A Really Big Lie

  

Last weekend thousands of Russians were in the streets protesting. They did so in spite of extreme cold and a strong police presence. The protests took place in numerous cities and the protesters realized that their lives were in danger for challenging the authority of President Putin's government.

Contrast that scene with recent protests in the United States. Americans are never afraid for their safety for their right to protest is protected by the Constitution. While the Russians knew they were protesting in support of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny and for democracy, often American protesters cannot fully articulate the issues for their anger or frustration. The January Washington protests are a case in point. Thousands of people came to Washington, D.C. for a rally and then afterwards were encouraged by the president to march to the Capitol. After gathering there, protesters decided to storm the building. However, why did they do this? What did they expect to achieve? And what did they expect would be the consequences of their actions?

People allegedly attacked the Capitol to take back their country! Take it back from whom? And afterwards they went to hotels and celebrated and then left for airports, boarded planes, and went home. Does that sound like a revolution? The would be "patriots" were not willing to die for their acts and they seem indignant that they are now being arrested for committing crimes.  Many are arguing they were swept up in emotions and did not mean any harm. Meanwhile they caused damage, beat police officers, stole items, and posed for selfies. There is no acknowledgement of injury or death. Although they want to be described as "patriots", they want to be seen like teenagers who shoplifted on a dare or were engaged in a fraternity prank. Yet, they wanted to kill members of Congress and the vice president. Was or wasn't this an act of insurrection? 

The events of January 6, 2021 have changed the course of American history. However only in America could a story like this be a subject of debate. Consider what I am writing - although we are constantly viewing the footage of the actions, we are debating the existence of a criminal act. The media is now serving as our judge and jury. It is engaged in a contest to define what happened at the United States Capitol and what were the causes of this event?  The media has become the arbitrator to decide if it's fair to impeach Donald Trump for a second time? And, is it fair to impeach a president when he has days left in office? 

How does our media interpret the events at the Capitol? Some defensively suggest it was a demonstration by "patriots", and others suggest that there were groups of domestic terrorists. The destruction of government property and loss of life points to one conclusion, but we now live in a world of alternate facts. So, as the rest of the world shares one conclusion, Americans will remain divided.

However, how does a divided nation share such information with its populous? The majority of the mainstream media continues to argue that the central cause of the events initiated at the White House and all of the subsequent events are tied to a "Big Lie." This is the claim that Donald Trump won the election and that it was stolen by the Democrats and Joe Biden. While most Americans have not been convinced of this fact and have not seen the proof, others are readily accepting the words of "trusted" Internet sources and Republican personalities. 

That any scheme of this sort could work is more than amazing. And that the president would be able to conjure up symbolic images, particularly of the Confederacy and the Vietnam War, to gain significant support as well as personal empathy and sympathy is impressive, but that he could assemble a small army of loyalists and encourage them to march to the seat of the national government and disrupt the certification of the electoral vote is a sizable feat. 

Let's be clear, this was a major power play that should not be overlooked. Did it come too late? Now out of office, was Donald Trump's last grasp at power a wasted opportunity or a larger threat?  And who are these protesters? Were they white supremacists or were they just average predominately white citizens? Should we analyze the people of color and women who participated in the event?

Apparently the majority of the Republican party is downplaying the notion of white supremacists in their midsts. Regardless of its composition, they fear Trump's base. They equally fear President Trump and are not willing to punish him for trying to overthrow the government or possibly harming or killing them and other Democrats. There is no conversation about the gallows constructed to hang Mike Pence or the guns brought to shoot Nancy Pelosi and others. Instead, they are more interested in attempting to wrestle the violent aspects of the story away from the media, and changing the context of the "Big Lie." Weeks into a Biden administration, many Republicans want to maintain that the election was truly stolen.

However, one journalist is arguing that the real "lie" may have started long before the November 3rd election. On August 11, 2020, James Hohmann, a Washington Post journalist, devoted his column to New York Times correspondent Jim Tankersley's book which describes "how reducing barriers for minorities and women to participate in the workforce helped fuel the boom that gave America the world’s most prosperous middle class in the decades after World War II."  Entitled, “The Riches of This Land,” it tells the story of the stagnation that followed through the struggles of individuals Tankersley met during two decades of covering economic policy. Hohmann explains, that Tankersley's thesis "argues that combating persistent discrimination based on race and gender could go a long way toward restoring upward mobility and creating a new golden age for the middle class."

According to Hohmann, the book makes several key discoveries. Foremost, that Tankersley believes he and other journalists overlooked the black middle class when discussing the 2016 presidential campaign. Second, that "the mainstream media erred by devoting vastly more attention to the plight of non-college-educated White men in the Midwest than their Black counterparts who were also feeling left behind."

Tankersley's position is that journalists made the Trump's 2016 victory solely about the anger of the less-educated white voters. He said: “We missed a big and important story about Black workers and their economic struggles and how it was going to affect their decision to vote or not. But we also misled our audiences by showing them a picture of the working class that was not complete and allowed politicians to distort it,” “The sad and unfortunate product of that was we perpetuated this myth that working-class White men are suffering alone in America and do not have anything in common with these other struggling workers. The idea that women, immigrants or workers of color are in competition with them for prosperity is wrong. It's not what American history shows us.”

Tankersley concluded: “We whitewashed the middle class, and in the process, we legitimized a lie.” Hence, this is the core of the problem. However, for nearly five years, a significant number of the journalistic core have misinterpreted America and the American people. Along with a variety of other factors, their diagnosis of American society is equally responsible for the rise of white discontent and the factions of white supremacy that were visible on January 6th. 

Not surprisingly, African American journalists have been countering this perspective beginning in the Reagan years, but with increased vigor since the Obama administration. In a less contentious world more people would read their columns and they would have seen how the singular focus on whiteness was problematic for the future of the nation. Many black journalists and politicians have argued variations of Tankersley's thesis, and that they believe that the self-disenfranchisement of largely midwestern and southern black voters contributed to the Trump victory.  

But there is more!  African American voices are contending that it was the greater media's portrayal of the 2016 election that foster our current viewpoints.  That the media, not the public, interpreted the 2016 election and colored the view of Trump, Trumpism, and Trump's America. The media through its interviews with white voters, made the election about race and the middle class. And, in recognizing its mistake countered by promoting the negative behavior of whites (the Karens and others) and publications on anti-racism behavior and white fragility. Our liberal media made the greatest concessions to the public for the errors in promoting an environment that allowed for the rise and visible presence of white racism. How else could people who voted for Obama in 2008, vote for Trump in 2016? There is clearly a disconnect in the minds of the electorate and the minds of the media.

While I agree with Tankersley's central argument, I feel he is only highlighting one aspect of the problem. This election was more than race, gender and class. It is about knowing who Americans are and what they stand for. We are not and never were those wonderful good people on the hill. We have proven to be self-interested and under-informed. We relied on various forms of media, especially broadcast and social media, to help us pick our leaders.

I contend that the mainstream media could have killed the Trump candidacy by contextualizing the real Donald Trump and his lies from the beginning. Instead, it was so enthralled by Trump and the attention that he commanded that it altered the entire political process by providing the largest spotlight to Donald Trump. It was the media that promoted the lie that Trump might be suited for president. Keep in mind that the media had killed the campaigns of charismatic billionaires in the past. (Ross Perrot is an example) However, as he had appeal as a media darling, it kept Trump around in spite of the controversies surrounding him. 

In reality, by 2015, Trump was a has-been, a colossal failure as a businessman and self-promoter.  He needed help to survive the primaries and the media assisted him. It killed the campaigns of better and more qualified Republican candidates, and pitted the moderate Clinton against the more "radical" Sanders.  The media weakened Clinton to enhance the commercialization of the election. Clinton failed to rise to the challenge and was a lackluster candidate. Trump in 2016 and 2020 needed the media's help to win. He used them to discuss the other candidates. Trump gave the impression that the Democrats were stealing the election from Sanders as Trump was stealing the election from the more polished Republicans. They highlighted Trump's name calling of his competitors on the evening news. The bully became the hero.

The press framed the general election and provided the Clinton-Trump matchup with all of the side comparisons. Trump's primary victories needed an explanation, and the media coverage provided the answer in the form of a lie. It was the rise and revenge of the "angry, white male." It was the first lie that set the tone for the presidential election. The second lie was the Russian Conspiracy and this one downplayed circumstances that would have ruined any other candidate.  Trump's behavior towards Russia remained suspect throughout his presidency. The next lie was to disbelieve anything negative said about the president.  Given that Trump survived Russia, he was going to survive "Access Hollywood." Which is worse, cheating on your wife or cheating on your nation? This allowed him to downplay comparisons to competitors and to escape any future criticism for unorthodox actions. Ultimately, this policy allowed him to lead in any manner that suited his best interests. 

The media attention given to Trump, and his lack of interest on certain subjects altered the course of the media's focus on American society. The problems of white Americans became dominant in negative ways. For example, the focus on opiates gave empathetic lip service to white Middle America's addiction while ignoring the victims of the War on Drugs that continued in cities. Gun violence in the heartland was treated differently than what was happening in the cities.  Trump-backed conspiracy theorists argued that mass shootings were staged events and that Democrats were involved in sex trafficking.  Nothing was denounced by the White House but rather enhanced. It came across as a dog whistle but it also provided another minute of media attention. And for Trump bad news and good news were the same - more attention.

The Trump administration was pulling the nation apart and the mainstream media did not draw the distinctions. Fox went in one direction and CNN went in another. White House press conferences became politicized. Reporters who asked questions were denounced and insulted and ultimately silenced. The White House normalized alternate interpretations and facts. Americans became polarized by regions. And this was key to the president's re-election. He needed the acceptance of Middle America to win the Electoral College. 

In 2020, President Trump was going to repeat all of the same tactics largely because he had a willing and unwilling press giving him the attention that he needed. The Trump presidency was characterized by fictional accounts, falsehoods and outright lies, but the labeling of the president as a liar never stuck. He became a version of a Teflon President. Weekly scandals, firings and controversies were promoted and then ignored. The president was hailed for "telling it like it is!"  

For the majority of his term, the president was averaging three lies per day. However, in 2020, things started to change. By January 20, 2020, President Trump had told 16,241 falsehoods. In October 2020, he alone told 4,000 lies, the most in any month during his presidency.  And then on November 2, 2020 President Trump told 504 lies, the most in a single day. By November 5, 2020, the number of lies for his presidency tallied 29,508. In eleven months, he told over 12,000 lies. That averages over 1,000 lies per month. There is a public record for each falsehood and the majority were never discredited. And a significant number of additional lies came after his November 3rd defeat. At the end of his administration 30,573 lies were counted. Given the number of falsehoods and the continued publication of these statements, how could the public suddenly start to distrust the president? 

Although Tankersley did not write it, he is implying that the media gave Trump his mandate.  His candidacy started with lies and from that foundation Trump continued to make more false claims.  The lies empowered his actions but they also energized a segment of the population.  However, at any time, the truth could have shut him down. Politicians saw the truth but they also saw the power of the media. Senators Graham, Cruz, Rubio and Romney all described Donald Trump as a con man in 2015 and 2016. Graham, Cruz and Rubio are now his greatest supporters. Only Romney continues to criticize him today. 

Trump likes to say "people say" when describing unknown factions. However, his relationship with the media is very visible. Trump had deep connections in the media with the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, FOX and NBC. Without them, he could not have survived as a candidate. It was the media that allowed Trump to make connections with monied donors. It was the media that allowed Trump to gain access to the average American. That access made people believe that Trump was a populist candidate as self-made man. Trump gave his followers the sense of entitlement that told mostly whites that they needed to take back their country as if no one else mattered. At the end of the day, the media gave and continues to give Trump more power than he ever could have imagined. 

And now the media cannot put the Trump genie back in the box. Removing him from Facebook and Twitter is not quelling the Big Lie. To the contrary, Trump in defeat is just as powerful as he was five months ago. He still dominates the news cycle. It cannot make the Republicans denounce the person who weakened democracy and might have caused them harm.  Donald Trump did not have to be a racist to stoke racism, or a sexist or an elitist. His followers believed he was whatever they desired, and that he sanctioned their behavior. We, the media and the American people, have created our version of a political Frankenstein. And it was all based on a lie! 

When will we decide to see the truth?