Tonight's Circus Proves There Is No Liberal Bias In Media

In a few hours from now, the President will be on every major network during their primetime block, addressing the nation on what he considers to be a national emergency: illegal immigration and the need for a border wall.

This, of course, is a lie. 

There is no crisis. No need to call for a state of emergency. Countless reports have shown that illegal immigration has been on the decline since 2007. Immigrants are less likely to commit violent crimes than native-born Americans. And when people do come into the United States illegally, it’s largely through other means, such as flying in, and staying on expired visas.

None of that matters, as we continue to live through, and subsequently normalize, a fact-free era of our history. 

Tonight, the President will stand in front of a camera, make dozens of unchecked, fact-free claims about immigration, fear monger, spread propaganda, and blame Democrats for a shut down he was on camera taking responsibility for.

It’s all political theater, and a Hail Mary attempt by a panicked administration to save face after being decimated by right wing punditry a few weeks ago, when Trump was ready to sign off on a bill that didn’t include wall funding. A wall he built his entire campaign on. A wall he said Mexico would pay for. A wall that will never actually see construction.

Everyone in the country who isn’t a member of Trump’s cult realizes this. They know he lies. They know he’s pulling out all the stops because he fears his base and conservative media.

Nevertheless, major networks - networks that are often criticized for having a liberal bias - will grant him the platform to spew his cartoonish, fact-free, hateful, racist nonsense.

This is because the mainstream media does not have a liberal bias.

Facts do.

While conservatives tie their political identity to faith, “feels,” and overall anti-intellectualism, liberals are the party of facts. They support science. They support academia and higher learning. It’s part of what apparently makes them “elitist.”

So when Republicans get in front of a camera with their talking points and get fact-checked, to a much larger degree than any Democrat does, it comes across as a political hit job propagated by a liberal machine. A veritable crime syndicate made up of every major network (aside from Fox) created for the sole purpose of destroying American conservatism.

Except it’s not.

Trump was largely elected in part because of mainstream media’s failures during the 2016 campaign. Their obsession with his every move. Their normalization of his behavior. Their bothsidesism of Hillary Clinton’s emails. They saw the cash roll in and never looked back. Covering Trump ad nauseam was good for business - and still is. 

Despite his attacks on the free press, despite his administration looking the other way on grizzly-murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, despite flirting with authoritarianism, mainstream media has been Trump’s old reliable. 

We saw it in 2015/2016, and we’re seeing it now. 

Look at the coverage Elizabeth Warren got after she announced her bid for 2020. “Is she likable?” “Did the DNA test do her in?”

Replace “DNA test” with “email server” and we have Hillary Clinton all over again.

So called “liberal” outlets falling over themselves to question the “likability” of a female candidate while the most unpopular President in modern American history sits in the White House binging Fox News and hate-tweeting. 

Talking about Nancy Pelosi’s popularity or lack thereof while ignoring the fact Paul Ryan left office with a 12% approval rating.

Giving oxygen to Rashida Tlalib’s use of the word “motherfucker” while the President demonizes entire groups of people and uses language on an almost daily basis unbecoming of someone sitting in the world’s highest office.

Harshly criticizing any and every idea Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has, while the President talks about a Space Force and a 2000+ mile wall that he plans to make see-through. 

Of course all the people I mentioned also happen to be women, and that leads to a much larger discussion about sexism in media - but to my original point, they’re also all liberals.

These ridiculously bad takes stem from the media’s collective guilt. Because Republicans are so comically bad at what they do, and because most of what they believe in is flat out, provably false; the media feels like they’re ganging up on them by calling them out constantly. They feel they have to level the playing field to avoid being seen as partisan, so they give equal attention to liberal non-stories, which in turn, creates a narrative for the uninformed that “both sides are bad.”

And none of this even takes into account the fact that back in 2014, when then-President Obama requested primetime to speak about immigration, he was denied by the major networks, because they considered the speech “overtly partisan.”

Does that sound like the nefarious workings of a well-oiled liberal machine? 

The same networks that rejected Obama’s speech will give that coveted platform to a President who has called them the enemy of the people. Mostly out of fear that if they don’t give him the airtime, his claims of “fake news” and the belief that every news organization is out to get him, will be legitimate.

This failure to stand up to a budding authoritarian confirms what a lot of people are slowly starting to realize: The media doesn’t have a liberal bias. 

Facts have a liberal bias. 

When reporters do their job and report on the facts, it comes across as partisan. 

But when their guilt over that gets to be too much to bare, they shrink in the moment and allow for spectacles like tonight’s impending circus to enter our political arena.