April 17 Open Thread: Hannity Wrecks the News Cycle

Sean Hannity has gone and done it — he’s broken the entire news media. Once word came out of federal court in Manhattan yesterday afternoon that Michael Cohen’s “secret client” was the Fox News simpleton, all other news out of Trumplandia has ceased. It’s as if this fact brought the entire Trump nightmare full circle, like a snake swallowing its tail. There are signs, though, that Hannity could be tied to the Kremlin, whose stories he often promotes, through Julian Assange, so if we’re lucky more than his pride is at stake.

Right-wingers, whose moral compasses have the needle painted on, can’t understand why it’s a big deal that Hannity never revealed his professional relationship with a guy he’s been defending on his program every night. People with functioning brains, OTOH, wonder what Hannity is trying so hard to keep secret, considering he claims that the relationship is non-professional and was only about some minor real-estate matters. Sounds innocent, until you realize that all Trump’s corrupt dealings spring from real-estate matters.

One side effect of Trump’s takeover of the GOP has been the Unleashing of the Ids throughout conservoworld. The Republican “base” (never has a label been so apt) simply can’t resist voting for the most cartoonishly reprehensible candidate on offer — Roy Moore over Luther Strange, for example, or that mook who lost to Conor Lamb over two more-or-less normal people. Which explains why national GOP officials are tearing out their hair in West Virginia, where ex-con coal baron Don Blankenship — the guy whose unsafe mine collapsed and killed 29 people in 2010 — is poised to win the GOP nomination to face DINO Sen. Joe Manchin.

As a liberal, I’m supposed to be in favor of government officials holding town hall meetings, but I have to admit the truth I learned as a reporter: Such events have a lot more to do with public theater and propaganda than good government. For example, last night’s confab in Middletown about gun control legislation, featuring two Democrats debating two Republicans, was dominated by a raucous, pro-gun crowd — no surprise given the all-hands-on-deck panic that gripped the gun lobby after Parkland. About 400 people showed up, and I’m sure not a single mind was changed. I will say that Matt Bittle’s account makes it sound like more fun that last night’s drab Phillies game.