As I approach four months of analyzing the news in the second Trump era, I'm still frequently alarmed at the way the surreal, "assclown circus" atmosphere of the entire Trump regime, somehow functions to mask and minimize the overt fascist machinations and operations the government and the president himself engage in. Take for example the recent story about Downmarket Mussolini getting into a spat with, and then openly threatening aging American rocker Bruce Springsteen; a consistent critic of the Trump regime, and longtime supporter of the Democratic Party.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-warns-springsteen-ought-keep-151423368.html

‘Trump Warns Springsteen: “He Ought to Keep His Mouth Shut Until He’s Back Into the Country”

"Earlier this week, Bruce Springsteen launched his “Land of Hope and Dreams Tour” in Manchester, England. The opening concert proved to be a decidedly political affair, as the New Jersey rocker repeatedly took aim at the Trump Administration with a series of pointed speeches throughout the night. “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, and has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration,” Springsteen proclaimed at the top of the concert. Later, he remarked, “A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government.”

It seems Donald Trump has finally got wind of Springsteen’s comments (possibly via Fox News), and on Friday, he responded in a post on Truth Social. “I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States. Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy — Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK,” Trump wrote.

He then issued what some may perceive as a not so subtle threat: “This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that’s just ‘standard fare.’ Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”

Okay, so on the surface is this story kind of funny? Yes. One of the most bizarre things about Trump is the way the president mentally lives in a version of reality dominated by fame and public image, and thus his already quite bizarre feuds with variously liberal celebrities are often unhinged and highly-charged emotionally. Freaking out about a rock star's skin when you look like a bag of oatmeal covered in pancake makeup is a bold, but puerile move my dude. The whole thing is pathetic, weird, and makes the President of the United States look like an assclown; which probably really matters to boutique liberal snark media outlets, but isn't actually anything that materially moves the needle.

The thing is, Der Leader didn't stop typing after he mocked Springsteen's skin; the President then proceeded to issue a demand for silence and a thinly-veiled threat to punish the again, famous liberal rockstar, in unclear ways. Whether you want to talk about using the bully pulpit to try and suppress the constitutionally-protected free speech rights of a prominent critic, or the clear if undefined threat towards that same critic, this is fascist dictator shit and it's illegal. Given the regime's weaponization of the Department of Justice against media critical of the government, the abduction and attempted deportation of student anti-genocide protestors including at least one woman who did nothing more than write an op-ed, and even the recent detainment and questioning of anti-Trump, anti-genocide streamer Hasan Piker by CBP in Chicago, it seems to me that we should probably take Trump seriously when he threatens an outspoken rock star he doesn't like too.

So why exactly is the lead story in the vast majority of corporate media outlets "ha ha, Trump is such a pathetic narcissist" and not "the fascist President just threatened Bruce Springsteen?" Yahoo had to pull that analysis from an upscale blog I've never heard of; and I'm not seeing much focus on the important part of this story in The Guardian, NBC, or ABC for example. Given what we already know about what this administration is prepared to do to silence dissent, I don't think chalking it up to Trump being a loser is gonna cut it; and yet that's where we're at across much of the mainstream media environment.

Look, it's not lost on me that Trump, his sycophants, and state media outlet Fox News are all gonna deny what Der Führer said was a threat, but like I've said before, just because lying nazis play disingenuous games of Simon Says doesn't mean we have to pretend they're speaking in good faith. You know it's a threat, and I know it's a threat; so does the media, they're just too scared of Trump to focus on the important part of the story.