Thread by @jheartney

Note to everyone saying that if Dems had done half the stuff Trump et al have done, there'd be massive scandals and hearings and wall-to-wall coverage: /1

You're quite right. But it's instructive to see why that is.

The GOP spent decades creating and nurturing a separate, parallel media establishment that can amplify, repeat and make omnipresent any narrative they choose. /2

They can take anything, no matter how flimsy, and turn inject it into the national media conversation. Further, they can push that narrative into the brains of a loyal, always voting segment who will remember it on election days. /3

And on top of that, they can use that same media/audience to attack any part of the non-rightwing national media to cow it into repeating their chosen narratives. /4

Some parts of the media (CNN, NPR) have been so thoroughly intimidated that they are often just as ready to repeat chosen right wing narratives as the actual right wing sources. /5

So when you complain about media hypocrisy in not treating Trump with the same standards as they did Hillary, realize this isn't an accident. This is something Republicans did deliberately when they created Fox News, talk radio and the rest. /6

Nor is it ever going to change, so long as right wing media are as entrenched as they are now.

So stop whinging about the unfairness of it. There's no fairness involved. It's the tool their side created being put to use. /7

And when our side comes back to power (as we eventually will; the right always makes a huge mess when it's in power, and Dems get elected to clean it up), we should bear this in mind, and use whatever tools we can to degrade and destroy right wing media. /8

Otherwise we'll simply end up in the same spot after another cycle. /end