Having been a reporter/Editor I fully understand how the system works from the inside. What is frustrating as hell is that it is so obvious and yet people refuse to see it. Or more to your point, refuse to kick their addiction as you so aptly put it.
I think the level of media consumption "yugely" explains Trump's jaw-dropping appeal -- it's amazing how many people don't get that the History Channel and A&E are MSM, just like Fox News is also MSM. They define America and their compatriots by what they see on the MSM -- the MSM is the foundation of their identity in it.
When you live without TV or cable -- all of that is blessedly out of the way!
{^) I see one long-time FRiend and compatriot conservative, praising Trump because he has the "actual ability to smash the maddening, decades-old PC paradigm that has kept the nation in a suffocating, ossified strangehold that has fed and bred the march towards degenerate cultural-Marxism."
As demonstrated ... ??? Really? "Actual ability" perceived through a media personality? They think he's only a media personality because he's such a smart guy, but the reality is that he's a media personality because as a billionaire, he also wanted to be famous. Wealth should be accompanied by fame, I guess.
I really hope people wake up to that essential truth, but they watch so damned much TV!!!
For the record, my pro-Trump sentiments have to do with his potential towards creative destruction of that PC-imprisoning paradigm we’re in. It might prove a monumentally needed reshuffling of the deck, a goal beyond the simple realm of politics and an election. Do I trust Trump? No, not really. Not at all. And he’s boorish and offputting to boot. But I don’t really trust anyone these days, including the American people. And least of all, the GOP-E.
As for TV, it’s undeniably a conduit for the moral rot that engulfs society. I divorced myself from most of the culture twenty years ago, to avoid its wearying ill-effect on my own character and values. But I still utilize my tv-set and dvd-player all the time, to watch vintage shows and movies (like ancient 1930s b-westerns), which are far more alligned with my personal tastes and value-system. It might even buttress them.