This abominable discrepancy
With a cunning deliberateness that can no longer be ignored, let alone excused, we are being manipulated by the mainstream media. This deadly game is being played with our sense of normality, and the stakes are American democracy itself.
The discrepancy between how the media represented Joe Biden’s speech condemning Republican fascism and the deeply troubling display of Trump’s actual fascism — caught on camera from Trump’s Nuremberg-style rally on Saturday — could not be more disturbing.
In condemning Republican fascism President Biden explicitly said not all Republicans are fascists, just some of them. Yet that message was allowed to become diluted by Republicans themselves, whining in counterfeit outrage about how “unfairly” the President represented “all” Republicans, not just some. Yet that false message was lent legitimacy by the mainstream media in its dispiritingly tepid response.
Meanwhile, in an obvious homage to Hitler, Trump supporters gave what can only be described as a Nazi salute to Donald Trump at his Youngstown, Ohio, rally on Saturday. For that, much of the mainstream media scratched its head and wondered what it was all about. What could all those sieg heiling Trumpists possibly have meant?
So on the one hand Biden’s clear constraint is allowed to be questioned and criticised while acts of obvious fanatical fascistic symbolism are overlooked on the other. I’m sorry, but if I didn’t know any better I’d say it’s as if the mainstream media actually wants us to think that Biden is being too harsh and Trump isn’t really being a Nazi asshole lookalike. The lack of condemnation of the narrative that Biden should go easier on Republicans next to the bizarre acceptance of Saturday’s Hitleresque, quasi-Nazi salutes makes my blood boil. There should be universal understanding for the former and universal condemnation for the latter. There is not.
I can only conclude that the press is trying to be deliberately and cunningly “fair” because it wants to promote this very outrageous idea that Republicans these days are merely the other side of a political fence from Democrats, and not the clear and present danger that they really are, as signified by the rise of Republican fascism in the United States. Such a balancing act may be good for ratings and the perpetuation of the profitable status quo, but it’s deadly to democracy. It seems to be a risk the MSM is willing to take.
From now on, no Republican should be allowed to escape an interview or impromptu Q & A without being put on the red hot seat of Trump’s Nazi salute. They should either condemn this act of fascistic symbolism or be unmercifully hounded until they do. There cannot possibly be any rational narrative that will permit this kind of thing to go on unchecked.
The only difference between a bonifide Nazi salute and what Trump supporters did on Saturday was an index finger in the air. But we know exactly what they were trying to look like and so do they. Nobody, but nobody is fooled, and it’s time for the MSM to start acting like they aren’t fooled either.
That kind of thing should be shouted down in derision and words of uncompromising condemnation immediately on TV and in print until Republicans condemn it too. Because the next step is going to be in the same Hitler direction with the same fascistic endgame in mind. And Republicans know it. So does the mainstream media. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.