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“Today is a contest between the people who think the news is real and those who know it is not.”

This cheeky quip came from the pen of American author and cartoonist Scott Adams before any polling stations had closed on Tuesday. How right he turned out to be.

The 2024 US election was much more than a referendum on who Americans wanted to lead their country. It was a verdict on who they trust to interpret reality.

Just weeks before Americans went to the polls, Gallup revealed that trust in the mass media had reached historic lows. Just 32% of Americans told pollsters they trust the legacy news “a great deal” or “a fair amount” – a statistic that glowed in neon lights this week.

Though I won’t mourn the death of the legacy press, I here offer my eulogy – a funeral dirge, if you will – in the form of four post-election reflections.

1. Elon Musk’s Purchase of Twitter

It’s no exaggeration to say that Elon Musk was a deciding factor in Trump’s victory this week – whether his last-minute campaign blitz through the battleground state of Pennsylvania, his wildly popular Joe Rogan interview, or his exposé of the Democrats’ near success in making swing states permanent blue strongholds through mass immigration.

But the biggest boost from Musk came more than two years ago, when he bought the little blue bird, rebadged it as “X”, and then cleaned house, removing woke ideologues from executive roles and rooting out the influence of US intelligence agencies at the company.

The narrative that X is now a haven for racism and hate is, like most elite hyperventilating, a furphy. My experience of the app has not changed since 2022, except that Community Notes now holds liars accountable, and conservatives don’t get kicked off for speaking the truth.

And speak the truth they did throughout this election campaign. X was the only news platform that allowed open criticism of Kamala Harris, the only place Trump’s message made it past the narrative gatekeepers, and the only platform that, on balance, predicted a Trump win.

If X was still under the chokehold of Silicon Valley powerbrokers, it is doubtful Trump could have returned to the White House.

2. The Media’s Narrative that Trump is Hitler

For years, the corporate press has likened Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, called him and his supporters fascists and Nazis, and warned that his re-election would spell the end of American democracy.

Trump is Hitler, the media assured us.

So why aren’t they fleeing America as we speak, as so many Jews did Germany in the 1930s? pic.twitter.com/dHHF5q0yrQ

— Kurt Mahlburg (@k_mahlburg) November 7, 2024

Well, Hitler has been elected. So why aren’t these people packing their bags and fleeing the United States, as hundreds of thousands of Jews did Germany in the 1930s?

This is a serious question. But there is no serious answer – because the talking heads in the media were never serious in the first place.

I will take them seriously when they begin the flee the country, and not a second sooner.

3. The Prospect of a National Mental Health Crisis

In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, former ABC News political reporter Mark Halperin predicted that a Trump victory would likely cause “the greatest mental health crisis in the history of the country.”

Halperin is a middle-of-the-road kind of guy, and he was being genuinely serious, to the shock of Tucker’s audience.

→ @MarkHalperin on the Trump Derangement Syndrome that will follow Donald Trump’s victory.

“I think it will be the cause of the greatest mental health crisis in the history of the country.” pic.twitter.com/aNiq3as8LR

— Tucker Carlson Network (@TCNetwork) October 15, 2024

The only nuance I would add to Halperin’s remark is that Trump’s victory per se won’t be to blame, if such a scenario materialises, but rather, the media’s framing of Trump’s victory for the American public.

The reality is that Trump will govern like he did last time. There will be bombastic remarks and a lack of decorum at times, but all the checks and balances of democracy will hold and he will leave office in 2028, likely handing Americans a stronger economy. And, much to the disappointment of pro-lifers, he will do little to stem the tide of abortions nationwide.

The problem is that people with Trump Derangement Syndrome don’t understand that this is how Trump’s presidency will play out. They really do think dystopia is now upon them.

I would direct any such people to this wise counsel from Alexandros Marinos:

If you voted Democrat and you are feeling that the election result is truly horrifying, do this one simple thing for your mental health:

Write down your fears of what might happen in the next 4 years on a piece of paper.

Re-read and check in on them every few months.

It will be a constant source of relief to you when you see that your fears will not, in fact, come true.

Then start asking why you had those fears in the first place and how you can prevent them from forming the next time.

4. Trust in the Media Going Forward

The legacy press has discredited itself this election cycle — whether through its cover-up of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, its portrayal of the wildly unpopular Kamala Harris as America’s saviour, its naive interpretation of polling data, or its relentlessly negative coverage of Donald Trump, who in the end defied assassinations, impeachments and indictments to stage the greatest political comeback in American history.

The media was wrong about Tuesday. You’d be crazy to believe anything they tell you today.

In the wise words of venture capitalist David Sacks:

This is a bankruptcy moment for the legacy media. They shrieked Nazi, fascist, traitor, insurrectionist at the top of their lungs for years. The country didn’t believe it. Their spell is broken. Their credibility is destroyed. It’s a new dawn.

Take a moment to touch grass. Turn off the TV. Cancel your subscriptions. Question everything the talking heads say from now on.

Most of all, relax. Trump’s America will be just fine, and so will you.
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Originally published at MercatorNet. Photo by Adobe.