If you want to stop being played as a chump, turn off the CNN/MSM and disengage from the self-referential social media distraction.

Let's start by asking: if Trump had lost and his supporters had angrily taken to the streets, destroying private property and threatening police officers while proclaiming "not my president," would the mainstream media have characterized the rioters differently than it has the pro-Clinton rioters?

Any fair-minded observer knows the answer is yes: the CNN/MSM would have lambasted the "rioting deplorables" as "what's wrong with America."

Substitution is a useful tool to expose bias. How come the CNN/mainstream corporate media isn't declaring the pro-Clinton rioters "deplorables"?

This tells us something else is going on here. I want to explain what's really going on, but first, we need to run a simple experiment:

Turn off CNN, PBS, CBS et al., your Twitter and Facebook feeds, etc. for seven days, and live solely in the media-free real world for a week. If you're truly interested in understanding what's really going on in America, then come back in a week and read the rest of the essay.

Have you pulled out the CNN/MSM/social media fearmongering/propaganda dripline for a few days? This is a necessary step, as we shall soon see.

Everyone who is consuming CNN/MSM/ self-referential social media every waking hour is being played as chumps. Start by asking yourself: cui bono–to whose benefit? Who is benefiting from the ceaseless fearmongering of the CNN/social-media-parroting mainstream corporate media?

(Longtime readers know I start any analysis by asking cui bono.)

Two Power Elites have benefited enormously from the ceaseless media fearmongering: the owners of the corporate media spewing the fear mongering, and the Neoliberal camp of the Ruling Elite.

The hysterical tone of the fearmongering serves the agenda of the Neoliberals, who are desperate to maintain their grip on power.

As I have endeavored to explain over the past few years, America's Deep State no longer enjoys a monolithic unity of worldview and narrative. The Deep State has fragmented into two conflicted camps: the Neoconservatives, who espouse the globalist, interventionist foreign policy manifestation of Neoliberalism, and a smaller, more forward-looking camp that understands Neoliberalism is actively undermining our national security and our core national interests.

This split in the Deep State extends into the entire Ruling Elite. Thus we have the currently dominant globalist Neoliberal camp personified by the Clintons, the Corporatocracy that has funded them, the clubby Washington Elites (Demopublicans) and the Neocon camp of the Deep State.