Conservatives have adopted a victim mentality that insists they’re targets of a biased press and threatened by violent leftists. They cite everything from coverage of Kavanaugh to protesters at universities to prove their point. Of course most of what they whine about has a grain of truth, but they’re represented by the political party that controls the Presidency, both Houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, two thirds of the governorships and a majority of state legislatures. Clearly, press bias isn’t working. Conservatives’ real problem is that they can’t take criticism.
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote a piece this weekend titled “Democrats are blowing it again.” He argues that they’ve ham-handedly become a left-leaning version of Trump, alienating people with divisive rhetoric and tactics that drive voters away. I tend to agree with his broader view, but if he’s right, then the press is certainly not biased toward Democrats.
He cites Hillary Clinton’s interview where she says “you cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about” and Eric Holder’s statement “When they go low, we kick ’em.” He says that Chuck Shumer decision to make the Kavanaugh hearings a litmus test was misguided and that Democrats making the hearings a spectacle gave the GOP ammunition. He derided calling women supporters of Kavanaugh “gender traitors.” All of his points are valid but voters know about this stuff, it’s because the press reported it, and not just Fox News.
The outrage over toppled monuments and people chasing conservatives out of public spaces has Donald Trump calling Democrats an angry mob. Conservatives have been complaining about leftist protesters for years. I think a lot of the protest tactics are counter-productive, but the protesters are not generally operating out of Democratic Party headquarters like the thugs on the right are.
This weekend, the jack-booted Brown Shirt wannabes who call themselves the Proud Boys left a meeting at New York Republican Party headquarters and started stomping anti-fascist protesters. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is holding rallies where chants of “Lock her up” routinely urge the jailing of the President’s political opponents. These events are sanctioned and sponsored by the Republican Party. The Republican Party of Virginia put out a piece of literature claiming a Democratic candidate for Congress hates America.
In Pennsylvania, the GOP nominee for governor posted a video threating to “stomp all over” Governor Tom Wolf’s face with golf spikes. As one person on twitter wrote, that’s the most Republican threat ever. While Wolf pulled down the video, no Republicans decried his violent sentiment.
The press is certainly struggling to adjust to an environment that demands immediate response to every story, lest they get scooped by amateur video that goes viral on social media. The intentional liberal bias, though, is BS. The right, in contrast, has built a powerful propaganda network that began with talk radio in the late 1980s, morphed into Fox News in the 1990s and is now the political arm of the President of the United States, spreading fake news to a willing audience that condemns its political foes as outsiders and traitors. The threat to our democracy doesn’t come from students pulling down monuments to white supremacy. It comes from people who point fingers at agitators who have almost no political power while ignoring the thugs and liars who provide propaganda and muscle to the people who control our government.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
VICTIM, THAT IS A JOKE.
A significant percentage of Republican voters are willing to ignore the distasteful shenanigans committed by Republican politicians for the simple reason the party has openly agreed to pursue an agenda based on evangelical principles.
Evangelicals openly claim they are victims at the same time figuring out ways to suppress voting rights on the false premise of illegal voting. Once again supplying a solution to a problem that has never existed. In addition, to reversing the constitutional notion of placing the burden to prove a criminal act on the state, not on the accused.
That would be tantamount to traffic police officer taking one look at you than writing a citation before entering get in your vehicle based on his or her “experience with folks who engage in speeding”.
All these sinful acts to serve what in their minds is a “greater purpose” also inspired a handful of courageous persons from foreign countries to denounce their allegiance to a king or emperor endure a perilous trip to the new world. They simple had enough of a dictatorship telling them how to live their lives.
Let us not explore the concept of birth control which works to keep population down, that is also in the sin list of wrongs..
These founders were of different faiths and in some cases no recognized faith stated their purpose “ to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”
I challenge anybody to tell me where does it says in this general statement of purpose where a county of Black, White, Christian, , Muslims, evangelic Christians, Jews, Buddhists or any of the other recognized or un recognized Religious practices has an absolute right to practice bigotry or hatefulness.