Can you imagine the outrage if Obama …?
They’d lose their minds if Hillary ….
Remember the outrage when Biden …?
How often do you hear sentences that start like the above? I get them all the time. Typically, it’s in response to something dumb that Donald Trump has proposed or said or done – some wild departure from the normal actions of the president – and that the MAGA cult has dismissed or ignored.
Like sharing an AI-generated video of him as a fighter jet pilot, wearing a king’s crown, dumping feces on Americans.
Or accepting an airplane from a foreign country and then allowing that country’s military to train on American soil.
Or trying to get the U.S. Department of Justice to pay him $230 million in taxpayer money for a string of grievances he filed over a number of very valid, very necessary investigations into his criminal behavior.
Or just being a 34-time convicted felon.
Any one of those things would have produced a reaction among conservatives that would have led to the incident becoming part of American political history. We’d have a simplified name for it – “the Obama plane” or “Qatari Barry” – and people would use it repeatedly in any political debate, no matter its relevancy.
I mean, if you doubt this, I’d like for you to consider for a moment your neighbor/uncle/friend who could exactly zero percent of his local or state representatives but who will drop a “Hunter’s laptop” reference or a “Biden autopen” talking point into any argument over politics.
Have you ever thought about why that is?
It’s certainly not because the rightwing talking points are better or true or even all that relevant. It’s not because the American people simply have decided to let Republicans get away with more. And it’s certainly not because people like Donald Trump or Mike Johnson or Ted Cruz or any of the other brain-oozing doofuses on the right are very clever.
It’s because Republicans, and the billionaires whose water they carry, have rigged the game.
Now, I’ll give credit where it’s due, although I’m not certain that we arrived at this point because of intentional, planned actions, and tell you that the rigging has been very well done. It was done properly and patiently and with an effectiveness rarely delivered. And it has worked like a charm.
If you doubt this, simply consider your average Sunday morning news lineup and your nightly cable channel news schedule. Let’s separate these into two groups: the mainstream, traditional news sources and the rightwing, conservative outlets.
So, NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN on one side. And there’s Fox News, Newsmax and about ten thousand radio stations on the other. (MSNBC is an outlier, but it’s more in the traditional camp.) And let’s consider the coverage of the ongoing government shutdown from each.
Over at Fox News and Newsmax and on all of the radio stations, there is no question who is at fault. The Democrats. The Democrats are evil, communist-loving, America-hating, Jesus-besmirching devils who have decided to put military members out of work so they can give health care to illegal immigrants.
This is the messaging. On a loop. All day. With very little pushback or opposing views aired.
Now, when you point out this obvious bias in reporting, if it is ever acknowledged, your average conservative will insist that such tactics are necessary to counter the very liberal presentation of news which flows from the “lamestream media.” Except, that’s not true.
In fact, on pretty much every mainstream media network’s Sunday morning show, there were more conservative lawmakers in interviews than progressive ones. The hosts often pushed back on their blatant lies, but they were still on the air, still spewing their talking points, still influencing voters and the national conversation.
And it’s that way all through the week as well.
As it should be, mind you. These networks are doing exactly what they’re supposed to do – presenting a story fairly, allowing people from both sides of the aisle to have their say and pushing back/asking tough questions when and where possible. That’s how news is supposed to work.
And it did work for decades and decades. Right up until the rightwing news apparatus was developed. Right up until Obama wearing a tan suit was treated as a bigger scandal than Donald Trump essentially auctioning off a White House dinner to crypto investors.
This is why so many people ask if we could imagine the response if Obama …. Because we know that had Obama ripped off a wing of the White House or withheld federal funding until colleges agreed to follow his agenda, those rightwing news outlets would have been 24-7 outrage machines. While their counterparts at mainstream outlets would have offered no pushback – because they, unlike Fox and others, don’t work hand in hand with the Democrats – and instead would have treated it as they’re treating the shutdown now – as a news story.
That’s where we are in this country. It’s why Democrats are losing, despite having better ideas and better policies and better people and a broader base.
