Once Again, You’re Not Helping

t is, of course, The Thing. Art as protest. Protest as art. An indelible attack on the wossname of power and prestige and probably penises, for all I know.

But in the end:

Printing a fake copy of The Washington Post, complete with a website rabbiting the same stories in the name of protest, makes the job of the real Washington Post and the real news media that much harder in the era of Fake News.

First and foremost, I have to say this: I’m no supporter of President Trump.

But this is straying into “cutting off a man’s legs and stealing his drawers” territory.

Yes it’s cute and all to make this kind of protest.

But to the rabid Trump fan, you’re playing into their hands. Proof – no matter you know it’s fake – that the media is out to get The Donald.

But it’s fake, you say.

Doesn’t matter. It’s proof.

Fake proof, you say.

Doesn’t matter.

It’s proof.

But –

It’s proof.

Because, as George Orwell says in “Animal Farm”:

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

That’s all we’re running on now. Images, Appearances. And the little stunt provides images aplenty. Doesn’t matter it was meant as a protest. Or even a joke. Or that The Washington Post had nothing to do with the Fake Washington Post.

What matters is the appearance of Fake News.

And you provided that.