text: Jul 17, 2024
  There are three guests on this week’s episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show.
  Mark Jacob is a media critic and a former Metro Editor at the Chicago Tribune and Sunday Editor at the Chicago Sun-Times.
  He explains why the mainstream news media is obsessively focusing on President Biden’s health and aging and has, to this point, mostly refused to pay similar attention to the much greater dangers of Donald Trump’s emotional and mental health and the extreme threat he represents to American democracy and society. Mark also warns that the mainstream news media is desperately muckraking about President Biden instead of focusing on the democracy crisis because the former is a much easier story to tell.
  Dr. Justin Frank is a former professor of psychiatry at George Washington University. He is the author of several books including Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President.
  Dr. Frank shares his thoughts about President Biden’s horrible performance during the debate against Donald Trump and why he self-destructed. Dr. Frank also explains how President Biden’s mortality was fully revealed by the debate and how that has caused great pain for the many Americans who view him as a stable and responsible, if not great leader, who protects them from the extreme dangers and abuse of Donald Trump and his forces. Dr. Frank also shares his thoughts about the mind of Donald Trump and our rapidly worsening national calamity.
  Dr. Frank was in transit, and we spoke via cell phone.
  D. Earl Stephens is the former Managing Editor at Stars and Stripes and the author of Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters.
  He shares his great frustration with how the mainstream news media continues to normalize Donald Trump and the neofascist MAGA movement and has mostly failed in its responsibilities during the country’s worsening democracy crisis. Stephens warns the news media and others who are in denial that Donald Trump and his agents are deadly serious in their threats to end free speech, and punish in the most extreme fashion any voices who oppose them when/if they take power in 2025.
  These three conversations took place several days prior to Saturday’s horrific events in Butler, Pennsylvania.
  Chauncey DeVega reflects on the attempt on Donald Trump’s life and how matters are now much worse in America where the spiral of violence and ascendant neofascism, and what is likely a near-unstoppable Dictator Trump MAGA takeover in 2025, have greatly accelerated.
  Chauncey also reflects on our collective emotions in this moment of extreme crisis and how it impacted his trip home to see his mother along with all the regular stress and emotional labor about aging, money, and life that entails.
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