The Simple Headlines Meant to Deceive Us
How the mainstream media keeps us blinded from reality
We feel the need to be informed. We seek news about what is happening in our communities, our nation, and the world. But, it’s so hard to know what to believe anymore. Yet, we still feel that we should have an opinion, because we are taught that it is our responsibility to be an informed citizenry that makes informed choices.
In our efforts to make sense of the overload of conflicting information that is presented to us, many of us feel pressured into choosing a side on every issue. There seems to be an underlying message that every issue is a moral issue, and the side we choose to take defines us as either good or evil people.
Dichotomous thinking is the propensity to think of things in terms of binary opposition, such as “black or white”, “good or bad”, or “all or nothing”. This thinking style can be viewed as the tendency to get stuck in either the thesis or the antithesis, unable to move toward synthesis (Linehan, 1993). In other words, dichotomous thinking is an “either-or” kind of thinking and not an “and” kind of thinking (Neuringer,1961).
Dichotomous information and judgments can be observed in daily life. In political settings, some people enthusiastically support politicians who give simple and dichotomous messages. Defendants plead either guilty or not guilty to the charges against them in the criminal court system. A great deal of simplified, such as “us-or-them”, “good-or-bad” and “useful-or-not” information is reported by the mass media everyday (Mori, 2006), and some people prefer this kind of news. (link)
The mainstream media frames far too many stories as “breaking news” —a new crisis that requires our attention right now. Actually, most breaking news only serves as a reminder of the chronic dis-ease that infects our nation—the dis-ease experienced when we willingly agree to the status quo narrative that is pushed on us, when in our hearts and our guts we know that there is more to the story, but a search for the whole story would open a Pandora’s Box of cognitive dissonances. Most of us don’t want to go there.
The typical westerner inhabits a mental universe that is completely divorced from reality. Atrocities are only committed by foreign states that their government doesn’t like. Propaganda is something that only happens to people in other countries, or to people with different political ideologies. Scandals are whatever controversies the imperial media choose to focus on and inflame. The actual things that are happening in our world don’t register. ( Caitlin Johnstone)
Reality is complicated and messy. Uncomfortable thoughts arise when we are forced to confront the brutalities committed in “the defense of Democracy” or in “supporting our allies”.
A closer look behind simple headlines is required to understand the whole of a story. An important question to ask when reading or watching a news story is, “Who benefits?” There is a reason why stories are framed to reflect a certain point of view.
. . . by diverting the public’s attention away from key elements of important, widely reported stories, establishment media minimize the stories’ deeper importance, distort what is happening, or otherwise encourage the public to interpret the stories in ways that fall into line with the interests of the power elite. (link)
An example of this is the media attention on the possibility (probability) of cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. This is certainly an important issue, as many of the most vulnerable people in our society will be affected by these budget cuts. The focus of the media is on Democrats vs. Republicans.
“Medicare, Medicaid — none of that stuff is going to be touched,” Trump said in a prime-time interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. “We don’t have to.” Trump’s promise clashes directly with the House GOP’s budget plan, which seeks as much as $880 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade. https://myfox8.com/news/politics/trumps-vow-to-preserve-medicaid-collides-with-house-gop-plan-for-tax-cuts/
Readers of the article quoted above may be left with the impression that President Trump supports continued funding of Medicare and Medicaid programs, yet acknowledges that the GOP has a budget planned that requires the funding of these programs to be severely cut. What’s a President to do? He’ll leave it to his fellow Republicans to pass “one big, beautiful bill” that will supposedly solve the problem.
The article mentions that the Republicans are concerned with finding ways to trim the budget without inflicting harm on the poorer constituents in their districts who depend on these programs. Message: Republicans do care about the welfare of the people, but THE BUDGET!!
The article also mentions that the Democrats are vowing to not allow any cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and acknowledges that the Democrats’ stance on this issue is more a less a moot point due to their lack of a majority vote, yet gets in a dig at the Democrats by saying: “Still, Democrats are fighting to ensure the process is optimally uncomfortable for Republicans, particularly vulnerable GOP lawmakers in battleground districts who could face a voter backlash if they support steep benefit cuts to social programs like Medicaid.”
This news story from Fox News (conservative-leaning) is framed in a way that leads one to the conclusion that (1) The Republicans are trying to do the right thing, and they do consider the poor people that might be hurt by budget cuts, but (2) they are responsible for presenting a budget for the nation; and (3) the Democrats are using this important issue to gleefully stick it to the Republicans. Message: It’s good Republicans vs. evil Democrats.
And if one turns to media outlets that favor the Democrats, they will find the same debate framed as the evil Republicans vs the good-guy Democrats.
This debate between Republicans and Democrats over the funding of programs for the poor is nothing new. Here’s a version of the same story from 2023: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/medicaid-chuck-schumer-debt-limit_n_63ed56a7e4b0255caaeffb68 and, here’s another example from 2019: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/12/18260271/trump-medicaid-social-security-medicare-budget-cuts
Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is making a big deal out of saying that the Republicans are cutting program funding in order to give tax breaks to the billionaires (which is true), but fails to mention that if he and his fellow Democrats really wanted to help the people when it comes to healthcare, he could have backed Bernie Sanders plan for Medicare For All.
Schumer insists that the Sanders bill would never be passed, and that is one of the reasons that he can’t support it. He is using the standard argument of Democrats for why they can’t seem to get things done — the Republicans won’t let them.
Of course, Republicans seem to have little problem in getting their own agenda passed, which is why the Democrats have continued to move more and more to the right.
The Democrats’ populist moment is over. Four years after then-candidate Joe Biden promised a public healthcare option, the PRO Act and a $15 minimum wage, the codification of Roe v. Wade, tuition-free community college, and an end to President Trump’s border wall, Kamala Harris is running on a xenophobic, anti-immigrant, business-friendly platform to Biden’s right. Not only did the Biden-Harris administration fail to deliver on all of these promises — they paved the way for the reactionary forces that Harris seeks to vanquish on November 5. The initial momentum generated by the Harris-Walz campaign is defending the status quo from the right, with little pushback — and in some cases full-throated support — from the left sectors of the party. (link)
While Schumer and others describe Sanders’ Medicare for All plan as smacking of socialism, a system they insist the people shouldn’t even consider, in a November 2024 Gallup poll, when asked the question, Do you think it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage, or is that not the responsibility of the federal government?, 62% answered Yes, it is.
Focusing on the fight between the Democrats and Republicans, on social programs and other issues, distracts us from understanding that these two parties are not concerned with acting on what the people want when it is in conflict with what corporations and billionaires want. The main concern of politicians is getting re-elected, and that requires big bucks from big business, a form of legalized bribery that the US has come to accept as simply the way politics works.
Big money happened. And that big money took over the Democratic Party. My party decided, “Well, you know, we could get some of that corporate money too.” The corporations were willing to fund our campaigns. Well, I can tell you that if you accept a corporate check, written on the back of it is the corporate agenda. And they cash the check, not you. And so that led to my party's abandonment of its populist values, its working class constituency, its values—economic fairness, social justice, equal opportunity for all—those are the populist values. And my party turned into a Republican-light organization. But the people keep rebelling. Jim Hightower
If a candidate receives a groundswell of support from voters (as Bernie Sanders did when he ran on a “healthcare is a human right” platform in 2016), the powers that be will quickly put him in his place.
So, who benefits from this rigged system? The elite class benefits. In the case of Medicare/Medicaid, the corporate executives will continue to reap profits from health insurance programs that deny claims while charging huge premiums, pharmaceutical corporations profit from billing the system for overpriced drugs, technology giants profit by writing the programs that doctors’ offices and the health insurers depend on, etc.
Medicare and Medicaid are expensive programs, making up a large part of the Federal and State budgets. Many studies have concluded that a universal healthcare system would cost a lot less and would result in better outcomes for the health of our people.
The United States is the only high-income nation without universal, government-funded or -mandated health insurance employing a unified payment system. The US multi-payer system leaves residents uninsured or underinsured, despite overall healthcare costs far above other nations. (link)
So, if the majority of US citizens want a universal healthcare plan, and such a system would save money, why do the talking heads of the corporate media not push back on our politicians with such an argument when interviewing them? This issue is only framed as a debate topic between Republicans and Democrats; the possibility of getting rid of the system and moving towards universal healthcare is not even brought up anymore.
This is an example of dichotomous thinking. Healthcare is “either/or”, that’s it. Pick the lesser of two evils, that’s the situation that we, the people, always seem to find ourselves in.
One American citizen drastically took the situation into his own hands. As a CEO is shot dead in the street, and homeless, ill people die in the street, the mainstream media reports on the never-ending debate about budget cuts to an already fatally wounded Medicare/Medicaid system, as though somehow, miraculously, this time all that hot air will make a difference.
Meanwhile, a budget cut that would truly be advantageous to the people of the United States, would be the Pentagon’s yearly allotment of billions of dollars.
Critically, the Pentagon, which only became legally obligated to complete audits in 2018, has never passed one. Furthermore, it was unable to sufficiently document 63% of its almost $4 trillion in assets last year. And yet, the chronically runaway Pentagon budget is only slated to grow. Namely, the 2025 defense budget’s expected to sit at just over $833 billion, which, while less than the originally proposed $849.8 billion budget, is still about $8.6 billion more than the current one. (link)
And, while the media talking heads report from one side of the mouth on this failure of the Pentagon to account for trillions of dollars in assets, the other side of the mouth warns us of the necessity of keeping the US military on the offensive. Adding to the military budget is an issue with bipartisan support.
This is the reality of the Top Gun world. It’s about political power, local influence, campaign contributions, strategic rhetoric, and mystifying the nation, way past the point of necessity or even our best interests. The system is, as they say in the military, a “self-licking ice cream cone.” Exaggerate the threat, get funds and systems to deal with it, and continuously recycle the need for more to Congress and the public. (Dr. Gordon Adams)
Who benefits? Those who Ray McGovern refers to as the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence- Media-Academia-Think-Tank) complex. “Evolving from President Eisenhower’s original warning about the Military-Industrial Complex, MICIMATT encapsulates a broader network of power that shapes national and international policies, which offers a comprehensive framework for understanding the intricate and pervasive influence of interconnected sectors on U.S. policy-making.” (link)
The public needs to understand that our elected officials are not the ones making the final decisions. More people have been forced to become aware of this, as they watch Elon Musk, a person who is not an elected law maker, closing down government offices, firing federal employees, and having access to our personal data via the IRS and various digital surveillance mechanisms.
Members of the public are placing a record numbers of calls to their representatives in Washington, DC, as they recognize that this is not the way our government is meant to work.
And while this is a positive step (at least people are taking action), I believe that we are beyond the point when calls to the politicians in DC will make any substantial difference. Both parties oblige their corporate masters. Both parties have abandoned the working class.
The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults. We have been blinded to the depravity of our ruling elite by the relentless propaganda of public relations firms that work on behalf of corporations and the rich. Compliant politicians, clueless entertainers and our vapid, corporate-funded popular culture, which holds up the rich as leaders to emulate and assures us that through diligence and hard work we can join them, keep us from seeing the truth. (link)
It is foolish to believe that the next election cycle, and the possibility of “progressive” candidates winning seats in government, will solve our problems. The so-called progressives toe the party line when told to. There is nothing progressive about a politician who pleads with the people to “vote Blue no matter who,” even when the policies supported by Blue are destroying our health, our eco-system, and our livelihood.
Here, again, an example of dichotomous thinking that the media blinds us with. It’s either/or. We have a two-party system that runs on capitalism, and that’s the only truth. Don’t even consider thinking outside the box.
I agree with Chris Hedges: Let’s Get This Class War Started.
Class struggle defines most of human history. Marx got this right. The sooner we realize that we are locked in deadly warfare with our ruling, corporate elite, the sooner we will realize that these elites must be overthrown. The corporate oligarchs have now seized all institutional systems of power in the United States. Electoral politics, internal security, the judiciary, our universities, the arts and finance, along with nearly all forms of communication, are in corporate hands. Our democracy, with faux debates between two corporate parties, is meaningless political theater. There is no way within the system to defy the demands of Wall Street, the fossil fuel industry or war profiteers. The only route left to us, as Aristotle knew, is revolt.
Join the revolution in some way. Even though calls to our representatives in DC may fall upon deaf ears, the people’s message is still being heard.
The billionaire class doesn’t do their own laundry. They don’t clean houses. They don’t unclog drains and toilets. They aren’t collecting trash. They aren’t burying the dead. They aren’t growing their own food, or cooking their own meals. They aren’t performing surgery or staffing emergency rooms or building homes or repairing roads. I always ask people to imagine what would happen if we all just took to the streets instead of going to work. The billionaire class would be pretty helpless.
We, the people, just need the courage to unite — to realize our power. Things won’t be easy. Changes will take decades. But, look into the face of a child, and understand that the fight is worth it.
Sadly, serious changes won't come without a serious fight.