For four years, large parts of the media have covered up the mental and physical decline of U.S. president Joe Biden. Now, a blue bruise on the right hand of his successor, Donald Trump, has caused gasps in newsrooms. Within the media matrix, they're awaiting the opportunity to launch a new campaign against the disliked president.

The synchronization of behavior across broad populations is among the fundamental tasks of mass media. Sequences of emotionally charged individual events steer public attention and, over time, stabilize the ideological agenda of the ruling elites.

For years we've had a compelling case study in climate-change media propaganda. A medley of global and climatic incidents -- removed from context and reassembled to support the green transformation agenda -- forms the synchronization space of the Green Deal. This transformation of our economy depends on those gravitational forces of media coverage to paint over the lived experience of economic decline.

Eco-social Power Complex

The ecosocialist fundamental agenda thrives on maximal consensus. Should dissident forces manage to set up media counterpoints, the veil of deception lifts and reality returns to public awareness -- visible in deindustrialization, insolvency records, and growing impoverishment under the green transition.

One such dissident -- and arguably the most powerful -- is President Donald Trump. His challenge to the climate consensus has caused maximum irritation in the political establishments on both sides of the Atlantic. Trump’s rejection of economic restructuring, his push for a return to market-based governance, and deregulation of the energy sector threaten to starve the power complex and its subsidy machine of resources that keep the artificial economy alive.

Trump has also shaken the ecosocial power complex by ridiculing and exposing the “sacrificial myth” of climate -- i.e., that climate change is solely human-made. That narrative gave the ecosocialists carte blanche, and they now face their first real opponent. So far, Trump stands unassailable; he's flipped the script and is forcing antagonists in Brussels, Berlin, and London onto the defensive with mercantile measures.

The Blue Bruise

It was images of swollen knuckles and a blue bruise on the back of Trump’s right hand that injected rocket fuel into the lately sedated propaganda machine. What are we seeing here? Is the man seriously ill? Can he perform his duties? The usual suspects -- from CNN and MSNBC to the New York Times -- sniffed their chance at revenge against the man who’d spent years mocking “their” President Biden and his physical condition.

Of course, they demanded medical transparency in unison: the country can’t afford a feeble head of state.

“Amid growing speculation about President Trump’s visible bruises and swelling, medical experts and commentators are calling on the White House to provide more detailed and regular health updates… Skepticism remains high as the administration releases only limited information, fueling rumors and uncertainty.”  -- CNN Health, July 17, 2025

Subtly, the implication arises: the White House is hiding something, as though the president may be unfit for office. A well-known tactic in political warfare, where speculation about an opponent's health becomes a commodifiable weapon.

Press Routines in the Panic Room

The official medical report from White House doctors was chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) -- a typical age-related condition in those over seventy, causing ankle swelling, skin changes, and occasional bruising. Vascular ultrasound and echocardiograms found no thrombosis or heart, kidney, or systemic disease. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt cited the president’s otherwise excellent health.

The bruises on Trump’s hand were explained as the result of frequent handshaking and aspirin use for heart disease prevention. “Trump works around the clock and feels excellent,” Leavitt added.

This justification cascade is part of the press office’s routine to snuff out potential media escalation. Clearly, chronic venous insufficiency doesn’t provide the enemy spin doctors with enough ammo for a serious demolition campaign. The story will likely leave headlines as quickly as it entered.

Pavlovian Reflex

Let’s put these events into context. That the left-wing media machine pounced like a frustrated guard dog on Trump’s bruise should evoke a laugh from an audience that endured years of reporting on Biden.

Propaganda professionals succeeded in keeping large segments of the public in the dark about Biden’s mental and physical decline -- videos of his public stumbles, disorientation on stage, or linguistic insufficiencies were withheld until his disastrous TV appearance in the June debate with Trump. Users of decentralized media platforms like X were the privileged audience and witnesses to a media spectacle that will go down in history.

While the political arm of the power matrix inundated Trump with lawsuits and denunciations, the media arm worked to distract the public from their president’s health. Never before have the contradictions between the apparatus-projected illusion and the real world appeared so starkly as in recent years.

No Freedom Without Decentralized Info Systems

We’re only fully informed about the mechanics and intensity of state propaganda thanks to decentralized platforms such as X, Reddit, and Telegram. As long as their owners maintain even rudimentary libertarian leanings, we can contrast propaganda with reality and enable genuine opposition work.

The European Commission’s hard-line attacks on American platforms like X have exposed Europe’s true intentions. Hostility to free discourse in an open forum shows Brussels's stance in the media war.

Slowly -- but surely -- a realization is spreading: free discourse on these platforms remains our last refuge, enabling citizens to form critical, more complex views on political processes. Decentralized platforms are becoming the carriers of democratic rights: free speech and information.

McLuhan Was Right Again

Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian media theorist, made it clear in The Medium is the Message that the medium itself -- not the content -- determines perception. It's not what is said, but how -- and with what device. The technology that creates the medium shapes our thinking more profoundly than any spoken word. It’s not the song -- it’s the player.

Thus, the boundary between political content and media carrier blurs. The newsfeed becomes a mood machine; the social network, an emotional thermostat. The problem is this: whoever controls the technology controls the room’s temperature. Not discourse, but the apparatus shapes the political climate.

Washington’s Deep State media makers have read McLuhan -- but they forget that his theses referred to the old broadcast order of radio and television.

It’s possible that the DNC selected a weak candidate like Joe Biden to instrumentalize the White House. These are well-known Deep State operations aimed at consolidating power.

The Presidency of the Autopen

So if Biden was often incapacitated during his term, who actually ran the government? It would have been the media’s duty to investigate this and inform the public.

Who controlled the “Autopen,” the automated signing machine used to sign documents in the president’s absence? Speculation about this shifts us away from the main point: it underscores how selectively the media apply standards -- especially when they largely ignore their own biases.

Media is also an ethical business. Trump’s blue bruise triggered viral headlines, while the question of Biden’s ability to govern became a media no-go zone -- a scandal.

It reveals the inner state of mainstream media and their political entanglements. For years, they’ve oscillated between vulgar entertainment and ideological propaganda -- and in neither arena has the majority of the media shown qualitative substance.

Image: National Archives