The Media Pretended Rioting Wasn’t Happening Until They Couldn’t Anymore
The Democratic Party’s media allies have pulled out all the stops in covering for their lackluster candidate Joe Biden this year. They ignored the gaffes, the racist comments, and the American cities on fire for months, but now the polls are shifting, and the panic is palpable.
The general consensus was Biden is ahead, and any ineptitude from him was irrelevant because simply the promise of “normalcy” was enough to beat Trump handily. The polls said so, of course.
But then Democrats failed to condemn, let alone even mention, the ongoing arson, riots, and violent crime at their convention two weeks ago. Only a few days after their convention, and in the middle of the Republican National Convention, Kenosha, Wisconsin broke out in all of the above, placing the GOP in the perfect position to paint Biden as an enabler of the radical left.
As the Biden campaign remained silent, The New York Times quickly realized the position Democrats were in, reporting “How Chaos in Kenosha Is Already Swaying Some Voters in Wisconsin.” They placed the blame squarely on “local Democratic leaders … failing to keep control of the situation.”
The Atlantic followed suit, publishing an op-ed titled “This Is How Biden Loses,” suggesting that a Trump win could be pinned on this specific event of violence spreading from cities to a quiet, blue-collar town. The flashbacks to the 2016 election map and the loss of Wisconsin began to sink in.
“Biden, then, should go immediately to Wisconsin, the crucial state that Hillary Clinton infamously ignored,” Atlantic Staff Writer George Packer wrote. “He should meet the Blake family and give them his support and comfort. He should also meet Kenoshans like the small-business owners quoted in the Times piece, who doubt that Democrats care about the wreckage of their dreams.”
As more violence escalated in Portland, Oregon Saturday night, resulting in a homicide, even MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough realized what uncontrolled chaos in the streets would mean for Biden’s poll numbers.
Then the media messaging began a laughably transparent pivot from “What violence?” to “Yes, violence exists, but it’s Trump’s fault.”
New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof said Trump not only wants the violence to continue, but that it was Trump himself who “incited violence and clashes from Kenosha to Portland.”
The Washington Post’s Jen Rubin said the quiet part loud, openly encouraging Democrats to adopt this same talking point.
“Democrats will not win by cowering in fear that Trump will blame them for the violence he provoked. They win by making the case that Trump has made America more violent and increased racial tension for his own political benefit,” she wrote Sunday.
The Democratic Party and corporate media are interchangeable, normally working in tandem to push the narrative of the day, but these nervous and painfully honest op-eds are the product of those inside a media bubble who tried their hardest to ignore Biden’s blunders until the polls tightened to a point they couldn’t ignore.
Watch this week as coverage of riots and protests drastically changes in real-time. After months assuming a Biden victory was inevitable, now they are begging him to visit Wisconsin, and assuring voters he condemns the riots (in a way that is sympathetic to Black Lives Matter, of course). The media wants to avoid the same debilitating shock and embarrassment they faced the day after Election Day in 2016. I’m not so sure this time will be any different.
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