Your biggest issue with the Trump administration

[Bengalzona]

(05-31-2018, 11:47 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: Well, I'd say there's a big difference between supposedly legit news sources such as CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo and Huffington Post, and your average smut rag in the checkout aisle. My Mom used to buy those magazines for a good laugh, but most of the general public realizes it's not a real news source. I don't think the same can be said of the actual news sources I mentioned. A lot of folks believe those sources, when they're every bit as twisted as Faux News.

My mom has read the Enquirer and others faithfully for forty years. When I call her every two weeks (as I promised her I would 35 years ago when I joined the Army), she will religiously quote me the stories from the rags of the current evil things that Hillary Clinton has done and the wonderful charitable work that our God-chosen President is working on.


Now, my mom is not stupid. Nor is she senile. When she reads a story about "Batboy" or UFO's, she knows it is a load of hooey. But stories about celebrities or political figures in the rags are a different story. She absorbs those hook, line and sinker every time. She is utterly convinced that John Travolta is secretly gay and that Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa are still alive.

Why she would believe those things over "Batboy", I do not know (especially since Batboy is so well documented). But in my experience, she is not alone. I think she represents a rather large number of people of a certain age in this country who are influenced by sensational mags like this. How many? I don't know. But enough to keep these types of magazines on the stands in nearly every supermarket checkout for fifty years or more. For these people, these rags are 'the news'.