The MSM and False Equivalence

[LFC]

They just can't help themselves. And once again Democrats show that they need to grow some balls.

Over the last couple days I’ve read a dozen or more articles and newsletter briefs which describe the purported political disaster that is the Biden classified documents issue, then explain how it bears no comparison to the ongoing Mar-a-Lago scandal and then note that the difference and lack of comparison actually don’t matter because that’s how it is. Punchbowl runs through a list of Democratic lawmakers who are barely willing to make the distinction in public, let alone defend the President from the adverse comparisons. The headline of this Dan Balz column perhaps sums it up most nicely: Biden, Trump cases aren’t alike. The political system doesn’t care.

The deputy editor of the Post opinion section goes so far as to say that the Biden documents “should spell the end of any realistic prospect of criminal charges against former President Donald Trump” and lauds this as a wonderful thing since such charges would have been terrible for the country. Arrrghghghghg.

To state the obvious succinctly: we are the political system. We shouldn’t be afraid of stating clearly and loudly what happened here. Indeed, much of the press momentum behind this story is driven by Democratic sheepishness about it. Republican elected officials are going to town on it while Democrats try to avoid eye contact. That’s embarrassing. One instance here is at most administrative sloppiness; the other is willful theft of government documents, refusal to return them, claims to own U.S. government documents, ongoing obstruction of government attempts to retrieve the documents. Any of these Democratic elected officials should be spending whatever microphone time they have on this reiterating the gravity of Trump’s offenses.

Clearly, they think they are gaining some credibility or credit for evenhandedness but lying or actively misleading people — which is what they are doing — doesn’t make you credible. It certainly gains no credit in a capital still mostly wired for the GOP. We can’t dictate how the “political system” operates but we can choose what part we play in it.

Late Update: I was heartened to see this concise description of the issue from the defrocked conservatives at The Bulwark: “This is really bad because people are too dishonest or too stupid to grasp the difference between Biden’s documents and Trump’s documents.“

[LFC]

Our MSM is, once again, completely falling flat on its collective face in calling out the Republican march towards fascism. They simply refuse to quite their beloved both-sideism.

As Tennessee Republicans expelled two state House Democrats for joining in a protest calling for gun reform from the House floor, the national media turned its attention to the chamber.

The story was plastered across cable news and front pages alike, with reporters tweeting the moment each of the two was booted — the first expulsion based on partisan politics, instead of misconduct, since the Civil War era. One lawmaker, Rep. Gloria Johnson (D), who is white, barely survived her expulsion vote. The other two, Reps. Justin Jones (D) and Justin Pearson (D), who are Black, were expelled. The three joined a protest at the state Capitol last week after six people were shot and killed at a Nashville elementary school.

The Republican House supermajority used its dominance to push through the two men’s expulsion, despite Democratic opposition. The votes for the three lawmakers fell largely along party lines — even more so for the two who were expelled.

These Republicans brought a hammer down on their fellow lawmakers for peacefully protesting. In doing so, they undid the voters’ will and essentially nullified the results of a free and fair election because they couldn’t stomach the dissent. It was a shocking display of anti-democratic vengeance by a party that enjoys near-complete control over the state, that even used its dominance to dismember one of the last remaining Democratic strongholds last redistricting cycle to further entrench itself.

And yet, some mainstream outlets still struggled to resist both sides-ing the reality.

Take this Associated Press headline: “Amid polarization, minority party lawmakers face penalties.”

It’s hard to imagine a worse summation of current political dynamics. Based on the headline, you’d think it’d be a litany of Tennessee-esque vindictive actions taken by both parties. But look at the opening.

“Oklahoma Republicans removed the state’s only nonbinary legislator from House committees after the lawmaker provided refuge to a transgender rights activist,” it reads. “In Florida, two Democratic leaders were arrested for participating in a protest over abortion restrictions. And in Tennessee, three Democratic House members are facing expulsion for using a bullhorn in the House chamber to show support for demonstrators demanding gun control.”

Notice a pattern? In each example, Democrats are being punished for protesting, for publicly taking positions that Republicans oppose. And in the two examples where the punishments are political in nature, it’s Republicans who are doling them out.

These are not examples of “polarization.” They’re examples of a Republican party on an authoritarian, rightward-march, growing increasingly comfortable taking an iron fist to democratically elected lawmakers who express opinions they oppose.

The failings of the coverage range in severity.

Take this New York Times piece. The headline is informative: “Tennessee G.O.P. Punishes 2 Democrats by Throwing Them Out of House.”

But then you reach the sub-heading: “The unseating of the lawmakers threatened to further inflame partisan rancor in a state that is divided over issues like how to respond to a school shooting in Nashville.”

“Partisan rancor” is the evil being “threatened,” and not the reaction of a healthy democracy to years of chipping away at it.

Then you have the more minor, but frustrating, sins of omission.

This NPR headline — “Tennessee House votes to expel 2 of 3 Democratic members over gun protest” — and this Washington Post Twitter description of its article — “Over 100 state and federal Black lawmakers assembled in an emergency Zoom meeting Thursday evening to offer support to Democratic Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who were unseated from the Tennessee House” — omit critical information. Republicans in the Tennessee House voted to expel them. They were unseated by Republicans.

It all stems, consciously or not, from the idea that to pin the action on one party, rather than to avoid assigning accountability through the passive voice or by citing the chamber without clarifying its partisan lean, would reveal some kind of bias on the part of the reporter.

As soon as you step into the land of right-wing outlets, things get, predictably, worse.