The Reaction

Yesterday, Trump retweeted some hate videos aimed at a religion.

This was sickening.   For one hour, this was breaking news all over the world.  People were interviewed.   The representatives of the religion targeted explained that they were shocked but not surprised.   They have long accepted that Trump does not view himself as President of all people in the United States, but only the right-wing minority.   They can only hope that the Republican Leadership can do something to end this tyranny.   Condemnation of the retweets was quick and decisive.  David Duke supported the retweets and cheered Trump.

And, then, after the first hour..............nothing. 

The hateful retweets were not mentioned in any newscast or in any webpage or in any search engine or it was very obscure.  Almost no one mentioned this on social media.   I mentioned a reference to this on my facebook.  It resulted in me having to delete one friend.   Other than that, most people didn't know what I was talking about.

It was as if media all got together and decided not to cover this.  Decided not to give him any attention.  Decided that covering this would only spread hate which is what he intended by the retweets.  Decided that all destructive fires need oxygen as fuel.

Decided that Trump is destructive and his oxygen is attention.  He can't survive without being the headline every day.  So, even if he is not doing anything, he creates a headline by tweeting something irresponsible.

I guess he doesn't know how to get positive attention.   That is probably legitimate.   However, responsible journalism is doing the right thing.  They are going to stop covering his stupidity.  It will be a fine line to walk because he is President of the United States.   (Gosh, even a year later, that is still hard to even type.)

But, the free press does have power.   This is the responsible way to wield this power.  Who knows?  Perhaps Trump might do something positive to recapture the attention which is as necessary to him as water. 

Behavior modification, and indeed common sense, tells us that a behavior can be extinguished by ignoring.   Nothing else has worked, this might have a chance. 

#IgnoreTheIgnorance


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