(Trends Wide Business) — US President Joe Biden appeared before the country on Wednesday, just days before the crucial midterm elections, at Union Station in Washington and issued a dire warning.
“As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America — for governor, for Congress, for attorney general, secretary of state — who will not commit, will not commit to accepting the election results in the ones that are competing,” Biden said. “This is the path to chaos in America. It is unprecedented. It is illegal and un-American.”
This line of his speech — which was televised on cable news but scorned by the most widely watched broadcast networks — is not a matter of opinion. It does not include any political spin. It is a tragic and raw fact.
Only 41% of Republicans are confident that the US election reflects the will of the people, according to a Trends Wide poll conducted by SSRS and released Wednesday. A staggering 66% of Republicans continue to say they don’t think Biden was the rightful winner of the 2020 election.
It is impossible to understand why so many Americans no longer trust American elections without understanding the information universe in which they reside. The bad-faith TV hosts, radio personalities, podcasters, and websites that now unquestionably dominate the right-wing media landscape have poisoned the news with lies and conspiracy theories about the electoral process.
Take Tucker Carlson as an example. After Biden’s speech, the right-wing talk show host not only authorized his huge audience to question the election results, he goaded them into doing so.
“In a functioning democracy, you’re not only allowed to ask questions about the election, you’re encouraged to,” Carlson ranted as the on-screen banner alerted viewers to the fact that he was reacting “to the mannequin’s angry speech.”
“There is no such thing as the denial of elections in a free society. It’s called freedom of expression. You can tell if you think about it, period,” Carlson said. “And yet our media, which exists to defend free speech, is doing everything they can, day in and day out, to shut it down. How dare you ask questions about next week’s midterms? Why do they tell you that? It’s sinister.”
It’s easy to dismiss Carlson’s rhetoric as marginal. To say that he is a radical cable news broadcaster does not reflect the larger right-wing media universe in which Republicans largely, often exclusively, get their news.
And it’s understandable why some people choose to ignore it. It is hard to accept the fact that so many Americans (neighbors, friends, family) are being radicalized by extreme voices fighting for control of the Republican Party.
But to do so would be to ignore the forces that allow cancer to grow in our society. And for news organizations, ignoring the toxicity that defines the right-wing media universe leaves readers and viewers without a complete picture of what’s happening in the country.
“As I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under attack,” Biden said Wednesday night. “We’re not doing ourselves any favors by pretending otherwise.”
Related Post
(Trends Wide Business) — US President Joe Biden appeared before the country on Wednesday, just days before the crucial midterm elections, at Union Station in Washington and issued a dire warning.
“As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America — for governor, for Congress, for attorney general, secretary of state — who will not commit, will not commit to accepting the election results in the ones that are competing,” Biden said. “This is the path to chaos in America. It is unprecedented. It is illegal and un-American.”
This line of his speech — which was televised on cable news but scorned by the most widely watched broadcast networks — is not a matter of opinion. It does not include any political spin. It is a tragic and raw fact.
Only 41% of Republicans are confident that the US election reflects the will of the people, according to a Trends Wide poll conducted by SSRS and released Wednesday. A staggering 66% of Republicans continue to say they don’t think Biden was the rightful winner of the 2020 election.
It is impossible to understand why so many Americans no longer trust American elections without understanding the information universe in which they reside. The bad-faith TV hosts, radio personalities, podcasters, and websites that now unquestionably dominate the right-wing media landscape have poisoned the news with lies and conspiracy theories about the electoral process.
Take Tucker Carlson as an example. After Biden’s speech, the right-wing talk show host not only authorized his huge audience to question the election results, he goaded them into doing so.
“In a functioning democracy, you’re not only allowed to ask questions about the election, you’re encouraged to,” Carlson ranted as the on-screen banner alerted viewers to the fact that he was reacting “to the mannequin’s angry speech.”
“There is no such thing as the denial of elections in a free society. It’s called freedom of expression. You can tell if you think about it, period,” Carlson said. “And yet our media, which exists to defend free speech, is doing everything they can, day in and day out, to shut it down. How dare you ask questions about next week’s midterms? Why do they tell you that? It’s sinister.”
It’s easy to dismiss Carlson’s rhetoric as marginal. To say that he is a radical cable news broadcaster does not reflect the larger right-wing media universe in which Republicans largely, often exclusively, get their news.
And it’s understandable why some people choose to ignore it. It is hard to accept the fact that so many Americans (neighbors, friends, family) are being radicalized by extreme voices fighting for control of the Republican Party.
But to do so would be to ignore the forces that allow cancer to grow in our society. And for news organizations, ignoring the toxicity that defines the right-wing media universe leaves readers and viewers without a complete picture of what’s happening in the country.
“As I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under attack,” Biden said Wednesday night. “We’re not doing ourselves any favors by pretending otherwise.”
