The message is clear and two fold: Prez-elect Trump is concerned about media and keeps his friends closer than his enemies. And by “concerned” I mean media is on his mind, more than it keeps him up at night. It’s a priority of his, as well as a tool. Brush up on Society of Spectacle in preparation for the next four years.

During that hilarious exchange between John Stewart and Trump, I couldn’t help imagining the bankrupt billionaire swaddled in 4,000 thread-count gold bed sheets that match his comb over, squinting at an iPhone screen, trying to eek out a tweet that summarized both his confusion and late night spite in the comedian’s 140-character chosen battle ground.

Throughout his campaign, it’s hard to explain the numerous fuck ups and rescinds of tweets coming from a professional, hired staff member, someone who 1) knows how to convey ideas across the social media sphere, 2) has any concern for public reception (PR?) and/or 3) has his/her job in mind, based on the potential subsequent fallout. That is, I think the official Twitter account is accessed, at least in part, by the incoming commander in chief. What a pleasure and danger this is!

The White House Correspondence Association is irked that Prez-elect isn’t allowing the usual press to accompany his travels. And, on a personal level, you can imagine Trump is probably tired of the mainstream media attacks that have been trying to undo their own work in the last six months. The mainstream media (hereafter ‘Dr. Frankenstein’) aren’t even allowed to see an unexperienced politician try to make a transition team! I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. But Dr. Frankenstein needs the viewers. Dr. Frankenstein wants to set things straight. That’s the carrot that leads Dr. Frankenstein, keeps him up at night in his laboratory, lit by lightning flashes, well rested from his extended holidays while he just ran entire speeches of the demagogue over broadcast TV. Meanwhile, in hate forums of Brietbart, alt-right–so far right not even Glenn Beck will go there–those offscreen, middle America, basement dwelling support groups have their leader exalted to a plush seat at the table. (Bannon & Beck have a poor history of vying for the diminishing pool of invigorated, working-class live at homes. And if we can learn anything from the Yemeni civil war, it would be send Cruz and Beck in to fight Trump and Bannon.)

Stephen Bannon is at least as adventurous a media hate monger as Trump. Both white stallions ready to be put out to pasture, they’ve come back to the online world of 20 somethings who grew up on this and should know it like the back of their hands. They should know the aesthetics of logic and credibility. The fight is underway, with Breitbart, social media, Trump and Bannon and it looks like a fifth-installment of The Expendables where also gets a cash prize. That is, America is aging and it isn’t graceful, but social media may be aging more quickly.

This week Facebook’s CEO rebuts claims that he/they intentionally suppressed fake news from conservative accounts, particularly regarding Clinton. It’s fun to watch the wording here, because everyone–journalists, pundits, Facebook–are all trying not to say, “Yes, we know that there was tons of misinformation on Facebook and disproportionately about Clinton because who would believe this trash other than Trump supporters? Who would tout this crap? How could this be expected?” Point to Breitbart. Twitter is also coming under attack for the increase in hate speech from users, some of which is just illegal. They haven’t banned Bannon, yet. It’s equally funny/not funny that social media, which isn’t held to journalistic ethics, is being pressured to keep the facts straight, to abide, while actual news sources have been pretty much accepted as nodes of misinformation, blatant lies, intentional manipulation or rewording and that there’s nothing that can be done about it. What’s worse is that the media itself is/has been manipulated by the likes of “Groucho Marx Democracy.”

Following the election, news media and social networks exploded, not literally, unfortunately. Everyone wanted first to figure out WTF happened and how to deal with grief and/of/or flaunt their moment of unexpected victory. And there was and still is tons of misinformation circulating on social media. Many Clinton supporters are re-posting articles that are years old, but with headlines that still, somehow, are relevant, inspiring or conspiranoical. Yes, history repeats itself, but hopefully not that quickly. God, we have to live through this, right? If I see Jr. elected I’m going to fucking snap. I mean, what if Trump’s victory day was repeated like “Groundhog’s Day?” #dayMare #BillMurray2020

In my own outdated media drawls, I stumbled into a video by Zizek where he makes an interesting point in the last ten minutes about politics becoming depoliticized. He’s talking about Berlusconi and how candidates are being measured on apolitical grounds, “empty spectacles.” What better description for Trump’s entire campaign than this? The purpose is to create smokes screens that facilitate a military authoritarianism not abroad, but within the country. Trump’s first day in office, and most viable promise, is the deportation of illegal immigrants beginning with those with a criminal history. This is less distinct from Obama’s deportation tactics (Obama holding record of most deportations of any President), but only through the vocal platform that intends to instill fear in those living here and conjure hatred in those supporters.

Aaron David Miller’s explanation as to the end of great presidents nears Zizek’s conclusion of the depoliticization of politics, only in focusing on the criteria by which we weigh candidates. Rather than looking at policy and experience, we’re faced with making a decision on Presidents compared to non-presidents, like rock stars, actors or billionaires. This becomes a recipe for cults of personality, which goes back to Day 4′s post regarding a better form of democracy. Why are we electing one person who basically gives speeches and flies around the world posing for handshaking photos, but then appoints a huge number of members of his candidates whom we have little knowledge of in advance and no say in their politics to lay out law in this country?

Donald Trump Jr. (hereafter ‘Jr.’ for short) boldly and firmly stated that there would be no conflict of interest between this father’s presidency and Trump International. I’ll take his word on it and move onto the next conflict of interest: Putin’s Russia and Edward Snowden.

You’ve got an axis (let’s refer to the WWII terminology here) that created a haven for dissidents based on the relation between two cults of personality–Obama and Putin–and now that axis is suspended. Where will the resistance go? Venezuela? Sweden? Then you’ve got Giuliani, a hard ball authoritarian who believes the best way to solve an issue is get a bigger hammer. He’s a likely candidate for Secretary of State, and already part of the transition team, meaning ‘tough’ will be interchangeable borderline unconstitutional in terms of approaches to security. He’s got his own conflict of interest since he’s overseen foreign governments projects in Qatar, Canada and Iran. You’ve still got Dakota Access Pipeline police who are trolling Facebook event attendees trying to determine how to implement an Orwellian reality on the central plains. Let’s just put the historical human injustice treatment to the side for a moment. Meanwhile, Wikileaks allegedly hacked the DNC emails and, in tandem with the FBI arguably leaned the final days toward a demagogue. #TechPrivacy, #pyrotechnics, #homelandPirates. It gets worse.

This is a recipe for a best seller. Here are the main characters, entrenched in their own love triangle / conflict of interest: Will Putin hand over Snowden to Trump’s government who, based on the authoritarian nature of the future secretary of state and the switch of social media from enterprising protest to surveillance ? And what part did Wikileaks play into an ever-surveilling government’s hand? This Business Insider article July 2016 follows the Twitter exchange between Snowden and prior collaborators Wikileaks, moderated by the American Left’s conscience-meter, Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald essentially takes the stance that, while digital critique of power is important, there is too much at stake in the 2016 Presidential Elections. And it’s an important point to take because, although this is basically irrelevant given the reality that’s unfolding, as a Sanders supporter, Greenwald indicates that between Trump and Clinton, of course Clinton is the obvious choice.

Snowden maybe the closest thing to a hero this generation is going to get. He lived a life in front of a screen like so many frustrated young people who regularly hear from the hippy generation that political protest can’t happen behind a laptop. He’s a regular at cultural events–SXSW and even takes place in debates via VOiP. A small minority of Reagan-esque Republican youngsters may view him as a traitor, but the fact that his actions were not motivated by personal profit of any kind, more view him as an important whistleblower.

But what’s really coming to light is a division within a division of hacker community. We thought of those spotlight critics of power–Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden, Anonymous, Wikileaks, Julian Assange–as a joint front that against the hegemony of the U.S. at home and abroad. Not only did we want this picture, we needed this picture. Culture producers responded by giving us Mr. Robot. But the picture of tech-resistance was really a blind omission of the tech and war technology more generally. There are the XIT schools (Rochester, Mass) that turn out potential military technology, but there are even more defense contractors who are the major counter-resistance-tech industry. So there’s not only the dramatic division with the division of conscientious objectors, but before we even get to that point, we have to concede the scale is already tilted way away.

The hacktivist division is similar to the division in the general American populist. It’s obvious now that there is a division, but that the divided are more polarized and themselves divided. According to the Pew Foundation the majority of each party’s members are further from their own party’s median. The fight for governmental influence from either ideological perspective is an aim to drive whatever ‘the center’ is nearer to toward one’s own political pole, but likely to a dissatisfying extent.

Reminiscent of the civil rights movement–which the American left identifies as continuing in this year’s election–our divided country is broadcast around the world. What are American ideals? Mary Dudziak makes a compelling case that the motivation by the federal government during the civil rights protests was catalyzed not by an ethical compass but by the desire to maintain an image of the U.S. abroad, one that publicized protest brought under fire, particularly Russia. Sound familiar? Only at that time, both countries were debating what was the more humane social–capitalism or communism. Today, that debate has ended (paraphrasing Zizek in “Living In The End Times,” the total collapse of the world’s ecosystem is more likely than the collapse of capitalism), and we must ask what debate is occurring in its place? There are humane, rational leaders, Canada’s Justin Trudeau, but there are also democratically elected criminals against humanity, like the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte. The debate then is not which is the more humane, but simply which is legal.