Sunday, February 11, 2024

Hey DC Dems - GOPs and DC Media are working as a team, willingly or not. GO AFTER THEM

When I heard of the story of Trumpist Attorney Robert Hur giving a ratfuck of a report on Joe Biden's handling of classified documents (which Hur admits was legal and fine), I got enraged. Somewhat because of Hur's unwarranted judgments about Biden's state of mind, but mostly because it was such a PREDICTABLE hit job.

The reason I say the word "predictable" was perfectly summed up in a recent Substack by historian Heather Cox Richardson. Richardson notes that it has been SOP for Republicans for decades to (ab)use the power of investigation in order to amplify lies and slanders against Democrats.
As far back as 1950, when Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) insisted—without evidence—that the Department of State under Democratic president Harry Truman had been infiltrated by Communists, Republicans have used official investigations to smear their opponents. State Department officials condemned McCarthy’s “Sewer Politics” and the New York Times complained about his “hit-and-run” attacks, but McCarthy’s outrageous statements and hearings kept his accusations in the news. That media coverage, in turn, convinced many Americans that his charges were true.

Other Republicans finally rejected McCarthy, but in 1996, congressional Republicans frustrated by the election of Democratic president Bill Clinton in 1992 and the Democrats’ subsequent expansion of the vote with the so-called Motor Voter law in 1993 resurrected his tactics. They launched investigations into two elections they insisted the Democrats had stolen. They discovered no fraud, but their investigation convinced a number of Americans that voter fraud was a serious problem.

There were ten investigations into the 2012 attack on two U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed and several others wounded; Republican-dominated House committees held six of them. Kevin McCarthy bragged to Fox News personality Sean Hannity that the Benghazi special committee was part of a “strategy to fight and win” against then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The strategy of weaponizing investigations went on to be central to the 2016 election, when Trump ran on the investigation of Clinton’s email practices, and to the 2020 election, when Trump tried to weaken Biden’s candidacy by trying to force Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to say that Ukraine was opening an investigation into Hunter Biden and the company he worked for.

Going into 2024, the House is investigating Hunter Biden, and while witness testimony and evidence has not supported their contention that President Biden is corrupt, the stench of the hearings has convinced a number of MAGA voters of the opposite.
Also note that the GOP House refuses to allow Hunter Biden to testify in public, and instead want to be able to take his words out of context in reports they will amplify on Faux News and other GOPper-ganda. Likewise, we have no tape of Biden's alleged mental lapses, just Hur's written opinions.

By comparison, we have plenty of tape of Biden's likely opponent being senile, nuts, and dangerous to national security. Including this weekend.

Trump can't even walk 18 holes, let alone 7 miles. Oh, but it's Biden's mental acuity and overall health that we should be worried about? BULLSHIT.

I am sick and tired of Dems having to be 5 times better than Republicans to have things be evaluated equally. It is a failure of DC/Coastal Media that they continue to have this double-standard, and of DC Dems for not attacking DC Media for their pro-GOP reporting.

Michelle Wolf nailed this at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2018.

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"I think what no one in this room wants to admit, is that Trump has helped all of you. He couldn't sell steaks, or vodka, or water, or college, or ties, or Eric. But he has helped you. He's helped you sell your papers, and your books, and your TV. You helped create this monster, and now you're profiting off of him. And if you're gonna profit off of Trump, you should at least give him some money because HE DOESN'T HAVE ANY."
All Dems should treat the media with the contempt that DC Republicans pretend to give when they're trying to "work the refs" into amplifying the lies and misdirections they want average voters to hear. And DC Dems should be directing the media back to the reality they refuse to cover, and just like Faux News, they need to be constantly doing it, and not letting up until those discussions actually happen. Stop the typical DC Dem act of talking about something for two days and then moving on to something else in the name of "governance" or some other "go high" BS that stopped being something that made a difference in elections a decade ago.

Elite DC/Coastal Media still thinks politics in 2024 is all a game where they can profit of off ratings and the interest of what is perceived to be a close race. They will not be fair in 2024, and should be considered the enemy until they are forced to call it fair.

1 comment:

  1. NYT front page today, just under the banner. A *news story* not an op-ed:

    Why the Age Issue Is Hurting Biden So Much More Than Trump

    Both Donald J. Trump and President Biden are over 75. But voters are much less likely to worry that Mr. Trump is too old to serve.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/10/us/politics/biden-trump-aging.html

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