OLD AND BUSTED: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
The New Hotness? Why did a Washington Post reporter urge the White House to censor Trump?
Unfortunately, the news media in this country has increasingly isolated itself from most of this country which has allowed an elitist attitude to emerge within the industry. It became more prevalent during the Trump era. We know Trump is crazy and dangerous, but the people are too stupid to figure it out on their own, so we need to do everything possible to help defeat him, even if it means shielding the public from what he has to say. Journalists repeatedly lobbied social media companies to remove Trump from their platforms — with many of them finally acquiescing post-January 6 — and encouraged corporate advertisers to pull paid ads from conservative or Trump-related content on social media and television. Many stopped carrying his speeches and events live so that viewers could not see for themselves what he had to say. All of his words were filtered through a biased media that wanted to present him in the most unfavorable light possible. Private persons who chose to support Trump anonymously online were harassed and “canceled” by news organizations, a warning that ideological dissent to the regime would not be tolerated.
Few of these journalists have ever stopped during this process to consider that their opinion of Trump might be wrong — or wonder why their strategy to silence him hasn’t meaningfully diminished his support. Instead, they have doubled down.
Earlier this week, a Washington Post reporter took it to the next level by openly suggesting the government get in on the game. During a White House press briefing, the Washington Post’s Cleve Wootson asked if the government has a “role” in tackling “misinformation” and if President Joe Biden planned to “intervene” in Trump’s X Space.
“I think that misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign issue. It’s a — you know, it’s an America issue. What role does the White House or the president have any sort of stopping that or stopping the spread of that or sort of inter — intervening in that. Some of that was about campaign misinformation, but you know it’s a wider thing, right?” Wootson asked.
The Biden administration has already been accused of illegally colluding with social media companies to censor content it deemed “misinformation” (unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiffs in this case lacked standing). Directly preventing a political opponent from speaking on a social media platform would be even further beyond the pale and it is frankly horrifying that a journalist, whose job is protected by the same constitutional amendment that shields the speech of everyday Americans from government censorship, would even suggest such a thing.
That the question was asked with little pushback from Wootson’s mainstream colleagues suggests to me that the American media has been emboldened in its illiberal ways. The problem is likely to get worse before it gets better. The media don’t seem to care that their trust with the American people is at an all-time low or that many of them have had to lay off staff. They have apparently decided it is more important to use their platforms and power to gatekeep “acceptable” ideas in society.
While attempting to censor Trump into silence, the WaPo is pretty laid back about receiving radio silence from Harris: Questions we’d love to ask Kamala Harris.
Since replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the 2024 Democratic ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris has neither given a sit-down interview nor held a news conference. Her campaign’s website lacks an “Issues” page (there’s only a biography). We get it, tactically: It’s tempting for Ms. Harris, as it would be for anyone in her position, to stay as vague on the issues as possible, for as long as possible, to avoid giving fodder to the opposition or dividing her supporters. Ms. Harris is confident she’ll win if the campaign is about the many flaws of former president Donald Trump.
And the Post will be perfectly happy if Harris never does an interview with them. And why not? The silent treatment has to be much more enjoyable for Democratic Party operatives with bylines than the constant abuse they received from her nominal boss over the decades. (Besides, have you heard about how badly Kamala treats her staffers?)
UPDATE: One prominent WaPo journalist weighs in editorially on Biden — and presumably the person that Democrats have chosen to replace him as well:
