The Show Trial Trumped By Gas
White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain appeared on MSNBC yesterday on Nicole Wallace’s program. She asked him exactly zero questions about Supreme Court Justice Bret Kavanaugh’s would-be assassin.
Last night, after the events at Kavanaugh’s house, protestors still showed up to harass him. The House of Representatives passed a resolution to condemn replacement theory and a gun control measure yesterday. But the House could not bother passing a bill to ensure the security of Supreme Court members and their families. The Senate passed it weeks ago.
The New York Times, late yesterday, raised the placement of the Kavanaugh story on its front page, but one still had to scroll more than halfway down the page. It was under a Jared Kushner story tied to January 6, 2021, that had been on the page since 3 in the morning yesterday.
But you must care desperately about January 6th.
For months, the Democrats and the press have told us Trump rallied a mob to storm the Capitol. Words matter. But the same people go mute on words mattering when a man drives cross country intent on assassinating a Supreme Court Justice after the Mayor of Chicago says to take up arms, the Senate Majority Leader says Kavanaugh will reap the whirlwind, and other Democrats make hysterical arguments and hyperbolic attacks on the Court.
The media coverage in the last twenty-four hours of Kavanaugh’s would-be assassin, called “man with a gun” by the Washington Post, discredits all the coverage of what will happen tonight. You can’t care about our democracy and constitutional order when you don’t care about would-be assassins murdering Supreme Court Justices you don’t like. You can’t care about the fierce urgency to just do something to stop a January 6th repeat when you won’t even pass a bill to fund security for the Supreme Court Justices and their families.
All the networks except Fox will cover tonight’s hearing. All are criticizing Fox for not carrying it.
Fox is the dominant news network with the highest ratings. It, like MSNBC and the New York Times, caters to its audience, which is larger than the other networks. Fox’s audience is not interested in the story. I don’t actually blame Fox. I think it is a news item worth covering and I would cover it, but every other network is covering it. So who cares?
That may upset you. But you are in the minority. Americans care far more about right now than an unsuccessful attempt to stop Congress last year. Historically, it is a big deal. But the public has moved on and no revelations from tonight’s hearing will have staying power so long as Americans feel pain at the pump weekly and tone deafness from Democrats on the need for battery powered cars. Also, we have seen so many leaks get massive coverage only to be retracted or toned down, people are going to wait a bit to take in anything.
If the Democrats wanted the public to care, they could at least act like they care when a Supreme Court Justice is targeted by an insane person. If the Democrats wanted the public to care, they could stop saying they’ve done everything they can on gas prices and instead make it really easy to drill and expand domestic drilling of oil tomorrow morning. If the press wanted the public to care, they could go all out in explaining how much available oil we have domestically that could be produced to lower gas prices instead of fretting about climate change.
But because the Democrats and, by extension, so much of the press do not seem to really care about the plight of their fellow Americans in the here and now, Americans will not care about tonight’s spectacle.
The public should. But they won’t. I don’t blame them. The press screams about attacks on democracy. The public is far more worried about attacks on their pocketbooks. That’s reality. You won’t get Americans to care about Congress on an empty stomach and an empty wallet.
As for those of you in the press reading this, until you show more of an even hand in coverage, don’t expect the public to disengage their cynicism. Many of you do great work and you will take tonight seriously. Don’t be mad at the public for moving on and moving past tonight’s proceedings. Fairly or unfairly, you guys have lost a lot of trust and too few of you are willing to exercise basic humility and ask what you’ve done. You blame Fox, the GOP, the rightwing noise machine, etc. Until you’re willing to be a bit more humble, the public will keep being cynical. Seeing so many of your network and newspaper reporters on social media show off their psychoses and progressivism for the world to see is not helping you.
To all of you who care about January 6th, this is very simple. The American people will care about this when they feel like Washington cares about them. Right now, Americans think the press, President, and Congress only care about Americans who live in progressive urban enclaves, donate to Planned Parenthood, eat vegan, dress their kids in drag, and drive battery powered unicorns to their jobs in clean energy while wearing a mask.
Unfortunately, tomorrow, the media’s coverage of tonight’s January 6th committee hearing is going to be so over the top in an effort to get people to care, Americans will care even less. There’s just not going to be any nuance. Maybe there can’t be. But that will all work to undermine getting the public’s attention. The people who will care are the ones who already do. Lament that if you must, but the public has to buy gas and groceries this weekend.
"Americans think the press, President, and Congress only care about Americans who live in progressive urban enclaves, donate to Planned Parenthood, eat vegan, dress their kids in drag, and drive battery powered unicorns to their jobs in clean energy while wearing a mask"
Erick, my friend, you have a gift. Thank you for sharing it with the rest of us.
You know, I probably should care more than I do...but I don't. After watching riots with arsons described as "mostly peaceful protests"; after watching the debacle of the Kavanaugh hearings and inauguration, with "peaceful protesters" screaming and banging on the doors of the Supreme Court; after watching the demonstrations (including burning cars) at Trump's inauguration; after watching Antifa take over Portland; after seeing federal buildings, police stations, and officers themselves attacked with Molotov cocktails and all the other insane demonstrations, riots and protests that the Democrats officially condoned, even to the point of bailing out the rioters...it was inevitable that eventually, there was going to be a similar action from people on "the other side".
No, I didn't approve of it, I didn't agree with it, but my first reaction was "Well, what did you expect?" I mean, sooner or later, their tactics were going to be used against them, and their claims that this was "unprecedented" were annoying. No, it wasn't "unprecedented", it was a natural progression of events that anyone with the brains the Good Lord gave to a goat could have predicted was going to happen, sooner or later.
People are just TIRED of it all...tired of being expected to just shut up and take it, as our "leaders" in Washington demand. They aren't leaders, they are supposed to be our "representatives", and they represent no one but themselves. It's not a "threat to democracy" they care about, it's a threat to their own power and control over the people, the threat to "Democrats" is what they really care about.