Right wing messaging has long repeated over and over that the media is liberal. Certain commentators go so far out of their way to reject this canard, that they mislead the audience. The latest chapter is the false narrative on CNN that democrats are not doing anything in response to the Trump initiatives. This drips down from their political commentators to their team of regular reporters. In reality, democrats are doing quite a lot.
This latest false narrative maintained on CNN began in late January and is verbalized by their political commentators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, among others. Their refrain goes like this, “democrats don’t know what to say” and “democrats are not doing anything.”
Just today, Dana Bash was interviewing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and converted reporting on Trump’s negative poll numbers into an attack on democrats. Bash said, “Trump is underwater on his handling of the economy and tariffs. But he told us exactly what he was going to do on the campaign trail. Now democrats have similarly bad numbers. What are you doing wrong?” Bash then sat there frown faced and smug waiting for Schumer to answer.
On the campaign trail, Trump did not say that he was going to impose tariffs on virtually every nation in the world beginning with our allies. He also did not say the formula used to arrive at the tariff amounts would be seemingly arbitrary and puzzling to every serious economist.The reality is both chambers in congress are controlled by republicans who are looking the other way and sitting on their hands after yielding to Trump to impose tariffs in his haphazard way.
Democrats introduced a bill to wrest the ability to impose tariffs away from Trump and put it back in the sole hands of congress where it belongs. But not enough republicans voted for the measure and it did not pass. Democrats also do not have the ability to hold hearings. Only republicans do but they are not doing it even when Trump violates the law and destroys institutions that republicans know are important to our nation.
As to the other parts of Bash’s narrative, democrats do “know what to say” and are taking action. Close to all of them are out in their districts holding town hall meetings and often going outside of their own communities.
Here in this part of Lake County, Brad Schneider is our US Representative. Starting back in January, he began holding townhall meetings, running Facebook ads about what is happening and what he is doing, urging your opinions, as well as attending rallies. We hear from him every day.
Just today, a group of Illinois State Senators embarked on a bus tour to four cities to directly talk to the people about action being taken here in Illinois. State Senator Mary Edly-Allen and Adriane Johnson where members of the tour.
And just what do Schneider, Edly-Allen and Johnson talk about? They discuss saving social security, fighting to get education dollars which helps to fund things such as Pell Grants, protecting rights, sensible foreign policy which helps to keep our nation safe, sensible economic policy which helps working families, They talk about these issues and the action they are taking towards them.
What people such as Tapper and Bash are doing is termed “equivalence.” The concept holds that if you report something negative about one party, you have to say something negative about the other in order to balance things out and appear non-partisan. It is not actual reporting and it misleads the audience.
On CNN, their political reporters take it to noose bleed heights. Notice Bash did not segue into the relevant reality that republicans hold the power in congress and are doing exactly nothing as Trump imposes his wild tariff “strategy” and dramatically reducing our standing in the world as an economic leader as our bonds loose value. She went right into her false narrative about democrats.
CNN is one of the most watched sources of news. While CNN does report on the negative issues swirling around Trump, their false narrative about democratic leaders comprises a deep disservice. The consequences are measurable and not good as reflected in the polls.
Commentators such as Tapper and Bash should focus on reporting the unvarnished cogent facts relevant to the news of the day. Not false narratives and equivalence.
It is a good time to make your voice heard and demand they do it right. This form is one they read. https://commercial.cnn.com/contact-us/