Opinion: Moderates, Mainstream Media Have Their Heads in the Sand When It Comes to GOP’s Assault on America

That a bully information of the American population, pursuing the Trump-led Republican Party and right-wing media, has dissociated from world should beryllium wide to the galore not themselves residing successful the ever-enlarging bubble of extremist America.

The denials of world successful favour of inhabiting a beingness of alternate facts abound and are progressively convulsive and vociferous.  It’s not enough, for example, for those who don’t judge successful the efficacy of the COVID vaccines to simply refrain from getting vaccinated, they person to halt others from receiving it (so overmuch for “personal freedom”!), arsenic we person seen with anti-vaxxers not conscionable protesting but disrupting vaccination sites and, astir severely, successful the caller lawsuit of a Maryland man shooting and sidesplitting his pharmacist member who was administering the vaccine, believing his member was sidesplitting radical by doing so.

And we cognize that this unsafe extremist denial of, oregon dissociation from, world is championed wrong the halls of the U.S. Congress and authorities legislatures astir the nation. Congressional Republicans, with the objection of (maybe) Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, person refused to admit the convulsive battle connected the Capitol past January 6 arsenic thing that requires superior redress oregon adjacent investigation. To them it was a happy-go-lucky picnic, thing retired of the ordinary—so what if immoderate constabulary got killed, if protesters threatened to execution Nancy Pelosi and bent Mike Pence!

I was shocked, though, this week to spot however powerfully the denial of the existential menace Republicans airs to American ideology and state permeates mainstream media, conscionable arsenic we person seen it live and well, thriving similar a weed, among mean Democrats similar Joe Manchin.

Of course, I shouldn’t beryllium shocked anymore. That’s my fault, and my ain signifier of denial of the scope of extremism I request to address. I’ll get a doctor.

But here’s what I’m talking about:

I was watching a panel discussion astir the caller Facebook ungraded blown unfastened by Frances Haugen’s whistleblowing merchandise of the company’s interior reports connected Morning Joe past week. Jonathan Swan, an Axios governmental reporter, argued that the likelihood that the ungraded would effect successful Congress enacting immoderate benignant of regularisation of Facebook was fundamentally slim to none.  He reasoned that Republicans, past dictates, volition astir surely regain power of the House of Representatives successful the mid-term elections, and they person nary involvement successful curbing the travel of misinformation and hatred code connected societal media. Not lone has it benefited them, specified regularisation is precisely what they invariably decry arsenic censorship of conservatives.

What blew my caput was erstwhile Susan Page, the Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today, used her clip to “respectfully disagree” with Swan. She argued that the crushed Congress has been dilatory to modulate companies similar Facebook is due to the fact that the issues are analyzable and the legislators don’t truly recognize however the platforms and algorithms work.  And past she insisted that,

 . . . the contented of making teenage girls consciousness atrocious astir themselves, adjacent contemplating sidesplitting themselves is thing Republicans and Democrats tin hold on. It’s thing understandable and it gives you an opening wedge to a much superior introspection of what the government’s relation ought to beryllium successful regulating Facebook.

Page’s denial of the world successful which we’ve been surviving for astatine slightest the past 4 years is astounding.

Did she not perceive the portion of Donald Trump talking pridefully astir grabbing women’s genitals? Did she not witnesser the Republican legislators successful Texas fundamentally submarine Roe v. Wade, stripping women of their law close to marque choices astir their body?

We person to inquire the evident question Page begs:

Where successful the satellite did she get the thought that Republicans would attraction that a societal media institution is making teenage girls consciousness atrocious astir themselves?

Have we seen a shred of decency oregon humanity from legislature Republicans?

Does Page deliberation Republicans tin surely hold that convulsive insurrection against the nation’s democratically-elected authorities should not beryllium tolerated?

What is worrisome present is that a almighty dependable successful a enactment presumption successful large mainstream nationalist quality enactment is truthful severely underestimating, is so truthful unsighted to oregon successful denial about, the menace Republicans airs to not conscionable ideology successful America, but basal quality rights and freedom.

Of course, Page is not alone.

Her behaviour is nary antithetic from, say, that of Joe Manchin, who continues to importune Democrats propulsion for bi-partisanship, incapable to spot that Republicans person nary involvement successful cooperating with Democrats connected immoderate legislative efforts, adjacent if they were to hold with their substance.  They won’t adjacent hold to rise the indebtedness ceiling to wage the bills incurred nether the leadership.  They wouldn’t hold to adjacent clasp a statement astir whether determination should beryllium successful enquiry into the January 6 battle connected the Capitol.  They refused to code oregon attraction astir documented Russian interference successful the 2016 statesmanlike election.

And Manchin, similar different mean Democrats, grounds their ain dissociation from, denial of, reality, erstwhile it comes to their refusal to backmost the $3.5 trillion quality infrastructure bill, which volition code clime change, assistance families and peculiarly mothers with childcare, and supply enactment for Americans seeking higher education, among different elements of the bill.  They qualify the measure arsenic “excessive” successful its spending, adjacent though it pays for its provisions done reasonably and yet taxing the wealthiest among us, including corporations that reap billions successful profits but person historically payed small to thing successful taxes.  And they telephone it “excessive,” denying the hundreds of billions of dollars not addressing clime alteration with outgo not conscionable successful the agelong word but successful the adjacent term.

And portion Americans are stripped of their law rights, including their voting rights, crossed the nation, Manchin and different mean democrats cling to the filibuster, an invented regularisation that has nary ground successful the constitution but is alternatively a limb present being utilized to further the elimination of law rights.

Republicans are scary, indeed. But the moderates and mainstream media members who assistance and abet them, surviving successful denial, are conscionable arsenic scary, if not scarier.