In an early glimpse of what to expect from coverage of this election, MSNBC and CNN hosts went into full rage mode with the Iowa caucus results. MSNBC host Joy Reid led this effort by declaring that “White Christians” are racists who want minorities to “bow down” to them.
Reid asked about this manifest racism of white Christians in a conversation with Robert “Robbie” Jones, the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and author of “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy.”
Reid explained to anyone who was confused about their white Christian neighbors:
“All the things that we think about, about electability, about what are people gaming out, but none of that matters when you believe that God has given you this country, that it is yours, and that everyone who is not a White, conservative Christian is a fraudulent American, is a less real American. Then you don’t care about electability. You care about what God has given you.”
She later added
“It is religion And I think what we have to actually confront – and this is what the Democrats are going to face – is this is now what White evangelicalism is. It is Christian nationalism. That’s the name of it, right?” It is all part of “White evangelical Christians of a certain mindset … that they own this country, that immigrants, that Brown people, that Hindus like Vivek Ramaswamy and his wife are illegitimate Americans. They are less legitimate Americans than they are…They’re not trying to convince people and win people over through politics. What they’re saying is, ‘We own this country, and everyone will bow down to us.’”
As we look at the rising anger in this country, this is a good part of it. In our echo chambered coverage, viewers hear of the effort to suppress all minorities (including apparently minority GOP presidential candidates) and how this “may be our last election.” Yet, these same hosts will denounce others for their reckless language as they fuel racist and rage rhetoric.
Reid’s colleague MSNBC Host Rachel Maddow censored Trump’s victory speech and said that the network would not allow viewers to hear him because he said “untrue things.” MSNBC would allow viewers to hear the victory speeches of anyone it deems as speaking truthfully about political issues.
Much like our politics, our media often seems captured by the most extreme elements of our society. It explains why the media is now at an all-time low in terms of trust. However, the most concerning aspect is that this is just the beginning of January. We have to make it to November.
I think that we saw something like this ominous moment 15 years ago to the day…
Where are we, when during a presidential election the press and news media openly and blatantly only broadcast one political parties candidates campaign speeches and statements.
Seriously what does this mean, when the main stream news media blocks the leading political candidate for President, ..worse one who happens to be a former President.
How is this even legal?
Most here aren’t old enough to remember but I know Mr Turley is, back in the day the news on television was seen as a civic duty by the networks to broadcast detailed unbiased carefully vetted news stories twice a day to the public.
The networks HAD to do this, in exchange for using the airwaves. It was a requirement, and the news was impartial and unbiased and always showed all the candidates, and left the commentary to the mind of the viewer.
Then in 1998 under the Clinton Administration CNN lobbied for the 24/7 commercial news channel, and while objections that normally shot down such schemes, because of the natural and anticipated proclivity for stations to begin to spin and slant the news to increase viewership if commercial for profit news media was introduced.
They were also concerned that with 24/7 news they’d quickly run out of new vetted stories and begin to focus on salacious and unverified stories and editorialized speculation.
All of this of course came true.
But I’m not sure they ever saw it becoming so corrupt that now the mainstream media has become a propaganda arm for the party in power.
I’ll say that again.
The mainstream media has become the propaganda arm for the political party currently in power.
And they’re using that power to silence the opposition party and its leading candidate thereby completely removing the peoples right to vote for the candidate of their choice.
All of this seems eerily familiar, … like it happened sometime before way back in the past. I’m thinking right around 1933.
Joy Reid doesn’t have a “News” show, as far as I know; she has an “Opinion” show. If you check Reid’s biography at Wikipedia, you’ll see that she experienced a very traumatic childhood & survived a very difficult start in Life. It has almost certainly impacted or influenced her POV. Personally, I do not regard her POV as an American voice. I suggest that you just ignore her if she bothers you.
Dear Prof. Turley.. to restore your interactive blog to its once shining forum of true democratic debate commentary re: your columns/ postings.. can your programming please limit the demoNcratic disrespectful commentary by these foul mouthed ad nauseum trolls who purposely take up space ad infinitum to make using your blog difficult and ineffective… when the ‘free speech’ of such trolls interferes with and compromises the free speech of others, it has become a nuisance… trying to scroll thru their webs & webs of dirty language negative spinning to find meaningful commentary is an imposition.. Perhaps the easiest thing to do is simply to limit all commentary to 4 or 5 postings max per user id per column of yours, which includes ‘Anonymous, ‘ too.. Thank you from one who is most Appreciative of the service you provide to The World…!!!