Ashley Bishop is a New York–based journalist covering labor, climate, and social movements.
TV networks turned the Los Angeles fires into a sensationalist spectacle, repeating words like “inferno” on a loop while almost completely avoiding any mention of climate change. Their coverage treated the disaster as entertainment rather than a warning.
Construction workers pooled their wages to erect the first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in 1931, bringing holiday cheer to themselves on the job site. Their billionaire bosses co-opted the gesture, transforming it into today’s consumer spectacle.
The Democrats have claimed climate change as their issue. But on MSNBC, liberals’ home channel, all meaningful discussion of climate change is overshadowed by the ultimate political fixation: Donald Trump.