How many people are on China's payroll in the US media and political operations? We know for certain that during the height of the Soviet Union, the Soviets were subsidizing various enterprises in the United States to fire up opposition to the Reagan Administration and American policy in general. It is obvious the Chinese would do the same, though it is also increasingly obvious that they can get a good return on their investment with less money because so many major voices out there hate the President so much they'll align with Chinese communists for free.

This morning, I woke up thinking I would start my radio show noting the growing media interest in Georgia reopening. They won't apologize to Brian Kemp and many of them will wait a few more weeks hoping for a spike in cases so they can have an "I told you so" moment. Otherwise, the public will have to realize Kemp was right as the media will never point it out.

I wanted to talk about that. Instead, I will be starting my radio show talking about Ben Sasse. Remember how the President's supporters were going to throw him out of office? Instead, he won his primary and now the Democrats have found the outrage of the day to go after Sasse. In a high school graduation speech he recorded, Sasse made a number of jokes that offended America's intellectual elite, including discouraging the kids from being psychology majors in college. But what most offended them was this:

Sasse suggested that the graduates would remember their senior years at their future reunions as “that time when China started a big global pandemic that created the worst public health crisis in over a century and brought the economy to its knees and we had to stay home and everybody was hoarding toilet paper.”

In case you didn't realize that was the offensive part, the Associated Press helpfully adds this:

Near the end of the speech, Sasse mixed in some serious encouragement for students with another shot at China.

“Nobody knows exactly how we’re going to beat this thing, but you know what, we’re Americans, we’re Nebraskans, we’ve got grit and we’re going to beat this thing,” he said. “We will bring the economy back. We are going to beat the virus ... We’re going to have to have a serious reckoning with the thugs in China who let this mess spiral out of control by lying about it.” he said.

A Fremont school board member, Michael Petersen, said it was racist. Sasse's Democrat opponent pounced as well.

It just seems, at this point, abundantly obvious the Republicans need to make this a campaign about China. They can make it a campaign to demand we be independent regarding our medical supplies and national security. They can make is a campaign about China covering up a pandemic spread. They can make it about the NBA and American technology companies being so invested in bowing to China that they no longer support American freedoms. They can even make it about an American press corps whose parent companies are so invested in Chinese markets that they cannot be honest about the United States.

Increasingly, it is obvious that a significant portion of the American media and Fortune 500 are tip-toeing around China and trying to play nice. Republicans need to capitalize on this. For several years the media has suggested the Russians stole the 2016 election and Republicans now have an opening to point out the actual media and Democrat sympathies and ties with China to note accurately that the media is not giving us a full picture of China, its surreptitious dealings in the United States, and our increasing reliance on China for necessities.

If Republicans can make 2020 about American independence from China's supply chain, they have a winning issue.