You may recall, in May ‘21, Dems & the MSM alleged that “Jim Crow 2.0” had arrived in Georgia over new voting laws.
As votes roll in for this week’s election we’ve learned early voting is up 300% & black early voting is at record highs.
Care to explain, guys?⤵️
The original outrage was led - stumblingly, haltingly - by @JoeBiden, who referred to the measure as “Jim Crow 2.0,” and “Jim Eagle” (an evolved version of Jim Crow, perhaps?)
I can just feel the unity.
Any follow up, Mr. President?
But of course it wasn’t just President Biden pushing this conspiracy among elected Democrats.
Perhaps my favorite comes from @SenBooker, who called the move a step “toward authoritarianism and repression” because we are serious people living in serious times.
And lest we forget about our LatinX comrades, @JacksonLeeTX18 has us covered!
We even had almost-politicians. Perhaps no one was as upset online as Georgia shadow governor @staceyabrams
As ever, this went from Dems’ lips to the media’s ears.
I probably could’ve done an entire thread just on @CNN, who ran a series titled “Voting Rights Under Attack” an entirely unbiased work about one party’s efforts to address election integrity concerns
But their hyperbole may actually have been outdone by @MSNBC, who’s interviews and tweets were indistinguishable from the most unserious Democratic fundraising efforts.
@washingtonpost dedicated their entire editorial team to this issue, it seems.
Oh come on, @MotherJones. Even for you guys this is ridiculous.
@BusinessInsider doing their best Buzzfeed “you won’t believe what happens next!” impression.
@atrupar provides an answer to the timeless riddle: if the votes aren’t actually suppressed, can Dems still get attention by alleging voter suppression?
And you know I couldn’t leave her out. Where left wing conspiracy theories go, @JRubinBlogger is never far behind.
Biden’s pardoning of his son Hunter says an enormous amount about the president’s views of justice.
But it also says a lot about the willingness of the mainstream media—the nation’s noble fact checking corps—to repeat bogus claims that suit Democrats.
Remember? ⤵️
For starters, let’s revisit the coverage of how Biden wouldn’t do what he just did.
Biden said he wouldn’t pardon his son, no way. He would trust our legal system.
The media repeated it at every turn, without a shred of incredulity.
Here’s @washingtonpost
Seemingly every outlet did the same. @CNN had a couple of my favorites.
Look at the lede in on this first one.
The media’s job isn’t to simply repeat what politicians tell them. Whatever happened to “defenders of our democracy” and all that?
The news that MSNBC may soon have a new owner (and that it might be a certain X power user) compelled me to finally open my “MSNBC conspiracy theories” screenshot folder and, woo boy, there are a lot.
If you’d like to revisit them, buckle up, and follow along. ⤵️
There’s nowhere better to start than with Russiagate.
Do you remember the promotion from @chrislhayes, @MalcolmNance, @maddow and others at @MSNBC that perhaps Donald Trump was a Russian agent?
I, for one, will not be forgetting.
But there was plenty of other insanity from the gang at MSNBC about Russiagate.
Here are just a couple.
The first seems apropos with Trump again picking a cabinet.
Whatever happened to Harris and Biden’s “strongest economy ever” that the media spent so much time hyping up in the lead up to the election?
I revisit the claims, and explain why they were off the mark about the economy all along, in my latest @AmerCompass.
Quick🧵thread🧵⤵️
It can be easy, in the wake of an election, to forget just how dominant a media narrative was.
One that’s already fading from view was how “great” the economy was, and why it would benefit Harris on Election Day. americancompass.org/its-still-the-…
As a refresher, check out this headline from @axios about the data.
@YahooFinance upgraded Biden’s economic grade to an A. That captures the press sentiment at the time quite well.
In recent days, the mainstream media has taken nakedly ridiculous claims about the tattoos of @PeteHegseth, Trump’s SecDef nominee, to spin up a story alleging he’s an extremist.
It’s an egregious example of politically driven “journalism.” I unpack why. ⤵️
The story really started with @AP, who ran an article claiming that two tattoos that @PeteHegseth has have ties to extremism, citing an extremely thin (and downright suspect) report.
They used that to label him a potential “insider threat” in their headline.
It wasn’t until 3 paragraphs in that a reader was told what that claim rested on: a tattoo of a Latin phrase. They’d go on to mention “concerns” about a cross tattoo as well.
Would be great if Trump’s unconventional picks for his cabinet inspire the media to consider a nominee’s credentials.
They might want to look at the current HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra, who brings to the table the medical experience of being in Congress for 12 terms.
Or perhaps Obama’s former HHS Secretary, Sylvia Matthews Burwell, who had just finished her stint lobbying for Walmart.
Or Donna Shalala, Clinton’s former head of HHS, whose credentials were as a university administrator and feminist.