“I was completely misinformed about what MAGA is.” So confessed Nicole Shanahan, the billionairess and entrepreneur who was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s running mate, in an August interview. She’d been fooled by the portrayal of MAGA that “has been sold to a huge portion of America by the mainstream media,” she elaborated. She’s not alone, either. In fact, mainstream-media, anti-Trump, campaign-season bias had become so over-the-top that it actually pushed some undecided voters toward President-elect Trump. So discovered The New York Times while speaking, for months beginning in August, to a group of young undecided voters.
Imagine that: Overt and relentless bullying engenders sympathy for the victim.
Who’da thunk it?
As Fox News reported Thursday:
A group of Gen Z voters largely agreed that mainstream media outlets have become “so corrupted” in their bias against President-elect Donald Trump that it affected the election.
The New York Times asked a focus group of 13 undecided voters on Wednesday about their feelings following the election. Though most of them voted for President Biden or were too young to vote in 2020, now more than half admitted to voting for Trump with only two having voted for the vice president.
For many of them, the press was a major factor in their decision.
The Boy Who Cried “Nazi!”
Of course, 13 individuals aren’t a scientific sample, but they sure were at times an interesting one. Just consider one of the comments. Joseph, 24, whom the Times describes as a white South Carolina high school teacher and 2020 Biden voter, stated:
The mainstream media was carrying Kamala Harris’s water. We need a check on the president to have a healthy democracy. If Kamala Harris was elected, there wouldn’t be a check on her from the media.
This is a very astute point. Part of the media’s job is to watch the powerful and hold them accountable. This wouldn’t have happened with Harris in office.
Another comment came from Lillian, whom the Times describes thus: “27, Va., white, digital advertising, voted Trump in 2020.” She said:
The thing that was really the nail in the coffin for me was when Biden called half the country garbage and then the White House moved to change the record officially. That really bothered me. That made me really want to rally against them.
To the point here, many in media participated in the deception. Just consider the below, which is one of numerous examples the New York Post provided October 30:
Politico White House bureau chief and MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire publishes an item reading: “Biden, in a Zoom call with the organization Voto Latino, said ‘the only garbage’ was the ‘hatred’ of Trump supporters who said such things about American citizens.” [Emphasis added.]
This is, of course, fake news. Biden didn’t utter the term “hatred” at all in his remarks. Lemire just made that up.
Lies Only Worsened
Then there was the Liz Cheney “firing squad” fabrication. Disgorged during the campaign’s final days, it was supposed to alienate voters from Trump. It had the opposite effect, however, on Abigail — Times description: “23, Va., white, graduate assistant, voted Biden in 2020.” The paper relates her as saying:
I saw how the media has become so corrupted in their cause against Trump. There was that Trump clip of him saying: Put Cheney in front of a bunch of shooters. But he wasn’t actually implying Cheney should be shot. I cannot vote for an establishment that just thinks it’s OK to lie to us.
George, “21, Ga., white, student, didn’t vote in 2020,” echoed this. “The Liz Cheney stuff was just despicable,” he said.
Moreover, the media appearances Harris made perhaps did her little good. As Laura, “20, Md., white, legal intern, didn’t vote in 2020,” said, per the Times:
I was looking for a candidate that I felt I could trust. A key moment that stuck out to me was the “S.N.L.” skit that Harris did, where she essentially made fun of herself. All her focus was going to entertainment industries and avoiding interviews. That came off to me as very phony.
Say It Ain’t So, Joe!
Then there was the effect of what Harris didn’t, or couldn’t, do — Joe Rogan’s famous podcast, for example. Eight of the 13 undecideds told the Times they’d watched at least 30 minutes of Trump’s appearance on it. The result, in certain cases?
The aforementioned undecided Joseph said he made his decision for Trump “after he appeared on ‘Joe Rogan.’ He just seemed more normal than the other side,” the Times relates.
Then there was Jack, “22, N.Y., white, underwriter, voted Biden in 2020.” “The Joe Rogan interview was huge for me,” the Times quotes him as stating. “Trump enthusiastically said yes to a three-hour, open, honest conversation with Joe Rogan, who was a former Bernie bro. I think it’s very telling about which candidate is authentic and which candidate is not.”
The awakening to media bias was reflected in the MSN comments on the Fox article, too. For example, consider “Surly John,” who wrote that he’d “voted for Bill Clinton twice.” He said that CBS 60 Minutes’ deceitful editing of the interview it conducted with Harris swayed him to Trump. He also vowed to never watch CBS for news again.
The News’ Lying Tongue Isn’t News
Of course, mainstream media bias is nothing new, as I and others have reported in the past. But it has gotten increasingly egregious with time, to a point where it’s now childishly overt. And, of course, effective propaganda must possess at least a degree of subtlety.
Oh, it’s not correct saying that media bias has no negative effect. After all, I’m not sure the Times focus-group voters reflected an accurate cross section of undecideds. Nonetheless, I’d also long suspected that the media’s blatant anti-Trump reportage would drive some fence-sitters into his arms. For people have sympathy for the unfairly maligned and dislike bullies. They also don’t like being bullied into acting or voting a certain way — or being lied to.
In fact, mainstream media might’ve been more effective at discrediting the president-elect if they’d pretended to like him. I mean, just imagine if the Times and other media had run with the talking point, “Hey, you’ve gotta’ listen to this Trump guy — he’s making sense!”
