Trump is a genius in one area: using the media to go viral. Fame or infamy, it goes both ways as far as he's concerned. I know we knee-jerkedly want to jump

Trump is a genius in one area: using the media to go viral. Fame or infamy, it goes both ways as far as he's concerned. I know we knee-jerkedly want to jump and blame Fox News (mentioned here in the toppest of the top comment), but the culprits are not just Fox News. Fox is terrible. But so is the rest of the 24/7 coverage: Did You See What Trump Said This Time was a refrain that began BEFORE 2016, as a candidate. I remember, anecdotally, pleading with someone, please stop talking about him, you're just making it worse. It doesn't matter how "horrified" you are, you're giving him free coverage. The numbers show that suffering news organizations like the NYT were resuscitated with massive subscriptions since 2016. MSNBC and the Washington Post might as well be "The Trump Post" and "MS Trump NBC" because it's all they talked about. Why wouldn't they, if it poured eyeballs into their bottom lines. The media dumbed us down LONG before Silicon Valley, Trump and the rest of the nightmare of the past years. Yes, algorithms made it worse. No, the popular (as in, seemingly upvoted) analyses here read like the world began four (or was it twelve) years ago and takes place in the Bay Area and Seattle. Some recommended reading material: Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky, which covers these issues back in the 90's, Matt Taibbi, a media critic, on YouTube "Rising" from The Hill, Useful Idiots podcast, and if you don't mind salivation and rants, Glenn Greenwald.