Anyone who actually paid attention to the recent election, would know that the media was far more critical of Kamala Harris than they were of Donald Trump. She was criticized for some of the dumbest reasons.
1). She was responsible for the economy. Since she was the Border Czar, she was also somehow responsible for the economy, idiot, therefore inflation was her fault, as if she had any control over it.
2). She didn’t distance herself from Biden fast enough. She failed to distinguish herself when asked to compare herself to Biden.
3). She was a mediocre candidate. Compared to a candidate who had ( has ) no intelligence, no charisma, no message, no policy proposals to actually help anyone other than the Billionaire Class, Harris was the mediocre candidate.
4). Inflation was the result of her policy. Vice presidents don’t make policy.
5). She was the “Border Czar.” She was not the Border Czar.
6). She lied about her background, including her race. According to Trump, Harris suddenly became black, and the both-sides media took the bait, even though she was very candid about her ethnicity.
7). She hurt Trump’s feelings by calling him a fascist. Mediocre news pundits like Cuomo – and so many others I could name – clutched their pearls at the mere thought of anyone entertaining the idea of Trump being a fascist. But when Trump engaged in name calling against his political opponents, those same pundits gave him a free pass.
When it came to Kamala Harris ‘s campaign, centrists like Chris Cuomo got it wrong. Instead of accurately critiquing her campaign from a nuanced viewpoint, he was quick to repeat the false narratives, rather than the facts.
“Kamala Harris is not a godsend, alright?” he lectured smugly to his Cuomo Podcast viewing audience back in October. “You people didn’t even like her six months ago! Now all of a sudden, she’s a black female Jesus the way Barack Obama was Black Jesus. And let me tell you something: he had a lot more going for him than Kamala Harris does – and not just as firsts go – but his type of campaigning, his type of persuasion his charisma. He was imbued with things she is not. And I don’t mean that as a criticism. It’s just a point of comparison. And her process fucked her also. There’s a convenience in it but it fucked her also because there were a lot of misgivings about her. There is an underlying feeling that she didn’t get this the right way, she may not have won a primary…”
I don’t care whether she won a primary or not. That made her no less qualified to run. And these misgivings he and other enlightened centrists were so concerned about, were just ridiculous criticisms about her background, and a distraction from Trump’s behavior, the fact that he made a complete fool of himself in front of the world and the media.
But despite all of the bullshit that poured from Trump’s pie hole, the both-sides media found more at fault with Kamala Harris than they did with Trump. She lied about her ethnic background; she’s too far left; she lied about her job at MacDonalds when she was a teenager; her policies caused inflation – what policies? Vice presidents don’t make policy; she and the Democrats hurt Trump’s feelings by calling him a fascist, but they totally ignored the fact that Trump himself often called Harris a fascist, a communist, and any other name he deemed appropriate, and not a peep from centrists like Cuomo.
Right-wing and both-sides media like NewsNation, fawned over Trump’s pathetic publicity stunts, such as the one where he pretended to be a MaCDonalds employee, and the one where he drove a garbage truck. Again, if Harris had done any of this, there would have been no end to the ridicule. But because Trump does it, it’s completely normal.
The same media afforded Trump and MAGA every benefit of the doubt that they refused Harris and her campaign. Trump’s racism, bigotry, misogyny, and every other bullshit claim he made, were considered normal behavior by a normal presidential candidate. If Harris had said even a third of what Trump had said, there would have been a public outcry for her to drop from the race, and enlightened centrists like Cuomo would have been bitching about it until the end of time.
“But look, this idea of, ‘Don’t say anything bad about her because Trump,’ I don’t buy that,” he continued in his smug, lecturing tone. “It’s not how you get to a better place. It’s a relative assessment. She had negatives. So does he. Does he have more? Yeah. He also has way more intense following. That’s why this race is so tight. Now, explain that to me. Unless you want to write off half this country as bigots, how do you explain it being so tight? Maybe you’re not as right about everything as you think you are. Maybe you should be a little bit more to open to the people that you disagree with. Maybe they’re not all racists.”
The notion that nobody on the left ever criticized Harris, is just absurd. There were plenty of people who criticized her. There were Democrats and leftists who refused to vote for her due to her support of Israel. There were plenty of leftists on social media who criticized her faults as a presidential candidate. There were people on MSNBC who criticized her. No one called her a Female Black Jesus.
The problem was, the media was obsessed with Harris’s “negatives” while giving Trump a virtual free pass, normalizing his behavior and sane-washing all of his “negatives.”
Cuomo seems to be making the argument that the Democrats are the ones who are acting as if they are in a cult, who are afraid to criticize the party’s leaders, while totally disregarding Republican reticence to say anything critical of Trump. I guess this relative assessment never entered his mind. And the reason Trump’s following is “way more intense,” is because he’s a con man who has managed to con millions of gullible rubes into believing he’s a victim, the Biggest Victim In The History Of Victims who has ever been persecuted, simply for being the Greatest President Of All Time. A con man backed by an entire political party, a propaganda “news” media – Fox, Newsmax, and NewsNation – and an entire evangelical movement that willingly reinforces that victim hood status at every opportunity.
And yes, I do “write” off half this country as racist. Any who can convince the rubes of his victim hood, can convince them of anything. He’s a con man. They will believe anything he says. When he tells them that migrants are the the real danger to America, while a billionaire illegally loots the Treasury – without a peep from clowns like Cuomo – they believe it without question. They voted for it.
According to the Border Report, social media disinformation may have have played a significant role in Harris’s loss to Trump.
“One thing that was shocking to me was the amount of disinformation voters were sharing at the door or over the phone,” US Rep, Veronica Escobar said, who campaigned for Harris. “I’m not talking about a difference of opinion about the economy, but factually inaccurate things like the Jan. 06. insurrection was a Deep State inside effort by the FBI, or that crime was skyrocketing all over America, believing that people were eating dogs and cats…
“What was clear to me is that a lot of voters are getting their information not from traditional news sources, but Tik Tok, You Tube, social media, Facebook, etc….”
Whether it played a significant role, I don’t know. But I do know that media such as NewsNation did a piss-poor job of pushing back on the conspiracies and lies from the Trump campaign. Any credible journalist concerned with truth, accuracy and fact, does not, and should not entertain the idea that right and wrong, truth and fact, and conspiracies and lies, that they all have equal value.
The moment Trump began babbling about Haitian migrants “eating the cats and dogs,” every principled journalist with an ounce of integrity in America would have laughed him off the world stage, and would have refused to continue covering him as a serious candidate.
But, unfortunately, there is no serious national news media in America – with perhaps the exception of MSNBC – willing to hold those in power accountable for their actions, especially when it comes to the current administration. It certainly isn’t Chris Cuomo.
Sources: NewsNation, Mediaite.
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