The Real Culprit

 Jeff Zucker of CNN can't get out of the media soon enough for my tastes.  He is THE reason we have a monster in the White House, and that's thanks to the nonstop, fawning coverage he gave to Trump when Trump ran for president in 2016.  Zucker thought he would turn the very real world of politics and the campaign for the White House into a reality television version of The West Wing.  Needless to say, this backfired bigly, to use Trump's words.

More of my comments about Zucker are here:

Where is the Outrage?

It figures asshole kingmaker Jeff Zucker, the man solely responsible for this disaster of an election, would be invited by Trump to an "off the record meeting." Completely and totally unethical for Trump to have media people there.

President-elect Donald Trump's meeting with news anchors and executives from the country's five biggest television networks on Monday at Trump Tower included some of the biggest names in the industry.

C-Span's "elevator cam," which is located in the lobby facing elevators that go up to Trump's office, showed Fox News senior executives Bill Shine, Jack Abernethy, Jay Wallace, Suzanne Scott and Brian Jones were present for the off-the-record meeting.

This is totally unprecedented. However, lots of shit have been this election, especially by the shitbag media.

Zucker, Inc., or, I Am Not Making This Shit Up Why the Election Turned Out the Way It Did

And somehow I missed this piece from the WP from last month spelling out just why this election was a fucked-up mess.

The blame falls squarely on the media in general and Jeff Zucker in particular.

It was Zucker, after all, who as the new head of NBC Entertainment gave Trump his start in reality TV with “The Apprentice” and then milked the real estate developer’s uncanny knack for success for all it was worth in ratings and profits.

“The show was built as a virtually nonstop advertisement for the Trump empire and lifestyle,” according to the book “Trump Revealed,” by Washington Post journalists Marc Fisher and Michael Kranish.

And it succeeded wildly — boosting the network’s ratings, as well as Zucker’s meteoric career. In turn, under Zucker, the show gave rise to “Celebrity Apprentice,” another Trump extravaganza. And, in turn, Zucker became the head of NBC overall.

This is totally unethical and borders on treason against the United States. The media messing around with promoting a candidate, let alone one candidate to the exclusion of all others, is heinous because of the nature of the media and its influence on public opinion.

It crosses the line into outright propaganda.

Zucker WANTED Trump to win. So did the other broadcast/cable media outlets. And why? Because Trump was a big bucks/ratings bonanza while Hillary Clinton was not.

Now this country is fucked because of this asshole Zucker.

Zucker belongs in prison.

"The Biggest Day in Our History"

So bragged CNN head and election kingmaker Jeff Zucker, oblivious to the undermining of the democratic process when he and his "news" organization openly pimped for his buddy Donald Trump and created this political Frankenstein.

Zucker was bragging about how the ratings went through the roof election night, when popular vote loser Trump somehow got the EC. No doubt he is pleased his friend got the election and would be guaranteed sky-high ratings and billions in ad revenue for the foreseeable future. If Hillary Clinton had won the EC, she would have been lousy for ratings, and CNN would have to find another airplane crash to obsess over for the next four years.

Couldn't let that happen, could we?

Which leads me to a post I wrote elsewhere and will share it here:

If people want to know what happened in this election, they need to take a look--again--at the movie Network. Only Paddy Chayefsky could have written a script for this debacle of an election.

We need to put the blame for this disaster where it belongs. It is not the fault of Hillary Clinton. It is not the fault of the Democratic Party. It is not the fault of Jill Stein and Gary Johnson. It is not the fault of the Republican Party. It is not the fault of Putin. It is not the fault of Wikileaks. It is not the fault of James Comey and the FBI. It is not the fault of dirty tricksters like Roger Stone. It is not ultimately even the fault of the 59 million ignorant people who voted for this unfit, unqualified man. It belongs squarely on the American media, specifically CNN and its head Jeff Zucker. Without CNN, the candidacy of Donald Trump, which I believe originally was merely a way to further market his brand and not a serious candidacy, would have been treated as the Pat Paulsen joke candidacy that it was. It would have ended with the Iowa caucuses. There was no real groundswell of support for Trump among the grassroots until CNN and Zucker got into the act. Zucker and his network literally INVENTED Donald Trump the candidate.

Understand the purpose of a NEWS organization is to inform the public. The purpose of a NEWS organization is not to entertain. The purpose of a NEWS organization is NOT to promote the candidacy of ANY candidate, let alone one candidate to the exclusion of all others. However, CNN and Zucker did just that, promoted the candidacy of Donald Trump for months on end, 24/7, without any real critical analysis of him or his positions, shutting other candidates out, and all because Trump was seen by Zucker as good for the network's ratings and bottom line. Trump is also a friend of Zucker's.

What wasn't generally known during the primaries was the conflict of interest between Zucker and Trump. Zucker, who has no background as a journalist, went to work for NBC following graduation from Harvard, rising up the ranks. In 2000, he became NBC's president of entertainment. He was the president when Donald Trump had his hugely successful program The Apprentice. Donald Trump was a sure ratings winner. Later Zucker somehow got hired by CNN, a NEWS organization, not an entertainment one. He got the job in 2013 despite having no background in journalism. He was hailed by people at the network who should have known better. When his friend Donald Trump started on his quixotic quest for the presidency despite having no real qualifications for the job, Zucker thought giving Trump tons of free airtime would be great for ratings and great for ad revenue. It worked. For the first time in history, a major news organization was openly pimping for one candidate. The other GOP candidates had to make do with Fox News, but Fox and other news outlets ultimately succumbed to the Trump juggernaut created by Zucker and his network. The other GOP candidates didn't have a chance. CNN's actions literally undermined the democratic process. Trump's muddled message became even more and more demagogic, so it was inevitable that the Fox crowd of right-wing partisans would easily fall sucker to this message and take it to heart with a vengeance becoming as deranged as their leader. It turned into a messianic cult. The media abandoned any kind of civic responsibility toward the public.

And now we have this mess that may take years, if ever, to undo. Meanwhile, CNN's Zucker is just giddy because the ratings for election night were the best ever. He should be forced to resign or be fired. If I had any say, he would be charged and jailed for treason against the United States.

If Adolf Hitler had had CNN and Jeff Zucker, he'd have ruled the world.

Jeff Zucker, Even More Than Comey or Putin or Dirty Tricksters Like Roger Stone,

is responsible for the destruction of the United States of America with the "election"--not by popular vote--of his longtime buddy Donald Trump by creating a "movement" for him.

Remember, Zucker ran NBC when Trump had his TV gig, The Apprentice.

There was no real movement for Donald Trump at all until Zucker got into the hype once he took over CNN:
.

“It does so happen that Jeff Zucker was in positions during the career of Donald Trump where he had the opportunity to use Donald Trump to his advantage on the air, ” Robert Thompson, Director of Belier Center for Television & Popular Culture at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, told TheWrap.


“‘The Apprentice’ was very good for NBC,” he noted. “It fashioned and reshaped Donald Trump for a new audience, many of whom didn’t even know who he was when that show started… Now Zucker is at CNN and, once again, seems to be using Donald Trump to both of their benefits.”
...

This time, however, the stakes are much higher: The presidency. They are especially high for many of Zucker’s colleagues in the news and entertainment industries who consider Trump a bigoted blowhard.

“I’m struggling with it,” said one longtime friend, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Privately, friends of Zucker suggest that he is both aware of his unusual role in Trump’s rise, and reveling in the ratings success.

A sociopathic asshole just like his hero Donald.