia's working people are persuaded to vote against their interests, and the now-Far-Right Liberal and National parties manage to get elected.

It is how Dutton, who emulates Trump's divisive tactics, has surged ahead in the polls and is now a real contender for PM.

And it’s why the legacy media will continue to distract us whenever our attention is straying too far from the prescribed narrative.

None of this is news but this Murdoch-led political game is continuing and it is the truly terrifying part of our global political landscape.

And if you think this will not affect you, then look over there, Albo may have had another flight upgrade!