You can tell our society is in danger of collapsing when we lionize someone for simply telling the truth about an event that we saw play out live across our television screens. Liz Cheney is not a hero; Liz Cheney is not particularly courageous. Liz Cheney is not an honest human being. She told the truth. Even in this one instance of truth-telling, she couldn’t divorce herself from lying about Black Lives Matter protesters and Antifa. Republican politicians just can’t help themselves. The media and the people inclined to give Liz Cheney overblown credit for telling the truth need to be reminded that she voted in line with the most prolific liar to ever reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She voted for Trump’s policies 92 percent of the time. You don’t help create the monster and then act as if it didn’t happen.
Being the most prolific liar was not earned easily, considering the records of some of his Republican predecessors. Reagan lied about Supply-Side Economics and Iran-Contra. George H.W. Bush ran a racist campaign to get elected and covered for the Reagan Administration’s crimes and lies. Then we have George W. Bush, who callously lied about Iraq and their possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction, which painfully and ironically resulted in an actual act of mass destruction, estimated to kill hundreds of thousands of human beings.
The willingness of our society and the media to promote the lies of Republican politicians has created an existential threat to our democracy. The dissemination of hate and misinformation by media platforms like Fox has polluted the airwaves with baseless propaganda for the past 24 years. It’s in the ether, but more traditional media has played a supporting role in giving right-wing propaganda legitimacy and, in some cases promoting it. The New York Times comes to mind and their supporting role in pushing the WMD story. Even though traditional media was called out for their dereliction of duty in the WMD case, their behavior continued to get worst. They engaged in full-scale “whataboutism” and passed it off as an example of objectivity. They contracted out a significant component of their mandate (truth-telling) to third parties (PolitiFact and Washington Post Pinocchio system), so they could avoid alienating politicians. They avoided calling a lie a lie like it was the plague.
The non-right-wing media adopted a business model that required them to blow everything that Democrats did out of proportion and minimize what Republicans were doing to treat our democracy as if it were a sporting event. They acted as if they were responsible for handicapping it or creating a point spread. This media environment was perfect for a two-bit carnival barker like Donald Trump to become President of The United States. Donald Trump’s pathway into politics was paved by a lie that was so racist and absurd on its face that anyone promoting it should have been ridiculed and excoriated. Instead, we have a country where nearly half of Americans were willing to question the citizenship and legitimacy of the first African American President of the United States. Once again, the media entertained this idiocy and reported on it as if they were episodes of Mystery Theater.
More than once, I wish President Obama had the inclination and liberty to tell them what to do with that nonsense, but we already saw how many Americans lost their minds when President Obama stated that what a police officer did to Henry Louis Gates was stupid (It was).
The media calls Donald Trump’s contention that he won the 2020 Presidential Election and that there was wide-scale fraud “The Big Lie.” I believe the Biggest Lie for the past 50 years has been that the Republican Party is interested in governing, policy, or the needs of the American people. The Republican Party is an extremist party, and they are willing to do absolutely anything to gain power. They will eliminate every thread that keeps our democracy intact. Corruption, Obstruction, Insurrection, their mantra is “whatever it takes.” They are soulless and have gone from the guardians of plutocracy to members of a cult pledged to support a narcissistic, hate-mongering leader. Every time I hear them proclaim that they are the Party of Lincoln, it makes me want to puke because if you have to go back 156 years to find something positive about your party, your expiration date is long overdue.
Views: 80