Lucianne.com links to this report of a dramatic ratings drop for Jake Tapper's CNN The Lead program since January. Let's think, what happened in January? I know ... it was the end of the Trump administration.
Why should our national leadership change have caused this drop? Because Tapper and people like him were filling the "two minutes hate" role described by George Orwell in his dystopian novel, 1984.
In my scenario, Donald Trump plays arch enemy Emmanuel Goldstein, progressive Democrats are the Outer Party members, and Tapper & Co. are the cheerleaders for each day's cathartic hate session. With Trump out, the whole Tapper enterprise makes no sense, its raison d'etre is gone.
Theoretically you'd imagine the Tapper show would transform into a "two minutes love" session for Joe Biden. Emotionally that's not the same thing. Foggy Joe is not especially lovable and, in this country, love for a leader tends to be fairly weak tea, lacking the high of good, strong hate.
In the Biden era, Tucker Carlson is the "two minutes hate" cheerleader, and Fox has the viewers. They aren't the same people, but an analogous group of Republicans who love to hate Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, AOC and Ilhan Omar. Plus, doesn't Bernie Sanders remind you of the movie version of Emmanuel Goldstein?
Once again we see what was intended as a cautionary tale turned into an instruction manual: life imitating art imitating life.
