Trump, Democrats, and Media Bias

Trump supporters seem to taunt a Native American Viet Nam War veteran (BBC)

I am no Trump supporter. But I do try and be objective about the news surrounding him. Which is a lot more than I can say about the media. Not that I necessarily blame them. They have been attacked so much by the President, it would take superhuman objectivity to not spin every story negatively.

Now it is true that a lot of those stories are objectively negative. Can’t fault them for reporting them that way. But not all of them. The media is so wrapped up in vilifying the President that they can’t seem to distinguish between good and bad; fact and fiction. Whenever there is a doubt – they go negative. Never giving the President the benefit of the doubt. Guilty until proven innocent. 

That liberal Democrats do that should not surprise anyone. They have a political agenda to fill. And there has never been an obstacle as great as the President in their way. But the Democratic leadership skilled in the practice of ‘spin’ knows how to obfuscate their real agenda by blaming the President and his men for everything that is wrong in the world.

The media is supposed to rise above all that. But they don’t. It is almost as though they were the PR machine for the liberal Democratic spin… sometimes even leading the charge.  And in the process painting Trump’s base as either low IQ morons with no education… fundamentalists Christians with primitive and racist religious view, or Orthodox Jews with similar religious views.

There are two recent events that demonstrate this bias. One was a report that former Trump personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, told Mueller’s committee investigating the President that the President told him to lie to congress. That juicy bit of news was ‘scooped’ by the less than reliable news source, BuzzFeed. They didn’t question it. They went with it as though it was gospel. Lying to congress is an illegal and possibly impeachable offense. Telling someone to lie is the same thing as lying themselves.

Camera hound and powerful House Democrat Adam Schiff was already hinting at a possible impeachment. You could almost see him salivating at the prospect.

Trump denied it to the guffaws of just about everyone. Everyone that is except Mueller himself - who took the extraordinary step of publicly denying it. It is now evident that Michael Cohen said no such thing. That the media took a BuzzFeed report as gospel that tells you just how biased they are. It taints just about all their coverage of this investigation.

That said, no one knows what the final outcome of that investigation will be. Trump may be guilty as sin. Or as pure as the driven snow. The only thing we can be sure of is that we don’t really know anything.

Another event that shows  media bias is how they reported a viral video of a group of high school students seeming to mock a Native American who is Viet Nam War era veteran while he was chanting a prayer. These students from an all boys Catholic school were wearing Trump’s signature MAGA (Make America Great Again) hats. The implications were obvious. Trump supporters tend to be heartless bigots that are not beneath mocking someone that looked homeless. The video spoke for itself. 

Except that it didn’t. A longer version of that video showed a far more complex situation. Those students were in Washington supporting a pro life agenda. They had been taunted by a group of Black Hebrews (…no connection to Judaism and even antisemitic!) in Washington for their own purposes. The situation escalated and that veteran decided to enter the fray and see if he could somehow calm things down. He walked up to one of those students while chanting. That student had no idea how to respond other than just remaining silent while his classmates were chanting their own religious slogans right along with the veteran chanting his prayer. 

These are two examples of media bias that should be duly noted by the public. And that should make us all skeptical about media objectivity. It doesn’t exist despite their claims to the contrary.

That said, I will give them  credit for a bit more balanced coverage about the government shutdown. While the President did shut it down - they media does not blame him solely for not reopening it. They have shown the Democratic leadership to be just as guilty of that.

Especially now that the President has offered a compromise solution. One that would give the President what he wants – $5.7 billion a barrier along a specific segment of the southern border between the us and Mexico. A wall that just about every border patrol agent interviewed by the media said was an absolute must! And a compromise that includes a humanitarian gesture allowing Dreamers to remain here, obtain work permits, and obtain full government benefits. He even spoke of a possible amnesty for them sometime down the road.

The Democratic response was to reject it immediately. No counter offer. Nothing. They will allow the government to remain closed and continue to blame the President for it.That is more important than opening it up.  The sad part is that they don’t even have to accept that offer. Let the come up with a counter offer. No dice. 

A ploy to further focus blame on the President was initiated by Speaker Pelosi who uninvited the President to give the State of the Union Speech in the House on the scheduled date. She falsely claimed that security would be compromised because of the shut down. That was immediately shot down by Homeland Security. Her response? Let him (Trump) reopen the government! How transparent her real motives are. That Trump responded with his own pettiness does not make her any less of a child - drunk on her new found power!

The Democratic leadership is just as guilty as the President is here – if not more so at this point. Consider this: Many Democrats have voted for a wall like the one Trump is proposing in the past (pre Trump). Consider also the fact that the cost of the government shutdown has already exceeded the $5.7 billion Trump has asked for. The Democratic leadership doesn’t care. As long as they can focus blame on the President they feel absolved of any responsibility to open it. Even though they could do it in a minute!  

The media has not said so outright. But their reporting of it seems to be placing at least some of the blame on Democrats too. 

(On a side note, the media is overplaying the financial hardships caused by government employees working without pay. The truth is that they are not working without pay. They will be paid all they are due in the form of back pay when the government re-opens. The hardships are only for those employees not having saved any of their income for a rainy day. Those who have done  so will not lose a single day's wage. Any money taken out from their savings can be put right back into their savings.)

I think it is an outrage that all this is going on. Trump may have initiated it. But the ball is in the Democrats court as far as I am concerned. Instead of an outright rejection of the President’s compromise, let them rethink their position and make a counter offer. That would re-open the government. But that would take courage. Something the Democratic leadership seems to be lacking.