The New York Observer has a stark warning for Trump supporters: the mainstream media (MSM) is launching an unprecedented attack on you and anyone tangentially connected to Trump – from his daughter’s business contacts, to his son-in-law’s family.
The terrifying question we need to ask is: How much longer until they try to destroy the rest of us?
It is no secret that the mainstream media has decided that the threat presented by a possible Donald Trump presidency is so grave that it has suspended even the illusion of objectivity. Writing in The New York Times, media columnist Jim Rutenberg granted permission to his fellow journalists “to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century, if not longer, and approach it in a way you’ve never approached anything in your career.”
The Observer and others have detailed the ways in which traditional media companies and even tech companies have colluded to maximize negative coverage of Trump and minimize negative coverage of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. But it doesn’t end there. As Rutenberg described, many journalists feel the need to “move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional.”
That opposition has extended into new and uncharted territory. In the coordinated effort to stop a dangerous candidate from obtaining, to use Rutenberg’s breathless description of the stakes, “control of the United States nuclear codes,” the mainstream media has taken not just to bashing Trump but to extracting a price even from those who support him.
There are a hundred examples, but here are just a few headlines that tell the story:
- Daily Beast: “Trump’s Doctor ‘Overmedicated’ Patients Who Died in His Care”
- Washington Post: “The contractor that designs Ivanka Trump’s clothes does not offer a single day of paid maternity leave”
- New York Times: “Peter Thiel’s Embrace of Trump Has Silicon Valley Squirming”
Let’s look at each of these. While I don’t doubt that self-identified right-wing sites would look into the record of Hillary Clinton’s doctors, it’s much harder to imagine a site like Daily Beast, which fancies itself a centrist outlet (and is even edited by my old Rudy Giuliani speechwriting buddy, John Avlon), expending that kind of investigative energy on Hillary’s non-political professionals. The message is clear: If you associate with Trump, we will rummage through your past. …
Even those on the right who are #NeverTrump should be outraged at this. This is a despicable intimidation tactic of the radical left, one we’ve seen far too often (especially regarding LGBT issues) and you can be sure they would be doing this no matter who the GOP candidate was this year. They even did it to Mitt Romney to some extent. Liberals want people publicly shamed to shut them up and ostracize them from “polite society” as a warning to all others who might be neutral or commit similar thought crimes.
In this case, even people who don’t support Trump have their personal lives and livelihoods under attack in the MSM’s scorched earth campaign.
This is all being done for a purpose. Making Trump a pariah will dampen turnout for him from the reachable swing voters who aren’t ideological but are influenced by what they think is popular opinion. The kind of voters who were swayed by the argument that they must vote for Obama to avoid being called racist.
Low-information voters are spineless and wishy-washy, sure, but they are needed to create a voting majority. They look to media elites and pop culture icons to inform their vote. The MSM knows this and that is exactly why they find it so important to “throw out the textbook” and do everything they can to influence the election.
Media bias has always been a big problem in politics, but never have they been so brazenly open about intentionally crossing the line. Protect yourselves and beware.
