After last Saturday’s attempted assassination of Republican nominee Donald Trump, President Biden took to the airwaves to explain the need to “lower the temperature of our politics”. Take a listen:
The night provided a rare opportunity for the political parties to come to their senses and dial back the campaign rhetoric that often borders on apocalyptic. Donald Trump has already been president once. America is still here. Joe Biden has already been president once. America is still here. As a country, we’re more than our elected officials — that sort of thing.
In fact, this would have been a great time for the parties to re-dedicate themselves to the fundamental things we strive for in America — free speech, a government by the people for the people, a non-corrupted justice system, free and fair elections, etc etc.
This, of course, did not happen. On Monday — just 2 days after Trump was shot — President Biden sat down with Lester Holt (full transcript/video here) and STARTED THE INTERVIEW by repeating inflammatory lies about Donald Trump:
For example, you know, the January 6th — you know, the attack on the Capitol, the — I — I — Lester, I got in this race early on in 2020 — for the 2020 race. I wasn’t gonna run again because I’d lost my son. I didn’t — you know? And — until I watched what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Those folks coming out of the woods with torches, carrying swastikas, singing the same Nazi bile that was accompanied by this Ku Klux Klan and a young woman was killed. And — and it was a bystander. And — the president — then president was asked, “What do you think?” He said, “The very fine people on both sides.” Not fine people on both sides. No excuse. Zero.
The interview actually got worse, as it became clear that when Biden said “We need to lower the temperature”, what he actually meant is that DONALD TRUMP needed to lower the temperature:
“I have not engaged in that rhetoric. Now, my opponent has engaged in that rhetoric. He talks about there will be a bloodbath if he loses. Talking about how he’s gonna forgive all — actually I guess suspend the sentences of all those who were arrested and sentenced to go to jail because of what happened in the Capitol.”
Joe Biden’s actual rhetoric: (Not that he would know he posted this!)
“He’s literally a threat to everything America stands for.”
It’s actually pretty difficult to get the temperature any higher than that — but MSNBC (with their fake RNC TVs playing behind them) found a way as the Republican National Convention was nearing its conclusion on Thursday night:
I don’t know if I’ve heard a stupider term than “white-adjacent” to describe conservative “black and brown bodies”, but at least we’re not calling them Uncle Toms anymore. (Or at least not that night.)
AOC did her part in lowering the temperature by pausing a moment before calling Trump a racist and a neo-Nazi during an hour-long Instagram post.
This continuing ratcheting up of temperature isn’t surprising. One could argue the entire Democratic campaign against Donald Trump RELIES on the temperature of the nation being high. Actual enthusiasm for Biden/Harris is incredibly low, so the Democratic strategy has been to promise the end of democracy and the concentration camps are coming if Donald Trump wins the election.
But on Thursday night before Trump spoke at the RNC, Tucker Carlson made a fabulous point that after the assassination attempt, TRUMP was the one who actually dialed down the rhetoric and the ‘temperature’ of the country, in contrast to his opponents.
And although Trump unfortunately fell back into his usual hyperbolic speech patterns during his most recent rally, Tucker’s line kept bouncing around in head — because to me it was quite obviously true. Most politicians certainly WOULD have used the event to inflame tensions in the country — in fact, most politicians use ANY excuse to inflame tensions in the country. And they aren’t alone. Here’s a ‘wonderful’ flashback to the early reporting of the 2019 Lincoln Memorial Confrontation between Nicholas Sandmann and Nathan Phillips:
First, it should be pointed out that in no way was this ever an actual story. The people involved are “nobodies”. Nothing violent occurred. There was literally nothing newsworthy about it — but CNN dedicated the above five minutes (and much more besides) to it because Sandmann dared commit the ultimate sin: He was wearing a MAGA hat.
That’s literally all it came down to. Some kid was wearing a MAGA hat, so attack attack attack. Even though CNN must have had the full tape (or been ridiculously negligent) before the piece aired, they ran it anyway. (Fun fact, CNN settled a defamation suit with Sandmann in 2020.) And they weren’t the only network to do so:
The news media has been criticized for how it covered the incident, specifically for their initial reporting of the story based on various social media posts without fully investigating what occurred and subsequently fueling controversy and outrage over the incident.
The media began to cover the story after it received a massive amount of attention on social media. At first, most media coverage neglected to provide key details to the story. Two days later, after a longer video was released, media outlets began to withdraw from their initial analysis and made edits clarifying the changes.
For example, CNN titled an article "Teens in Make America Great Again hats taunted a Native American elder at the Lincoln Memorial", but upon revision, the new headline read "Teen in confrontation with Native American elder says he was trying to defuse the situation". The New York Times's original coverage was titled "Boys in 'Make America Great Again' Hats Mob Native Elder at Indigenous Peoples March" before following up the next day with "Fuller Picture Emerges of Viral Video of Native American Man and Catholic Students". Some organizations did not change their original writings, but added a notice directing users to newer articles with a more complete account.
The entire MSM jumped on this non-story SPECIFICALLY to inflame tensions and raise the ‘temperature’ of the country. After all, the narrative was that Trump is a white supremacist, and some kid with a MAGA hat ‘smirking’ at a Native American is the PERFECT change to “remind” the country of that fact.
But WHY do politicians and their lapdog presstitutes want to dial up the tension in America? That’s easy ….people who are riled up are much more likely to be willing to do what you want — including give up their civil rights. (“I’ll accept being spied on because WHITE SUPREMACY! There’s so much on the line we have to!”)
And although Democrats have been really ratcheting up the temperature lately — the covid examples are too numerous to list — this is generally a very bi-partisan agenda. Who can forget Condoleezza Rice telling CNN that we can’t let the smoking gun turn into a mushroom cloud?
That line was repeated throughout the Bush presidency, including by Bush himself during the pitch for war with Iraq. The Bush administration also used the heightened temperature of 9/11 to push the USA PATRIOT Act — which was supposed to be temporary but keeps getting extended. (The dangers of heightened temperature!)
The bottom line is that politicians LOVE increased tensions and political temperature because it makes it easier to control the people. Ironically, that extra bit of control eventually leads to more tensions (because government is controlling more of your life), and very often to more “government solutions” to those inflamed tensions. (Rinse and repeat.)
The only way to break out of this cycle is to dial back on the amount of society that government controls — otherwise losing an election will ALWAYS be described an ‘existential threat’. (After all, at this point, entire industries exist only to leech off of the government.) We wouldn’t have to worry about every election being “the end of America” if the government was limited to its Constitutional restraints.
Hey, a guy can dream.
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“We wouldn’t have to worry about every election being “the end of America” if the government was limited to its Constitutional restraints.
Hey, a guy can dream.”
Make that (at least) two guys
"All bets are off. Anybody who tells you they know what is going to happen is a liar.
There is going to be another series of black swan events before Election Day that throws everything off again.
The only thing that we know for sure is that there is corruption on the inside."
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) July 21, 2024