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Wednesday night, CNN lost a lot of respect and gained a new set of viewers when they hosted former President Donald Trump in a town hall, and I don’t know why. While most of the country has enough I.Q. points to see that he’s not only a sh-tty person, but his blue-collar, small business owner fanbase is also a group to whom he feels superior, he is still allowed to be seen, heard and gain notice.
Just a few days prior, Trump was ordered to pay a $5 million settlement because he was found to be liable for the sexual assault and defamation of E. Jean Carroll in a department store in the 1990s. His history of being accused of sexual assault by numerous women, even before he won the 2016 election, and sound bites of him saying, “grab ’em by the p-ssy,” were part of his ultimate demise, or were they?
Trump was ordered to pay $5 million, but for a man who notoriously files for bankruptcy so that he does not have to pay businesses he owes, I would not be surprised if he finds a way to weasel out of paying the settlement as well.
On that same townhall, Trump, a man who had just been found liable for sexual assault a countable amount of hours earlier, was still cheered on by a crowd of supporters who were not CNNs normal viewers, and in fact, that audience has lambasted CNN coverage, specifically on social media. Imagine a man who probably did not even have time to take a poo between his suit and the town hall, not only calling the female moderator “a nasty person,” but being cheered on by the audience for that response to her.
Why would CNN do this?
Because let’s be real. Do we really need to give racists a platform anymore? Where is the integrity? Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has no problem censoring marginalized groups that are fighting for equality, but somehow alt-right hate groups are allowed to flourish? It surely cannot be because these platforms are afraid of hate speech. Once banned from multiple social media platforms for his seeming encouragement of the Jan. 6 insurrection, Trump was eventually allowed back on those platforms.
As of May 12, 2023, Trump has not tweeted in over two years, but his account is active and has over 87 million followers. Trump supporters literally tried to take over the country. Trump literally has been accused by multiple women of rape.
Why are we still giving him a platform?
Hate and cancer have an incredible rate of growth and mutation. They both spread with ease and kill off any good in their paths. While they did not have social media in the 1930s, Hitler was still given a platform, still allowed to speak, still allowed to overthrow the government and take power, and people just kind of let him. I’m sure they all wondered what was the worst he could do, as if taking or trying to take over the government was/is not a sign of bad to come.
Shame on CNN and other platforms for continuously giving this man clout for money; is dignity for sale now?
