Media Fail
We’ve got 3 weeks until the midterms and the mainstream media is treating it as if this was any other midterm. It is not. This election determines whether democracy lives or dies.
The New York Times is covering US Senate MAGA Republican candidate, Herschel Walker, as if he was any other candidate. They’re reporting on his paying for an abortion and threatening to kill the mother of one of his many kids as “alleged hypocrisy” about his “private life” when the story is the pro-life candidate and family values man wants to outlaw abortion for everybody but himself. He’s a mentally unstable man who nearly murdered the mother of one of his kids. The Times also said that Marjorie Taylor Greene is making a comeback. The story should be that people will still vote for Marjorie Taylor Greene even though she helped plan the insurrection.
Media fail.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman used her access as a reporter to get to Trump during his presidency and instead of doing her job and reporting what she found out, she held on to it so she could write a book. Fellow journalists and all of the mainstream media outlets have rationalized what she has done and are helping her pimp her book. She got paid twice for the same Trump interviews. First by her employer who never got the whole story because she never fully reported what she found out and then again by the public who buys her traitorous book. She, like so many others, is profiting off of the Trump shit show and betraying her own country to do it. Paul Waldman of the Washington Post defended her by saying what’s in the book wouldn’t have impacted the election one way or the other. Journalists aren’t supposed to work for or against campaigns. They’re just supposed to report what they learn so the citizenry can keep informed about what their government and elected officials are up to.
The media has failed over the past two years by giving “equal time” to “both sides” which has normalized fascism and given one side an unfair advantage. It’s much, much smaller but the media makes it much, much bigger. It characterized Biden’s Build Back Better bill as a $3 trillion bill without explaining what was in it, which is their job. It blamed Biden for not being able to unite the country without doing the hard work of reporting on WHY the country is divided and how it would be hard for anybody to unite it when part of it is in a cult. After national addresses and speeches, the media usually covers the petty commentary and reactions of the same old talking heads without asking the deeper questions about the context of Biden’s remarks. It picks up with Hunter Biden stories every time the Republicans throw them a Hunter Biden bone, never criticizing Trump’s kids. It never asked how and why Trump politicized the federal judiciary or digs deep into him stealing top secret documents. Nobody asks hard questions, but they give plenty of time to Republican talking points and Trump’s latest rant. It attacked Joe Biden for going to Saudi Arabia to lower gas prices but never attacked Trump for hosting a Saudi Arabian golf league tournament at his club in New Jersey after burying his dead first wife on the golf course. No questions asked. It covered Queen Elizabeth’s funeral for a whole week like it was the story of the century but ignored the Saudis and Russians conspiring together to sabotage the midterms by inflating gas prices to hurt the Democrats, or the former president being under federal investigation for espionage, election fraud and a coup attempt, or how many out and proud Nazis are in close races with sane Democrats.
25% of the population actually admits to still being Republicans. Of that group, about 60% are total wackos. There are far more sane, rational people than there are admitted Republicans but it doesn’t feel like that because the media gives them so much attention. You don’t have to watch Fox News to know what BS they’re pushing now because the mainstream media gives Fox a lot of attention, too.
Democrat Tim Ryan won 70% of the vote for the primary race for US Senate in Ohio. He’s running against JD Vance, a Trump endorsed candidate who only got 32% of the vote. The media has been ignoring Tim Ryan, an outspoken member of Congress who has openly called the Republicans out on many occasions but gives plenty of attention to JD Vance who has called America a joke and supports Alex Jones. He is a dangerous political extremist who has talked openly about the need for an American dictator just like Trump. Establishment Republicans can’t stand him just like they can’t stand Trump but they’re standing behind him, just like Trump. Mitch McConnell gave him $40 million for his campaign. That’s a story.
The mainstream media covers MAGA Republicans like they’re legitimate normal candidates. The story is THEY ARE NOT.
The preservation of white supremacy is the story. The fate of democracy and the erosion of civil liberties is the story. The media is passing the real story up to cover high gas prices. Republicans have flat out said they would outlaw abortion in all 50 states, stop the investigations into Trump and the attempted coup, election fraud and espionage, block all of Biden’s nominees, cut social security and Medicare once and for all, and impeach Biden if they take control of Congress. That’s the story.
“History will look at the next three weeks as the moment we either lost the plot and in so doing undid the American experiment or whether saw the threat we face, framed it clearly and repelled it.” — David Rothkopf
