The Media's Portrayal of Trump and His Presidency

[plenzmd1]

1 minute ago, row_33 said:

 

That was gone by 1700

not sure what you are saying?

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

7 hours ago, plenzmd1 said:

Okay, 2nd try LOL, truncated form

• While I do believe the economy is in good shape and growing, albeit at the same pace it was pre-Trump,  he got his 2 quarter bump by juicing the economy with that assinine tax cut. Believe me, the demand for skilled workers has been outpacing supply since at least 2010. Trump and his cut gave a lift to unskilled workers, but its a lift that to me is not sustainable, and that will get even worse when the deleterious effects of his trade policies really start to hit home in 2020 and beyond. I know this sounds callous, but if you were not working and enjoying the growth in the economy in 2010-2018 , its cause you were unskilled and/or uneducated. Your fault in other words, not the government or the economy.
• Conservatives have railed for years the Dems were "Tax and Spend" ..well, so far he has the spend part down pat, be nice if he had the revenues to cover his spending habits. We should be reducing deficits if the economy so good, they are growing at alarming rates.
• As mentioned above, I do not think his trade policies will pan out, and I think he will get out-negotiated by folks much smarter and more patient than him. Trade policies hit his base the hardest, he will cave on demands, declare victory none the less, and leave us in worse shape than before all IMHO.
• His strategy of being adversarial to get what he wants works when he is trying to get a vendor to agree to better terms, I don't believe it works in foreign policy. I applaud his efforts to get all of NATO to pay their fair share..long overdue. But for the rest of our allies to now view us as,  at best , of being neither friend nor foe is disturbing. I do like he wants us out of never-ending wars..I applaud that..but acknowledge the middle east stuff confuses me. I like reading what @Deranged Rhino posts, and I trust his takes on many views on the events in that region( i know @DC Tom , I am an idiot for saying that)
• His insistence that climate change is not real is just fanciful to me . One can argue causes certainly, but one cannot argue empirical evidence the climate is changing. Having said,  I agree with many of his initiatives on business deregulation, just not all, especially when it comes to many environmental regulations. Relaxing regulations so a dying industry like coal can have another decade is just folly to me.. Stop corporate welfare and let the freaking industry die as it should. You want to be compassionate to coal miners??? have them trained with new skills. They don't want new skills? Fug em. 
• And maybe I have missed something, but I don't remember seeing anything from this administration that fundamentally addresses the massive issue we have with entitlements right now. And that flat out sucks. 

And at the heart of it all, I think Trump has ripped out the heart and soul of America. There have always been differences..Liberal, Conservative etc..always will be. But I feel his rhetoric, his use of the language as mentioned above..his incessant mistruths and lies have sapped the ability for us as a country to have any kind of common goals or aspirations. We see it on this very board, where we attack the person instead of attack and debate the idea and position.  .I believe he has sapped the ability for America to lead on a global stage from a position of moral strength, and that discourages the hell out of me. 

 

To bring it full circle to the point of this thread, I think the liberal press reacts more to his demeanor and his moral compass than they do to his policy decisions. That's on him, and tthe press Act like a Buffon, insult people, call them names..they gonna fight back. He uses the bully pulpit of the Presidency, they use their power of audience. 

 

I guess bthe est way to sum it up is I believe Trump has done many good things, many i don't agree with as well, as it has been with evry president to me since Reagan. But the ends do not always justify the means ...and his means ..aye yi yi!!!!

Damn, that was a good read until you went  and tried to lock that daytime Emmy down with the heart and soul of America riff.  

 

There are many, many, maaaaaaaaannnnnnnnyyyyy people with differing opinions who maintain the heart, soul and trust that is so important to you.  That is to say they would help a neighbor in a time of need, they would dig into their pocket to help a friend of a friend of a friend battling a serious illness, dealing with the loss of a home or loved one, or to provide financial relief for someone who their head stuck in a mechanical rice picker.  Check your house of worships, your local businesses, the fire department and of course the Facebook. 

 

I'd grant you the extremes seem more extreme, but I think that's due in part to the extremes being normalized by design. It's really not that long ago the FOBs were firebombing  police stations and corrupt authoritarians were targeting civil rights activist with violence and intimidation.  

 

Finally, I'd simply end by saying that folks wondering aloud about the loss of our center is a national past time.  Personally, I could with a bit less of the over-the-top rhetoric, but find it incredibly refreshing when he hits the sweet spot.  His "witch hunt" mantra, for example.  For those who suggest he should simply stay quiet if he nothing to hide, I say "screw that.".  Defend yourself, and in thought word and deed, respond.  The alternative is death by a ten thousand paper cuts over a prolonged period of time. 

 

As for the media, I think as a profession, and at the risk of over generalizing, they've become pretty soft and need to toughen up a bit. I think DJT correctly calling out purveyors of manipulated news is a dog whistle for saying those folks are often full of baloney. 

Edited February 20, 2019 by leh-nerd skin-erd

[row_33]

41 minutes ago, plenzmd1 said:

not sure what you are saying?

 

No guff

[Foxx]

9 hours ago, 3rdnlng said:

You must have your fact checker mode turned on. Turn it off and it will allow you to post.

[/dev/null]

9 hours ago, njbuff said:

Richard Painter, my God.

 

[GG]

21 hours ago, plenzmd1 said:

Okay, 2nd try LOL, truncated form

• [snip]

And at the heart of it all, I think Trump has ripped out the heart and soul of America. There have always been differences..Liberal, Conservative etc..always will be. But I feel his rhetoric, his use of the language as mentioned above..his incessant mistruths and lies have sapped the ability for us as a country to have any kind of common goals or aspirations. We see it on this very board, where we attack the person instead of attack and debate the idea and position.  .I believe he has sapped the ability for America to lead on a global stage from a position of moral strength, and that discourages the hell out of me. 

 

To bring it full circle to the point of this thread, I think the liberal press reacts more to his demeanor and his moral compass than they do to his policy decisions. That's on him, and tthe press Act like a Buffon, insult people, call them names..they gonna fight back. He uses the bully pulpit of the Presidency, they use their power of audience. 

 

I guess bthe est way to sum it up is I believe Trump has done many good things, many i don't agree with as well, as it has been with evry president to me since Reagan. But the ends do not always justify the means ...and his means ..aye yi yi!!!!

 

Answering these properly takes time and that’s why you don’t see an immediate response. 

 

I won’t go point by point, because you’ve hit on many overlapping topics where the perceived concern and solution is usually tied to another more important topic, which sometimes is counterintuitive to the first topic you bring up.

 

Let’s address the biggest issue that I think you raised, which is Trump’s responsibility for America losing its moral fiber.  He’s an easy target because he’s fat, orange and has a big mouth which utters stupid things more often than not.   But is he the symptom or the cause of the American moral rot?  

 

I think it’s too simplistic to believe that America suddenly has gone to the crapper in the three years of his campaign and presidency.  If anything, he’s the pendulum swing to what the bi-coastal elites have been swinging since the Clinton impeachment.  To be sure, I place full blame on Gingrich and his crew for that particular witch hunt (aided by the growing right wing radio universe), and you knew there would be a complete counterstrike from the left. 

 

It was also right around this time that the historically left leaning TV and paper news press dropped their pretenses to be impartial (and what gave Murdoch a wide berth and audience for counterprogramming).  So during that time, flyover country was not only coined but publicly ridiculed for holding onto their guns and religion, and were told that they really didn’t build or create anything – somebody else made it happen.

 

I was in a good intersection for the ’16 election, as a conservative, never-Trumper, living at the very heart of progressivism that shapes the news you read, but also spending a lot of time upstate among the deplorables. 

 

I never thought that a serial philanderer with a potty mouth had a chance with the ordinary church going folks.   But hearing them talk about their expectations for Trump was an eye opener, which was a big F-U to the downstate visitors who treated all of them like rubes.  They also didn’t forget the attention (or lack of) that the area received after Irene, especially after the hoopla that surrounded Katrina.   Entire villages were wiped out, and people were basically told to get over it and move on, just like they had for generations.   

 

While Irene is an isolated incident for the Catskills, it’s a microcosm for the disdain rural and exurban folks felt towards the big city visitors.  Hillary’s deplorables comment was simply a confirmation of what everyone up there and anywhere outside the major city centers knew.

 

It was also hammered home AFTER the election, because the news tone reinforced the deplorables rhetoric by casting everyone who didn’t vote for Hillary as a racist misogynist, and hasn’t let up since.  And it’s not only in how the investigations and “scandals” have been covered. It’s the mental gymnastics his opponents have to go through to criticize him, even though they supported the same policies only a short time before. 

 

And this is why you get pushback from people here who object to your claims that conservatives are whiners.  You may see it as whining, while we see it as reaching the limit of getting pissed on.  The years of conservatives sitting quietly are over, because there was not going to be any quarter from the vocal elites. 

 

Mild mannered, cultured R candidates are accused of throwing black people back in chains, despite having zero history of any racial animus, while former KKK grand wizards are esteemed D party elders, or are quietly forgiven for wearing blackface and strutting around town as Coonman.  

 

Ordinary people don’t understand how they became racists only eight years after many of them voted for Obama.  It must be the only reason why they flipped their vote for Trump, or a few million more voted for the 3^rd party option, or 5 million of them decided to sit out the election altogether.

 

Trump is these people’s weapon against the blatant hypocrisy.  He’s not an artful orator, but he’s one of the best at giving the middle finger back to the detractors, and they love him for it. 

 

You may think that Trump is the reason that morality has declined, but the roots are deeper, and again I blame the progressives.  By taking their working plans from the long held communist beliefs that religion is an evil artifact of western empires, religion must be destroyed.  This has been a central tenet of Marxism, because he knew organized religion was a hindrance to his worker paradise, and every socialist regime moved against the church.    

 

That’s why the stupid people stubbornly cling to their guns and religion.  They’re apparently not enlightened enough.  

 

It’s also another reason why socialism is a crock of *****.  It’s very good at breaking things up, but awful at building everything back.  You don’t have to be a devout believer of any particular religion to recognize its value in forming the moral code of its people.   Socialism/liberalism thinks those old-time religion values are bad, but worse than that, it doesn’t replace those values with anything equally strong and beneficial. 

 

The central tenet of every religion is that it’s immutable across generations, and that’s why a rigid application of God’s word is so important.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t evolving interpretations of that book over time.  But the key is that, it’s the interpretation of that Book that’s happening, not rewriting of the Book.   Liberalism rewrites the Book on the fly.

 

I was raised in a fully non-practicing family, but don’t have any illusions that religions don’t matter and the world would be better off without religions.  History has proven that atheists are just as brutal as religious zealots.

 

I’ll address economy/foreign policy later.

[Joe Miner]

9 minutes ago, GG said:

 

Answering these properly takes time and that’s why you don’t see an immediate response. 

 

I won’t go point by point, because you’ve hit on many overlapping topics where the perceived concern and solution is usually tied to another more important topic, which sometimes is counterintuitive to the first topic you bring up.

 

 

 

Great stuff GG.

 

Good discussion on both parts.  PPP should be more of this.

[DC Tom]

I'm a little too busy to read all that, but I don't want to be caught shirking my responsibilities again, so I'm just going to say you're both idiots. 

[GG]

6 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

I'm a little too busy to read all that, but I don't want to be caught shirking my responsibilities again, so I'm just going to say you're both idiots. 

 

Sure thing, Dexter

[GG]

Economy

 

I’m sure that you’ve seen plenty of commentary that Trump behaves under a simple negotiating strategy that he described in The Art of The Deal.  I can tell you from a reputable second-hand account who dealt directly with him in the real estate days, that’s exactly how he behaves.   The no-holds aggressive posture is how he made his billions and how his companies faced four Chapter 11s.  He never backs down, and is perfectly willing to walk away with nothing to pick up the next shiny object.

 

This was my biggest fear about how his negotiating style will get America into trouble, because as I’ve said many times, whenever he’s faced someone competent across the table, he had his ass handed to him.  

 

And therein lies the difference.  He’s using the American platform to negotiate with everyone who is weaker, and nobody has the desire nor the power to cobble up a unified coalition to stand their ground.  If they did, Trump would lose bigly. 

 

China will buckle, because Xi cannot afford a true economic slowdown.  Europe?  Hah, they could have a chance if they had a strong UK leading the charge.  I’m sure if there’s one thing that Eurozone hates more than Trump’s Cheshire cat smile is dealing with a messy UK divorce.  Once Brexit terms are sorted out, Junker’s next course of action will be to buy a new set of knee pads (on Amazon, of course) prior to his summit with Trump.

 

So, while playing a high stakes tariff game is very dangerous, because of the pain it can inflict, Trump is playing with a very strong hand against opponents known for folding and who have trouble keeping their own house in order.

 

...

 

I agree with you that the people at the bottom of the economy’s rung will be hit by the next downturn, but that’s nothing that policies can really fix.   Low wage, low skill means no job security.  Never has, never will. 

 

Your admission that low wage workers finally started getting jobs under Trump is more of an indictment of the previous economic policies, than a compliment to Trump.  Low wage jobs should have bounced back much quicker after the recession than they did.  But for 7 years, those jobs evaporated because it made zero sense to bring those jobs back, knowing there would be more costs, red tape & regulations attached to those employees.  The employers’ view on this was – “Why go through that headache for a low skill job that can be done by spreading more work to existing workers?”  These are the real questions management goes through when they decide on whether to expand.  In many cases after the recession, the additional cost was offset by a new growth opportunity and that's why demand was strong for skilled labor, but in the marginal/low-skill cases, the answer was always, No.   

 

This is the part of business thinking that Bernies and AOCs simply don’t understand.  To them, the jobs miraculously appear without anyone considering the costs of adding new jobs.

 

(As an aside, my advice to anyone worried about their jobs is to think about job security every day.  Make yourself indispensable by doing more than the job requires.  That makes you much harder to fire)

[Foxx]

26 minutes ago, GG said:

Economy

 

I’m sure that you’ve seen plenty of commentary that ...

it's just nice to be winning again after 8 years of, meh.

[GG]

For the global warming rhetoric, apply the Fight Club standard, because the first rule of Global Warming is never to admit to Global Warming.

 

That’s not to say that there isn’t an issue with the climate, but admitting it publicly immediately throws you into the rabbit hole of inane solutions.   Same as Trump not touching entitlements right now because he doesn’t need to be painted as the guy who pushed grandma off the cliff.

 

If global warming/climate change/algore’s carbon non-neutral house are a true threat to humanity, there is plenty of time to come up with realistic solutions that won’t send us to the stone age.

 

For the same reasons that AOC/Bernie don’t understand economics, they don’t understand how to effectively transition off fossil fuels (if that’s even needed at all).  It’s a lot easier to pretend that heavily subsidized and inefficient renewable energy sources are the panacea when you get chauffeured around town.   Like the well-meaning ladies in my  town who were protesting the Iraq War, and to a person pulled out the “No War for Oil” laminated signs out of their 8-person SUVs.

 

Progressives say that they’re in favor of clean energy, and that usually means stuff they cannot see or doesn’t have any visible residue in the Acela corridor.  But clean energy’s dirty secret is the inability to transmit and store that energy source is a very dirty business (ask Dexter)

 

Coal is an easy target because it’s hard and dirty and emits black smoke, but it also powers 30% of the US.  

Coal will die a natural death anyway because it’s not as efficient as natural gas (nor nuclear), but you can’t transition off coal overnight.  It will happen gradually as new plants come online to take coal capacity off.   It’s the same economic decision I discussed above – at a certain point in the near future, the utility will face a question of maintaining an old coal plant or building a new gas plant.   As long as Trump (politicians favor fracking) gas will win out every time.   It’s already happened in North NJ where the last two coal plants were shut 2 years ago.

[DC Tom]

5 minutes ago, GG said:

For the global warming rhetoric, apply the Fight Club standard, because the first rule of Global Warming is never to admit to Global Warming.

 

That’s not to say that there isn’t an issue with the climate, but admitting it publicly immediately throws you into the rabbit hole of inane solutions.   Same as Trump not touching entitlements right now because he doesn’t need to be painted as the guy who pushed grandma off the cliff.

 

If global warming/climate change/algore’s carbon non-neutral house are a true threat to humanity, there is plenty of time to come up with realistic solutions that won’t send us to the stone age.

 

There actually aren't.  CO2 has a several-centuries span of persistence in the atmosphere (compare to methane, which has a much stronger greenhouse effect but persists for a decade, or water vapor, which is stronger but persists for days).  If we killed all the farting cows now, methane levels drop by 2030.  If we stop all CO2 production now, CO2 levels drop by 2200.  The planet cooks until then.

 

Basically, climate change politics is bull#### because while every plan is still about stopping or reversing global warming, we're well past the point of reversing it.  We needed to shift thinking from prevention to remediation of effects about 30 years ago.

[plenzmd1]

5 hours ago, GG said:

 

Answering these properly takes time and that’s why you don’t see an immediate response. 

 

 

Let’s address the biggest issue that I think you raised, which is Trump’s responsibility for America losing its moral fiber.

 

 

First, think it important to know it may seem I am liberal/democrat, nothing could be further from the truth. Most of my positions I would think are conservative, maybe outside of my opposition to the death penalty and putting stronger limitations in place on assault weapons. Having said that, i freely admit to being ardent anti- Trumper  I did not mean to imply at all that Trump is any way responsible for America losing its moral fiber, but instead his actions, words, and past behavior prevent America from leading form a moral high ground. Whether America has lost its lost its moral fiber is a whole other topic. 

 

Second, I agree now and screamed from the mountaintop in 16 that Trump was striking a chord with people and had a real shot to win. And yes, I think a portion of that was the press, but a much greater portion was  the folks getting left behind in the skills economy wanted someone to blame besides themselves, and Trump skillfully did that and presented enemies in the form immigrants and elite democrats..smart, smart tactic! 

 

Where you lost me is the veer off to religion and socialism liberalism. You say they blame religion, which I don't agree with but let's say that is so.

I will then say step 1 in Autocrats and Dictator playbook is to call the press the "enemy of the people", scream fake news every time they say something negative , and as noted above make a class of people the enemy and the reason for your plight in life, it is certainly not your fault!!!!... Trump to a tee!!

 

I hope you have noticed through my posts I have little sympathy for people who choose to not improve their lives, or get slighted by things and blame other people for their woes. Conservatives are doing this now..they have always complained about the press being too liberal, at least back 80 years, just didnt whine so much....today is same as it ever was..but now we have a bellyacher in chief who has made whining part of the conservative lexicon. 

Edited February 20, 2019 by plenzmd1

[plenzmd1]

2 hours ago, GG said:

E

This was my biggest fear about how his negotiating style will get America into trouble, because as I’ve said many times, whenever he’s faced someone competent across the table, he had his ass handed to him.  

 

 

China will buckle, because Xi cannot afford a true economic slowdown. 

So, while playing a high stakes tariff game is very dangerous, because of the pain it can inflict, Trump is playing with a very strong hand against opponents known for folding and who have trouble keeping their own house in order.

 

...

 

I agree with you that the people at the bottom of the economy’s rung will be hit by the next downturn, but that’s nothing that policies can really fix.   Low wage, low skill means no job security.  Never has, never will. 

2

2

 

2 hours ago, GG said:

 

 

so looks like we are pretty much in agreement here..except the China part. That dude in China donts gots to worried bout the election cycle coming up..Trump does. I believe their hand, if not stronger, is certainly equal to Trump's. As you mention, that is just not a situation that screams "Trump's Wheelhouse" I think he caves first. Again, he and his supporters will claim it as a win, , but I don't see a win there..and as the wall fiasco has shown he quite possibly will leave a much better deal on the table in order to get 100% of what he wants and end up getting much less.

 

Climate change? My beef with  Trump is strong, but just one example is him trying to force through laws that coal-fired energy cannot close or be shut down..are kidding me? And this is a conservative? When it is more efficient and cost-effective to use Natural Gas or other alternatives, than who in the hell is the government to step in and ..what is the phrase" pick winners"? 

Edited February 20, 2019 by plenzmd1

[Buffalo_Gal]

 

[Golden Goat]

[GG]

15 hours ago, plenzmd1 said:

First, think it important to know it may seem I am liberal/democrat, nothing could be further from the truth. Most of my positions I would think are conservative, maybe outside of my opposition to the death penalty and putting stronger limitations in place on assault weapons. Having said that, i freely admit to being ardent anti- Trumper  I did not mean to imply at all that Trump is any way responsible for America losing its moral fiber, but instead his actions, words, and past behavior prevent America from leading form a moral high ground. Whether America has lost its lost its moral fiber is a whole other topic. 

 

Second, I agree now and screamed from the mountaintop in 16 that Trump was striking a chord with people and had a real shot to win. And yes, I think a portion of that was the press, but a much greater portion was  the folks getting left behind in the skills economy wanted someone to blame besides themselves, and Trump skillfully did that and presented enemies in the form immigrants and elite democrats..smart, smart tactic! 

 

Where you lost me is the veer off to religion and socialism liberalism. You say they blame religion, which I don't agree with but let's say that is so.

I will then say step 1 in Autocrats and Dictator playbook is to call the press the "enemy of the people", scream fake news every time they say something negative , and as noted above make a class of people the enemy and the reason for your plight in life, it is certainly not your fault!!!!... Trump to a tee!!

 

I hope you have noticed through my posts I have little sympathy for people who choose to not improve their lives, or get slighted by things and blame other people for their woes. Conservatives are doing this now..they have always complained about the press being too liberal, at least back 80 years, just didnt whine so much....today is same as it ever was..but now we have a bellyacher in chief who has made whining part of the conservative lexicon. 

 

Trump is the ultimate media *****, who comes from the school that there's no such thing as bad publicity, so you have to wonder why he suddenly took a very confrontational tone against the press.   

 

There are two possible reasons - one, is the point you cite - that he's using the attacks on media to energize the base and set up a dictatorial rule by casting one half of the population as the enemy.  The other theory is that he adopted the aggressive tone after he learned about the plot against his administration and saw some portions of the media actively working to help the plotters.  Doesn't help that thin skinned narcissists don't take kindly to any criticism, especially when it's manufactured.

 

Up to you to decide which one you believe in and which one is more plausible, given the facts and his history of being a complete media *****.

 

 

15 hours ago, plenzmd1 said:

 

so looks like we are pretty much in agreement here..except the China part. That dude in China donts gots to worried bout the election cycle coming up..Trump does. I believe their hand, if not stronger, is certainly equal to Trump's. As you mention, that is just not a situation that screams "Trump's Wheelhouse" I think he caves first. Again, he and his supporters will claim it as a win, , but I don't see a win there..and as the wall fiasco has shown he quite possibly will leave a much better deal on the table in order to get 100% of what he wants and end up getting much less.

 

Climate change? My beef with  Trump is strong, but just one example is him trying to force through laws that coal-fired energy cannot close or be shut down..are kidding me? And this is a conservative? When it is more efficient and cost-effective to use Natural Gas or other alternatives, than who in the hell is the government to step in and ..what is the phrase" pick winners"? 

 

Xi doesn't have to worry about the election cycle, he's got a bigger concern about being the first Chinese leader to preside over an economic downturn.    That's why Trump thinks he has the upper hand.  There are plenty of rumors flying around of what the deal will eventually look like, but the still strong US economy numbers give Trump more wiggle room.

 

I think Trump's coal mandate is to remove the stifling regulations that effectively forced coal plants to close.  The new rules allow utilities to make the choice based on return on the investment, in an already highly regulated market.  In an ideal world, every regulator would be staffed with very smart people who have the whole set of information to make a industrial decisions.  In reality, most regulators are clueless in understanding how businesses are run and what factors go into massive capital expenditure decisions.   

 

The question isn't whether gas is more efficient than coal, it's how do you migrate a sizeable portion of the electric supply to more efficient and cleaner sources, while maintaining low utility rates and not endangering electricity supply.

 

 

[B-Man]

 

 

.

[B-Man]

What the Smollett press conference can tell us about conservatives (and about media bias)

 

The first thing you need to understand about the Smollett story is that this hoax was concocted as a public morality play in keeping with modern notions about what makes someone a hero and what makes them a villain. It seems all but certain now that Smollett concocted the details to make himself the hero. Apparently, he felt the $1.1 million a year he was earning on Empire was not enough. Becoming a victim of a racial, homophobic attack in the street was going to elevate his status in the real world and with that maybe he thought he’d get a raise.

 

But in order to pull this off, he needed a villain (or a pair of them). The villain he chose for this little drama was instantly recognizable, a pair of white, homophobic racists shouting about “MAGA country.” As we saw yesterday, the Nigerian brothers who carried out the hoax even bought a red hat which seemed aimed at visually conveying the message these faux-goons were Trump supporters. Early reports said the attackers were wearing MAGA hats and then that got clarified. They’d only shouted about MAGA country (in Chicago!).

 

Since it became clear that Smollett’s story was falling apart, I’ve seen probably a dozen commentators talking about the damage this will do to real victims. For people in the media, that’s the main focus of outrage about this hoax. The Daily Beast has a story up today titled “After Jussie Smollett, Will Real Victims of Anti-LGBT Hate Crimes Be Heard?” WJLA in Washington, DC has an opinion piece titled, “Apparent Jussie Smollett hoax harms real victims and emboldens outrage industry.” There’s a piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer titled, “Jussie Smollett case a reminder that one false accuser can hurt all future victims.” I could go on and on like this but you get the point.

 

The commentators are right of course. This could at some future point do damage to real victims. But here’s the thing most of them are skipping over as if it doesn’t matter: “Real victims” weren’t the target. Real victims weren’t cast as the villains in this drama. Real victims may at some future time be harmed but if so it will be incidental to what Jussie Smollett attempted to do.

 

I was struck by something Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said at today’s press conference. He was visibly upset at what Smollett had attempted to do to his city. “How could an individual who has been embraced by the city of Chicago turn around and slap everyone in this city in the face by making these false claims?” Johnson asked. He went on to say, “We do not nor will we ever tolerate hate in our city whether that hate is based on an individual’s sexual orientation, race or anything else. So I’m offended by what’s happened and I’m also angry.

 

{snip}

 

But once again, Chicago was not the target here. Like the “real victims” who might be harmed by this down the line, Chicago was an innocent bystander. It would have taken a hit but only because that’s where Smollett happened to live. If he’d been in LA then LA would have taken the hit instead.

 

What was not incidental was making white, conservative men the villains in this hoax. His plan to use this incident as a springboard to more fame and money was intended to come at the expense of a group of people who’ve already taken an endless number of shots from the left and the media. To paraphrase Sup. Johnson, this particular incident was a scar that the right didn’t earn and certainly didn’t deserve.

 

And like Sup. Johnson went on to say, that scar was made worse by the fact that the false accusations “received national attention for weeks.” “Celebrities, news commentators and even presidential candidates weighed in” and all of them took for granted the underlying assumption about who the villain was here. The right’s reputation got dragged through the mud for weeks by a selfish anti-Trump actor looking for a raise.

 

If you don’t understand why the right is upset about that, then you probably don’t see people on the right as real people. And if that’s the case, you’re not worth talking to anyway.

 

But for those who maybe can see, even a little bit, why this is not okay, I’ll just add that this isn’t a one-time thing. Recently I posted a story with more than two dozen fake hate crimes in the past few years. The walk back of those stories never gets even a fraction of the attention that the initial accusations get, partly because the people (activists and journalists) who blew the story up in the first place are embarrassed. 

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There are of course real hate crimes and in those cases, the chips need to fall on the guilty, whoever they are. That’s absolutely fair game. But Smollett and the other cases like this are something else. I think the media might pause for half-a-second to think about the damage and who it was being done to if they had a few people who were actually coming from that side of the aisle in their midst. The fact that they don’t seem to grasp the problem or even be aware of it is just another sign that there’s a serious lack of ideological diversity in many newsrooms.