Bernie Bias: The Mainstream Media Undermines Sanders at Every Turn Thru Super Tuesday and Beyond

ELECTION 2016

Bernie Bias: The Mainstream Media Undermines Sanders at Every Turn

The pattern is to ignore, downplay and mischaracterize Sanders' positions.

By Rima Regas / AlterNet

September 2, 201

2

Photo Credit: via Sanders campaign

Who knew, when Bernie Sanders announced a run in the Democratic primary, that not only would he meet with hostility from his main opponent's chief surrogates, but that the media would acquiesce and even collude to such a great degree?

When analyzing the quantity and content of the vast majority of what is said and written about Sanders, his campaign platform, and appearances, one finds a running theme across the so-called liberal media. The New York Times has been called out by more than one analyst, myself included, for its complete lack of serious coverage of Bernie Sanders.

Since joining the staff at the New York Times, Maggie Haberman has written about Sanders on fewer than a handful of occasions, while she has written about the other candidates in the race more often. While it is understandable that Hillary Clinton would be the subject of more numerous articles, it makes no sense for Martin O'Malley to have more articles written about him than Sanders, given the pecking order that emerged right from the start, yet that is what has transpired so far.

In articles that address various aspects of the Democratic side of the primary, Senator Sanders' ability to succeed is always described in doubtful terms, even as Hillary Clinton's troubles in the polls are being described. The New York Times has published fewer than a dozen pieces that are Sanders campaign-specific and each is problematic in the way he is portrayed. Most often, Sanders' age and hair are highlighted, and the incorrect moniker "socialist" is applied. (Socialist and Democratic socialist are not interchangeable terms.)

While the age of a candidate might matter to some when thinking about a candidate's experience or mental capacity, Bernie Sanders is 73, only six years older than Hillary Clinton. His mental capacity has never been a subject of contention. One can only conclude from the repetition of negative references, that writers are attempting to condition readers into thinking of Sanders as the "unkempt" elderly stereotype.

Most presidential candidates have been older than 60. Think of Ronald Reagan. The distance between 67 to 73, in human years, isn't that significant from either the experiential or health standpoints. If anything, Sanders' breakneck schedule, accounting for work in the Senate, crisscrossing the nation to hold rallies, and appearing on cable news shows demonstrates a high level of mental and physical energy.

The most harmful way anti-Sanders media bias has been manifested is by omission. In this respect, the New York Times is joined by the vast majority of the mainstream media in not typically reporting on Sanders, especially on policy. Overall there is  a version of a “wall of silence” built by the media when it comes to serious reporting and analysis of his policies; or when analyzing or reporting on the policies of his opponents, a failure to mention Sanders' in contrast, especially when his is the more progressive position. This behavior hasn't gone unnoticed by readers. You can see numerous complaints from readers about the Times organization's bias toward Sanders. You see it in the New York Times comments section, on the Facebook pages and comments sections of all the major publications, and just about everywhere else. Readers complain about the lack of substantive coverage as well as the bias in what little is published. The Times' Jason Horowitz' piece, "Bernie Sanders Draws Big Crowds to His 'Political Revolution" drew over 1600 comments, double what the most popular columns usually fetch, with most in protest over the obvious bias of the piece and the Times' egregious lack of coverage of Bernie Sanders news.

Bernie Sanders' campaign has centered around economic justice and his plans to reform banking, taxation, trade, stimulate the economy, promote manufacturing at home, and institute jobs programs. I've yet to see side-by side comparisons of the top two Democratic candidates' prescriptions for the US economy. Most economists and economic writers chose to publish pieces on the Clinton economic plan before she gave her speech. Few wrote about it after, and with reason: The speech didn't deliver much in the way of specifics, and was vague about policies that the voting public expects. Sanders' version of an economic plan has yet to garner serious analysis and discussion. Both Clinton and Sanders base their economic prescriptions on economist Joseph Stiglitz' most recent work, Rewrite The Rules. Paul Krugman has, on three occasions, talked up Hillary Clinton's economic platform, specifically on wages, without so much as mentioning Sanders. Clinton favors a minimum wage of $15 per hour in New York City, and $12 an hour nationally. Sanders has called for the minimum wage to be raised to $15 an hour for everyone. The Times had reported, in May, that Stiglitz' work would likely greatly influence Clinton's platform. If it has, one wouldn't know it, judging by subsequent writings.

Plan for Racial Justice

While news outlets were reporting on the disruptions of Sanders by the Black Lives Matter movement, few followed up on the story as Sanders began to respond positively. Sanders gave a major speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on July 27. It received very little attention from the press. And within a week, Sanders delivered his answer to Black Lives Matter, by way of a plan. The New York Times has yet to make mention of Sanders' plan for racial justice, link to the senator's website, or publish it outright in an article. And the media has ignored the fact that the racial justice plan has received praise among a number of Black Lives Matter leaders, including activist Deray McKesson.

Clarence Page recently wrote about Sanders in an op-ed for the Chicago Tribune. He took a tack that many in the press now use: comparing and contrasting Sanders to Donald Trump. Given the kinds of controversy Trump has kicked up with his racial statements, and the treatment Sanders has received over his racial justice bona fides, it is no surprise that many of Sanders' supporters are angry. Page begins his op-ed with: "The farther the left and right wings in politics move toward extremes, an old saying goes, the more they resemble each other."

In any other context, that kind of contrast might have been fair, but not in a piece about Trump and Sanders. In his third paragraph, Page writes: "In recent days we have seen how both Trump, now a seasoned reality TV star, and Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist, have faced sharp criticism within their separate political tribes for omitting or offending key constituencies."

While it is true enough that Trump has been making racially offensive statements about all constituencies that aren't key to his campaign, that same accusation does not apply to Bernie Sanders, who in stark contrast to his main opponent, has never, in 50 years of documented political activism and public office, uttered a racially offensive statement, or favored policies that are detrimental to minorities.

Page praises Sanders' plan for racial justice, without any discussion of its points and then goes on to characterize the diversity of Sanders' supporters: "But his impressively huge crowds have been even less diverse than his 95-percent-white home state of Vermont." There's not been a study or poll of the crowds at Sanders events. From what I could see of Sanders' Los Angeles and New Orleans rallies, the crowds seemed to match the diversity of the locale. Of note is the fact that there hasn't yet been a large-scale poll of the black community on its support of Sanders following the publication of his plan for racial justice.

Over a month after the publication of Sanders' plan for racial justice, the media continues to portray him as someone who is racially wounded, when to begin with, that "problem" came into existence the day of the Netroots Nation disruption under the guise of eliciting needed policy from all candidates, even those who are considered friends. As the top Democratic candidate continues to owe such "needed policy," Hillary Clinton continues to enjoy relative insulation from the perception of having any racial wounds, in spite of a record of promoting policies that have led to the very reasons for the birth of Black Lives Matter.

Over at Vox, coverage of Sanders by everyone but Ezra Klein has mostly been overtly negative. Dara Lind address a portion of the race issues in her interview of comedian Roderick Greer, who came up with the Twitter hashtag BernieSoBlack. But that piece contained much more than an explanation of some funny hashtag, and all of it was slanted in the direction of stripping Sanders of his civil rights achievements, even as the piece was titled to indicate Greer's frustration at Sanders' supporters. Attacking Sanders' supporters and portraying them as racist or borderline racist has been a running theme in the press. Since his record on civil rights cannot be impeached and he has never committed a racial faux-pas, the only way to attack him on race is through his supporters, and that is how in piece after piece, Sanders' record is being sullied.

The attacks on Sanders began with a curious refusal to give him any credit for taking part in the civil rights movement, and have been followed up by pieces designed to paint him as dispassionate about human rights and racial justice. Few are those who cite Sanders' longstanding near-perfect rating by the NAACP and ACLU, or mention those, like Senator Cory Booker, who have spoken up in defense of Sanders' lifelong record with the African-American community.

Since when don't records matter?

Up until Bernie Sanders, a politician's record has always been the measure by which evaluations are made. This is of particular import here because Sanders' main opponent, Hillary Clinton, also has a very long record and it isn't being scrutinized. When Clinton met with protesters in New Hampshire and she was confronted with policies of hers and Bill Clinton's that have harmed the black community, little was made of it in the press. All chatter about Clinton's behavior at that meeting has practically come to an end, and she has yet to publish her own policy proposals for racial justice.

Sanders has focused his tenure as a public official on economic justice. That doesn't mean he paid no attention to racial justice. His stump speeches, with few exceptions, make mention of the racial disparities in our society. One example that comes to mind is Sanders' appearance in front of the Council of La Raza, where he spent several minutes addressing racial disparities harming African Americans. 

The characterization that Sanders' position on solving the problems of racial injustice is through addressing economic inequality is patently false. Sanders has long been on record as saying that racial inequality is a separate problem that needs to be addressed in parallel. Almost to a voice, the U.S. mainstream press corps avoids any mention of that in order to cement the perception that Bernie Sanders isn't serious about redressing America's original sin.

At a time when economic and racial inequality are at their deepest, we are again at a similar moment in time as when the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was speaking out in favor of racial unity to fight poverty and inequality. In one of his last speeches, "The Three Evils of Society," King described the conditions we find ourselves in today. His prescription came in the form of his Poor People's Campaign, uniting the nation's whites and blacks to fight for economic justice. It is painful to hear and read those who are intimately familiar with King's speeches joining in the same behaviors as the rest of their colleagues in the media in praising Bernie Sanders and putting him down all at once, at times even using the very same Martin Luther King quotes included in Sanders' plan for racial justice.

To Martin Luther King Jr., racial, educational and economic justice were always inexorably tied. To James Baldwin, racial, educational and economic justice were indivisible from each other. It takes a rare cynic who is well versed in the writings of Baldwin and King to use them as bludgeons against Sanders, all the while withholding salient facts from the public, so it can do its job as described in Baldwin's The Fire Next Time:

“And here we are at the center of the arc, trapped in the gaudiest, most valuable, and most improbable water wheel the world has ever seen. Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we—and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on or create, the consciousness of the others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world. If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, recreated from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: “God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!”

In the absence of fair media coverage, how do we create the consciousness of the others? How do we achieve our country? How do we avoid repeating history?

Rima Regas is a Southern California-based writer and commentator with a passion for progressive politics, and social and economic justice. Her career has included stints as a congressional staffer, graphic designer, technical writer and editor. Follow her on Twitter @Rima_Regas and Blog#42 atwww.rimaregas.com

Media Bias Helps Promote Suffering / Suffering Promotes Profits and Seldom Solves or Resolves Social Problems

Media Bias Helps Promote Suffering

by James Hoover / January 27th, 2016

CBS’s 60 Minutes often provides important information about vulnerable and suffering Americans. Last Sunday, the program centered on billionaires sharing their wealth with the needy and forgotten people in some states deprived of health care, though the 60 Minutes segment doesn’t use the word deprived.

Where 60 Minutes fails in the health care segment involves not informing the audience about the real circumstances leading to the exclusion of health care services we all have a right to enjoy.

The 60 Minutes segment focuses on two registered nurses who drive the Health Wagon through six counties in the Appalachian area, providing free health care service to anyone in need. The Health Wagon’s clients are the sick and uninsured, people not able to afford health care, but still covered in 30 other states under Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.

The episode doesn’t mention why the expansion is refused in the 20 states, including those in the Appalachian area, only that those states claim to fear the future cost. It is people who cannot afford to purchase Obamacare, even with a subsidy, who seek help. The Obamacare Medicaid expansion actually provides for these people in all states, and includes those who earn 138% of the federal poverty level (FPL) or less, the FPL being $15,856 for individuals.

The 60 Minutes segment only categorized them as falling in the unintended gap of lost coverage, as though their exclusion is an unintentional accident wrought by 20 states fearful of the expense. In actuality, those 20 Republican-controlled states would save money by instituting Medicaid expansion coverage under Obamacare. With no apparent rationale for those states to refuse coverage, one could only conclude that rejection of the coverage is only political.

When Scott Pelley first aired this segment in April of 2014 there were 20 Republican states rejecting over 3 million people qualified for coverage. He only said that the federal government covered the expense for 3 years. Not mentioned was that Obamacare would cover 90% of the cost in all the years thereafter. Also a disingenuous exclusion was the fact that the Medicaid expansion coverage actually saved money when considering the cost of alternative expenses (without the coverage) for the uninsured sick, expenses like emergency room care.

Furthermore, since 2014, Indiana has opted into coverage while Alabama and South Dakota are considering it. A bitter fight between newly elected Democrat, Governor McAuliffe, who seeks to expand Medicaid, and the Republican legislature, which rejects expansion, is still expected to shut out entitled Virginia residents. Last Sunday’s 60 Minutes, which repeated this April, 2014, segment, did not mention these updates, including the GOP’s exclusion in most states they control.

The point can easily be made that mainstream media fails to cover the truth about important issues and how those issues affect us and our more vulnerable fellow citizens. Such issues must contribute to what and whom we vote for. Withholding these truths only helps to contribute to misinformed voting or to an inclination not to vote.

Even life or death situations like the poisoned water in Flint, Michigan did not warrant informative reporting until MSNBC exposed Republican governor Rick Snyder for his reckless disregard for life and health, approving a new corrosive water source to save money. His action or inaction had a direct connection to lead poisoning of children, even ignoring for several months unsafe lead counts in their bloodstreams.

Though skirting the blame, the 60 Minutes segment did show that policies have impacts on lives. For example, the one patient treated by the Health Wagon, featured and interviewed by Scott Pelley, died three months after the interview. It was pointed out that Linda Moore, the patient, would probably still be alive if she had had health coverage when Obamacare was implemented the first day of 2014. Pointed out too were the neglected health risks such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, including how accompanying pain and death could have and should have been avoided.

We could well ask how many more will die as a result of dangerous partisan games played by Republican-controlled states. There are still 17 Republican-controlled states that are responsible for this suffering, even death. Standing in marked contrast to such heartless treatment are the kind and dedicated people who assist these forgotten Americans.

Not speaking the truth about the political party that is to blame and — what we can only conclude — are petty, spiteful, and partisan reasons for not providing coverage to which Americans are entitled is wretched and irresponsible.

This doesn’t just apply to CBS, but to all mainstream media. One can expect bias and vitriol to emanate from Fox News and right-wing media, but the corporate media has diffused blame for GOP obstruction for too long over both parties.

Such treatment only encourages more of the same. For as Republicans see no price is paid for their government shutdowns, budget blackmail options, loan default threats, and crisis legislating, they are only encouraged to do more of the same.

Since President Obama took office in January of 2009, the Republican Party began its Machiavellian policies in earnest. Let me review just a few of the most flagrant actions and lies, many bordering on traitorous. Unbiased reporting would have rendered them ineffective:

• Before Obama’s first Inaugural Address in 2009, senior GOP members of Congress had already met with conservative movement leaders and Republican strategists and agreed to ignore the electoral mandate and commit the party to a course of absolute obstruction, including spending bills to dig us out of the recession.

• Mitch McConnell publically announced his number one priority to make Obama a one-term president on October 23, 2010.

• Lies perpetrated by Republicans, and these are just a few: Obama doubled the deficit; Man-made climate change is a hoax; Tax cuts stimulate the economy; Voter fraud is a serious issue; Obama not born in US; Obamacare has ‘death panels.’

• Speaker of the House John Boehner violated a 216 year-old federal law by “joining with the leader of a foreign nation, Benjamin Netanyahu, against his own president.” Forty-eight GOP Senators undermined Obama nuclear treaty with Iran.

• Republicans waste millions by voting to repeal Obamacare over 60 times since it was passed.

• List of things Republicans demanded under threat of a government shutdown or default: balanced budget amendment; approved Keystone XL; cut funding for Planned Parenthood; Medicare privatization; Paul Ryan tax reform; defunding Obamacare (shutdown15 days in October, 2013); Trillions in budget cuts (2012 near default and resulting credit downgrade); accepting 10,000 Syrian refugees.

Such policies and actions should have been reported honestly and without any bias. Right-wing media function as allies for the right-wing cause. Mainstream media’s bias is more corporate in the vein of profit, propriety or entertainment.

But the reasons are incidental. Right-wing and mainstream media in their own way do damage. Right wing sources just cement the polarization that conservatives must maintain to stay in power. Mainstream media is a second punch that helps to promote a self-indulgent culture that feeds on the material and philosophical goods of a crony capitalist system.

James Hoover is a recently retired systems engineer. He has advanced degrees in Economics and English. Prior to his aerospace career, he taught high school, and he has also taught college courses. He recently published a science fiction novel called Extraordinary Visitors and writes political columns on several websites. Read other articles by James.

This article was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2016 at 10:15am and is filed under Capitalism, Culture, Democrats, Health/Medical, Media, Obama, Right Wing Jerks.

Corporate Media Won’t Tell You Hillary Clinton is a Lying Fascist

Corporate Media Won’t Tell You Hillary Clinton is a Lying Fascist

by Jack Balkwill / October 22nd, 2015

She was practiced at the art of deception
I could tell by her blood-stained hands

— Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” from the Rolling Stones’ 1969 album Let it Bleed

Right now, you’re probably asking yourself, “What does Jack think of Hillary Clinton?”  Well, I’m glad you asked.

In fact, Madam Hillary, the leading candidate for CEO of the United States of Corporate Empire, is being buried in money by environmental polluters, defense cheats, banksters, and other oligarchs and plutocrats because she’s shown unwavering loyalty to these scum of the earth all her life.  Shall we go back to the beginning?

In one of her older, smoldering lies, Hillary claimed to have been named after Sir Edmund Hillary, famous for climbing Mount Everest.  The problem with this is that Sir Edmund didn’t climb Mount Everest and become famous until six years after Hillary Rodham was born.

During the October 13th debate she began her comments with “I have been very consistent over my entire life, I have always fought for the same values and principles.”  She often fabricates that she has always been a progressive, but her “values and principles” are not progressive.

Even in her teens, when Hillary worked on the Nixon campaign, and later became a Goldwater Girl, in support of two of the most right wing Republican politicians in US history.  In college, she was president of Wellesley Republican Youth.  Does this sound like “always been progressive?”

When she became a Democrat she joined husband Bill in the leadership of the Democratic Leadership Council, a corporate-funded group whose goals were clearly to clone a second Republican Party of the Democrats, so that their brand of fascism would not be distinguishable from that of the former.

Bill and Hillary have always presented themselves as a team, and you won’t hear Hillary disagreeing with Bill’s free trade accomplishments, which destroyed millions of good factory jobs for America’s working class.  Or Bill’s deregulation of media, which allowed the giants to merge and extend corporate power by keeping the masses ignorant. Or deregulation of banking, eventually leading to the massive 2008 recession resulting in millions losing jobs and more millions losing homes, as bankers, no longer restricted, became reckless with the extended economy.

In her last run for the presidency, in 2008, none other than Rupert Murdoch held a fundraiser for Hillary.  Should one ask why the king of right wing media would support a “progressive” candidate?  Murdoch is not known for wasting money.  He knew she would represent his “values.”

Even the Clinton family friends appear to be Republican.  During the 2008 race, Bill Clinton remarked that he didn’t know how Hillary would be able to run against their friend John McCain.  It’s been reported that when Obama got the nomination, Bill Clinton advised John McCain during the 2008 campaign.

Former First Lady Barbara Bush praised family friend Bill Clinton “I think that he thinks of George a little bit like the father he didn’t have, and he’s very loving to him. And I really appreciate that.”  If the Clintons are progressive, why do they have right wing friends?

Even daughter Chelsea, who married a Wall Street banker, is a friend of Ivanka Trump, daughter of The Donald who leads Republican candidates at this time.  Bill and Hillary attended Trump’s last wedding.  One almost expects to hear the déjà vu of Bill whining that he doesn’t know how Hillary can run against her friend Trump.

In fact, in his current election campaign, Trump is running a video highlighting praisefrom Bill Clinton, ending with “Thank you Bill.”  The Trump campaign opens the video with a suggestive question: “An endorsement from Bill Clinton?”

When in the Senate, Hillary voted for the Bush agenda — the Patriot Act, Iraq War, the fascist line.  She co-sponsored a bill that would make it a crime to burn the American flag, long a favorite of Republicans, and she supports the death penalty, which is opposed by nearly all progressives.

After Hillary pushed for war with Libya and President Obama obliged by bombing that suffering nation (which has not recovered to a functioning government), she was delighted that President Gaddaffi was savagely tortured to death, after having been shot several times, remarking: “We came, we saw, he died,” followed by a maniacal laugh.

On the campaign trail, Hillary often cites her time on the board of the Children’s Defense Fund in an attempt to show that she is progressive, but she doesn’t talk about her husband’s “Welfare Reform,” which threw poor children into the streets (two-thirds of those on welfare were children).  The founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, Marion Wright Edelman, said of that move by Bill Clinton, “His signature on this pernicious bill makes a mockery of his pledge not to hurt children.”  Edelman’s husband resigned from the Clinton Administration over Clinton’s cruelty toward these disadvantaged children.

Selling out the American people pays handsomely.  Bill Clinton left the White House falling into immense wealth, as his corporate friends paid him off for his service to them, with $200 thousand a night speeches.  It’s been reported that he’s made over $100 million from speeches alone since leaving the White House.  Simply putting the money into his bank account would have looked too much like the payoff of bribes.

Hillary brings in similar loot from speech fees, book deals and other sources, capitalizing on what she calls “public service,” as though she cared a wit about the public interest.  Hillary tells us, in another of her lies, that she and Bill left the White House “dead broke.” But we we find that “In 1999, they bought a five-bedroom home in Chappaqua, N.Y., for $1.7 million.  In December 2000, just as they were leaving the White House, they bought a seven-bedroom house near Embassy Row in Washington, D.C. The price was $2.85 million.”

Hillary Clinton is not a progressive, but the opposite, a classic fascist.  She is currently running her campaign on a platform of lies, and if she is elected president, will reverse her faux progressive positions on anything of importance and sell out the American people, together with the people of the planet, in order to please those whom she’s always served, the wealthy and their corporations, at any cost to the public interest.

The majority of voters who vote Democrat say they are voting “lesser evil,” and if they don’t, the evil Republicans will get in.  No Republican could have gotten away with what President Obama did, when George Bush was so despised by the public and Obama increased his hated agenda, starting his presidency by finishing the bailout of banksters and increasing troop strength in Afghanistan by 30,000.

No Republican could have gotten away with Bill Clinton’s “free trade” deals, “welfare reform,” deregulation of banking and media.  The system encourages people to vote for great evil.  There is nothing lesser about the evil of Democrats other than their rhetoric.

Jill Stein is running for president with no coverage by corporate media, because they fear her like none of the others.  She would actually represent the public interest and democracy, the two things the establishment fear more than anything.  They will cover anyone before Jill Stein, or anything she represents, which is all censored out of the mainstream press.

But the mainstream press have been pushing Hillary for years, long before she announced her decision to run for President.  Hillary represents the same thing as corporate media—rule by plutocratic oligarchy, so the disgusting corporate “journalists” are kneeling and kissing her butt to find favor with their establishment bosses.

Jack Balkwill is an activist in Virginia. He can be reached atlibertyuv@hotmail.com Read other articles by Jack.

This article was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2015 at 2:17am and is filed under Democrats, Elections, Fascism, Media, Right Wing Jerks.

Do Not Let The Establishment Divide Us – We Are All Americans

End Of The American Dream The American Dream Is Becoming A Nightmare And Life As We Know It Is About To Change

Do Not Let The Establishment Divide Us – We Are All Americans

 By Michael Snyder, on January 26th, 2011

Have you ever noticed how almost all the mainstream news stories carried on the major news networks are slanted in a way that is intended to divide Americans?  The truth is that the “establishment” is constantly trying to divide us and get us fighting with one another.  They pit the Republicans against the Democrats (even as though control both sides).  They pit one race against another.  They pit one gender against another.  We are told that the rich are against the poor, the north is against the south, urban is against rural and that there are even “generational battles” going on.  Frustration and hate are rapidly growing in the United States today, and a lot of that frustration and hate is unfortunately aimed at the targets that the mainstream media has programmed all of us to hate.  Meanwhile, those at the top of the pyramid who are controlling the whole game love it when we are divided because we can never become united and challenge their control.

But the truth is that we are all Americans.  If this country goes down, it is going to take all of us down with it.  A house that is divided can never stand.

Unfortunately, America is more divided today than ever.  Many Democrats have an absolutely explosive hatred for the Republican Party.  Many Republicans can’t stop thinking about how much they hate Barack Obama and the Democrats.  Meanwhile, those that control both parties at the highest levels are loving it.

Why do you think they call them “establishment Republicans” and “establishment Democrats”?  It is because the “establishment” controls them both.

So just who is the “establishment”?

Well, they are headed by the ultra-wealthy international banking elite.  They fund the campaigns of “establishment” candidates from both political parties.  The shadowy “think tank” organizations that they have founded have provided the vast majority of the personnel for all presidential administrations since World War 2.

If you don’t believe this, just check it out for yourself.  Do some research on past presidential administrations and take a look at just how many cabinet members belonged to organizations such as The Bilderberg Group, The Trilateral Commission and The Council on Foreign Relations.  You will be absolutely astounded.

You see, the truth is that the “Republican Party” and the “Democratic Party” are simply two franchises that are controlled by the exact same owners.

For much more on who “the establishment” is, the following are a few good points to start….

*Bilderberg Owned Publication The Economist: Yes, Powerful “Globocrat” Elites Are Running Things, It’s Not A Conspiracy

*The Rise of the New Global Elite

*Only 23 Percent Of Americans Believe That The Federal Government Has The Consent Of The Governed

But you never hear much about the “anti-Bilderberg” movement or the “anti-Federal Reserve” movement on the nightly news.

Instead, we are constantly being programmed that the real “fight” is the Republicans vs. the Democrats.

The vast majority of Americans are imprisoned within this artificial left/right paradigm and they can’t seem to break out of it.

But even when the establishment does not have us fighting about politics they are dividing us in other ways.

For example, it seems like almost every issue becomes about “race” these days.  The mainstream media loves to play up tensions between the races.

And so what are we seeing in America today?  Sadly, our country is becoming more divided among racial lines than ever before.

Take the issue of illegal immigration.  The media portrays those that are against illegal immigration as a bunch of “anti-Mexican” racists and those that are in favor of illegal immigration as “pro-Mexican” human rights activists.

But the truth is that many of those that are most against illegal immigration are Americans of Mexican descent that came to America legally and that have worked hard to build a great life in the United States.  They resent all of the cheaters that are just hopping over the border and taking advantage of the system.

The other day I wrote an article entitled “Is Illegal Immigration Destroying The Southwest United States? 19 Immigration Facts That Very Few People Are Talking About“, and I quickly received some comments claiming that I was a racist and that I was full of hate.

Well, nothing could be further from the truth.  I believe that all people are of equal value and deserve to be loved and respected.  People on one side of a border are not more “valuable” than people on the other side of a border.  I simply want everyone to come through the “front door” so that we can stop the endless parade of gang members and drug dealers that are constantly pouring into the United States unchecked.

So is wanting all immigrants to go through the same legal process an irrational demand?

Of course not.

But the establishment media wants to make every issue about hate and about division.

And if there are some voices that the establishment media does not control that makes them even more nervous.

Take the Tea Party movement for example.  Now there are a lot of things about the Tea Party movement that are far from perfect, but in that movement there is just a hint of independence from the establishment.

So how has the mainstream media reacted to the Tea Party movement?

Well, they mock and demonize those in the movement every time they can.

Tea Party activists are called “crazy”, “loco”, “insane”, “wacky”, “kooky” and “extremists”.  They are laughed at by network anchors while they are being interviewed.  There were even several very highly publicized law enforcement documents that circulated around the Internet last year that referred to Tea Party activists as potential terrorists.

So why are Tea Party activists vilified by the mainstream media so much?  Well, it is because that movement represents a sliver of a chance that the American people may take back control of the political process in this country.

The establishment cannot let that happen, because their whole system depends on control.

When this country was originally founded, we were not a divided nation.  It was the founding fathers vs. the monarchy and the financial establishment of England.  Our founders were mocked and ridiculed and very few people gave them any chance of succeeding.  Fortunately our founding fathers won and they were able to establish this great nation.

Well, once again today those fighting against the “financial establishment” are being mocked and ridiculed.  Politicians such as Ron Paul that point out that ultra-wealthy international bankers use the Federal Reserve to manipulate and control our financial system are marginalized by the mainstream media. But fortunately the American people are starting to wake up.

You just can’t keep truth down forever.  Eventually it will rise.  The following is a brief 5 minute speech by Ron Paul on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.  Let it be a reminder to all of us that we need to be united if we want to have any hope of turning America back around….

The lost meaning of ‘objectivity’

Insights, tools and research to advance journalism

The lost meaning of ‘objectivity’

One of the great confusions about journalism, write Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in The Elements of Journalism, is the concept of objectivity.

When the concept originally evolved, it was not meant to imply that journalists were free of bias. Quite the contrary.

The term began to appear as part of journalism after the turn of the 20th century, particularly in the 1920s, out of a growing recognition that journalists were full of bias, often unconsciously. Objectivity called for journalists to develop a consistent method of testing information – a transparent approach to evidence – precisely so that personal and cultural biases would not undermine the accuracy of their work.

In the latter part of the 19th century, journalists talked about something called “realism” rather than objectivity. This was the idea that if reporters simply dug out the facts and ordered them together, truth would reveal itself rather naturally.

“

Objectivity called for journalists to develop a consistent method of testing information – a transparent approach to evidence

”

Realism emerged at a time when journalism was separating from political party affiliations and becoming more accurate. It coincided with the invention of what journalists call the inverted pyramid, in which a journalist lines the facts up from the most important to the least important, thinking it helps audiences understand things naturally.

At the beginning of the 20th century, however, some journalists began to worry about the naïveté of realism. In part, reporters and editors were becoming more aware of the rise of propaganda and the role of press agents.

At a time when Freud was developing his theories of the unconscious and painters like Picasso were experimenting with Cubism, journalists were also developing a greater recognition of human subjectivity.

“

The method is objective, not the journalist.

”

In 1919, Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz, an associate editor for the New York World, wrote an influential and scathing account of how cultural blinders had distorted the New York Times coverage of the Russian Revolution. “In the large, the news about Russia is a case of seeing not what was, but what men wished to see,” they wrote. Lippmann and others began to look for ways for the individual journalist “to remain clear and free of his irrational, his unexamined, his unacknowledged prejudgments in observing, understanding and presenting the news.”

Journalism, Lippmann declared, was being practiced by “untrained accidental witnesses.” Good intentions, or what some might call “honest efforts” by journalists, were not enough. Faith in the rugged individualism of the tough reporter, what Lippmann called the “cynicism of the trade,” was also not enough. Nor were some of the new innovations of the times, like bylines, or columnists.

The solution, Lippmann argued, was for journalists to acquire more of “the scientific spirit … There is but one kind of unity possible in a world as diverse as ours. It is unity of method, rather than aim; the unity of disciplined experiment.” Lippmann meant by this that journalism should aspire to “a common intellectual method and a common area of valid fact.”

To begin, Lippmann thought, the fledgling field of journalist education should be transformed from “trade schools designed to fit men for higher salaries in the existing structure.” Instead, the field should make its cornerstone the study of evidence and verification.

Although this was an era of faith in science, Lippmann had few illusions. “It does not matter that the news is not susceptible to mathematical statement. In fact, just because news is complex and slippery, good reporting requires the exercise of the highest scientific virtues.”

In the original concept, in other words, the method is objective, not the journalist. The key was in the discipline of the craft, not the aim.

This point has some important implications.

One is that the impartial voice employed by many news organizations – that familiar, supposedly neutral style of newswriting – is not a fundamental principle of journalism. Rather, it is an often helpful device news organizations use to highlight that they are trying to produce something obtained by objective methods.

The second implication is that this neutral voice, without a discipline of verification, creates a veneer covering something hollow. Journalists who select sources to express what is really their own point of view, and then use the neutral voice to make it seem objective, are engaged in a form of deception. This damages the credibility of the craft by making it seem unprincipled, dishonest, and biased.

The impartial voice employed by many news organizations – that familiar, supposedly neutral style of newswriting – is not a fundamental principle of journalism.

”

Reporters have gone on to refine the concept Lippmann had in mind, but usually only privately, and in the name of technique or reporting routines rather than journalism’s larger purpose. The notion of an objective method of reporting exists in pieces, handed down by word of mouth from reporter to reporter.

Developmental psychologist William Damon at Stanford, for instance, has identified various “strategies” journalists have developed to verify reporting. Damon asked his interviewees where they learned these concepts. Overwhelmingly the answer was: by trial and error and on my own or from a friend. Rarely did journalists report learning them in journalism school or from their editors.

Many useful books have been written. IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors) for instance, has tried to develop a methodology for how to use public records, read documents, and produce Freedom of Information Act requests.

By and large, however, these informal strategies have not been pulled together into the widely understood discipline that Lippmann and others imagined. There is nothing approaching standard rules of evidence, as in the law, or an agreed-upon method of observation, as in the conduct of scientific experiments.

Nor have older conventions of verification been expanded to match the new forms of journalism. Although journalism may have developed various techniques and conventions for determining facts, it has done less to develop a system for testing the reliability of journalistic interpretation.

---

This guide, like many of the others in API’s Journalism Essentials section, is largely based on the research and teachings of the Committee of Concerned Journalists — a consortium of reporters, editors, producers, publishers, owners and academics that for 10 years facilitated a discussion among thousands of journalists about what they did, how they did it, and why it was important. The author, Walter Dean, was CCJ training director and API Executive Director Tom Rosenstiel formerly co-chaired the committee.

How “Neutral” Reporting is Biased

THE PROGRESSIVE CYNIC

MODERN AMERICAN POLITICS IS FILLED WITH PARTISANSHIP, LEGALIZED CORRUPTION AND EXTREMISM. ON THIS SITE YOU WILL FIND ARTICLES ON A VARIETY OF SUBJECTS AND POINTS OF VIEW THAT ARE NOT NORMALLY PORTRAYED IN THE CORPORATE MEDIA–DON’T EXPECT ANY SUGAR-COATING, PANDERING OR INTEREST MONEY PROPAGANDA HERE.

How “Neutral” Reporting is Biased

BY JSAGER99 OCTOBER 19, 2012 

2012 ELECTION CAMPAIGNS DEMOCRATS MEDIA MITT ROMNEY REPUBLICANS

(c) Josh Sager – August 2012

Many in the American mainstream media currently prize neutrality in their reporting over virtually all other values. The American media’s neutrality in reporting manifests as their giving equal credence, focus and criticism for all sides of an argument, without passing judgment as to the validity of the argument. While acting as the neutral reporter, the media simply reports what the different sides of a debate assert, and does not act as fact-checker; the neutral reporter trusts the different sides of an argument to present factual arguments and acts simply as a debate moderator (asking questions and ensuring that the answers are heard by the audience), rather than a journalist.

When talking about neutral reporting, it is very important to differentiate it from the idea of objective reporting. Unlike with neutral reporting, objective reporting comes from giving no side of an argument an advantage, yet holding all sides to the facts. Any misstatement of the facts or attempt to obfuscate the issues by any side of the argument is challenged by the objective reporter. The ideal media acts as objective reporters, not neutral reporters, and serve as the impartial referees which hold all politicians to the facts—ensuring that citizens are able to rationally determine accountability for their politicians.

While neutrality is sometimes a commendable and beneficial component of an unbiased media outlet, it can easily become a form of bias. In situations where an argument is between a rational individual and an irrational individual—rather than two rational actors—neutrality is heavily biased in favor of the irrational arguer. When the neutral media does not fact-check politicians who attempt to argue using nonsensical or nonfactual arguments, it allows politicians to promote arguments with no real basis in fact.

A non-factual argument, while incorrect, is often far easier to perpetuate than a rational argument; non-factual arguments are based upon fictions which are tailored to support the argument, and reject all opposing evidence. In the absence of fact-checkers, the fictional constructs of non-factual arguments can easily trick the uninformed into supporting policies which cannot work in real life, and have little basis in reality.

A neutral media, like the one in the United States, provides the perfect medium for the propagation of non-factual arguments. By endlessly repeating all sides of an argument, without checking to see if the arguments are based in reality, the neutral media gives credibility to nonsensical arguments. The neutral status of the media creates the public perception that the sides covered by the media are factual and rational. Unfortunately, the credibility given to nonsensical arguments when they are repeated by the mainstream media allows for non-fictional arguments to be mainstreamed in ways which would be impossible with an objective media.

Probably the greatest example of the distortive effect of neutrality can be found in the modern debates over tax cuts. Large segments of the Democratic Party and the entire Republican Party have argued that tax cuts are needed to bolster the failing economy and promote growth; this is a falsehood, and has been used to promote terrible economic policies. It is true that some tax cuts, in some situations, can spur economic growth, but this is not always the case. It is common knowledge among economists that tax cuts are not the economic panacea which they are portrayed as by politicians, but the media continues to perpetuate this falsehood simply because politicians claim it to be true.

Recent Examples of Situations Where Neutrality has become Biased:

• Claiming that Washington gridlock is bipartisan—While Washington is always engaged in argument, the modern Republican Party has acted to obstruct everything within their power; this obstruction is not bipartisan, and is not normal.
• Portraying Obama as a radical liberal—Regardless of what many claim, Obama is not a radical liberal. Obama is a center-right politician who holds many of the same views/supports the policies of the Republican Party of the late 20th century.
• Not debunking Republican “Job Bills”—The Republican Congress has passed numerous tax cuts which they have called jobs bills. Despite this label, studies of these bills have shown that they create no jobsand are “Jobs Bills” in name only.
• Not calling the US drone program extreme—Both parties support the use of drones to kill suspected terrorists, even if the suspects are Americans; this policy is extreme and an abrogation of contemporary due process, yet it is not questioned in the media. Just because both political sides consider targeted assassinations a non-issue, the media fails to point out just how objectively aberrant the policy is.
• Calling global warming controversial—When politicians assert that that global climate change is a controversial theory, the media has consistently refused to point out that global climate change isaccepted scientific fact. A vast majority of scientists (essentially all scientists not employed by extraction companies) agree that global climate change is real and man-made.

If Americans wish to have a functional government which passes fact-based policy, we must demand that our media not only refuse to take sides in their political reporting but also ensure that all politicians base their policies upon factual arguments. Unless our politicians are forced to live within the facts by the media, they will be able to convince the public to support irrational policies. The media is not only the neutral mouthpiece for politicians to sell their policies, but the institution from which accountability is created.

Neutrality between the liar and the truth teller is not actually neutral (not that the sides are usually this clear-cut), but rather a form of bias which threatens to allow the liar to portray their lies as truth. The media in the United States must recognize this crucial distinction and begin to return to its role as the objective referee. Unless the media begins this return to its roots, it will likely become little better than an organization of stenographers, who are merely used to spread non-factual political propaganda.

FAIR

Sep172015

Corporate Press Fails to Trump Bigotry

by Chip Berlet

Depiction of Donald Trump in the LA Times, which described the candidate as “polarizing.” (photo: Robert Gauthier / LAT)

The outlandish rhetoric of Republican presidential wildcard Donald Trump has left many journalists at a loss for words—words such as bigotry, xenophobia, racism, sexism and demagoguery.

Some media outlets raised these issues. Yet many reporters (or perhaps their editors) still seem reluctant to move past the aphasic and simplistic sports-reporting model, in which ideological content analysis is renounced.

An example of a typical article is the piece on Trump’s stump speech by Michael Finnegan and Kurtis Lee in the Los Angeles Times (9/15/15). It is well-written, colorful and even includes the obligatory single sentence from an anti-Trump protester. Yet there is little serious political or historic context.

One line does note that Trump borrowed from “Richard Nixon’s polarizing pledge to stand up for the ‘silent majority’ amid the social upheaval of the 1960s.” Nixon’s speech, however, concerned support for the Vietnam War. A more apt comparison would have been Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” to garner votes from white voters (The Nation, 11/13/12).

Journalists and scholars familiar with the rise of contemporary right-wing populist political parties and social movements in Europe, however, recognize that xenophobic, anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric can lead to acts of violence.

For several years, I have had editors tell me that the contention that right-wing rhetoric can lead to violence is a liberal myth. Right-wing media pundits certainly reject this claim. Yet this is a well-studied chain of events, analyzed by scholars since the rise of fascism in Europe following World War I and the Nazi genocide during World War II. So I wrote a survey of the scholarship as a book chapter titled “Heroes Know Which Villains to Kill: How Coded Rhetoric Incites Scripted Violence.” In it, I summarized the consensus:

The leaders of organized political or social movements sometimes tell their followers that a specific group of “Others” is plotting to destroy civilized society. History tells us that if this message is repeated vividly enough, loudly enough, often enough, and long enough—it is only a matter of time before the bodies from the named scapegoated groups start to turn up.

Freedom of speech is not the issue. A free and open debate is a necessity for democracy. Trump therefore is not legally culpable for any acts of violence against his named scapegoats. Trump should be held accountable on a moral basis by the media for his using the tools of fear, such as demonization and scapegoating, that put real people at risk for attacks.

Photo from a Nation piece on Trump, which noted the “xenophobia at the heart of Trump’s campaign.” (photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

The progressive press has done a better job of pointing out this ugly potential. Writing for TheNation (9/14/15), Julianne Hing argued, “It’s clear that the xenophobia at the core of Trump’s campaign is resonating, and his antics are already echoing beyond the campaign trail into both culture and policy.” Hing quotes Mario Carrillo of the immigrant rights group United We Dream as saying Trump’s “rhetoric is leading to real-life consequences.”

Many instances of physical attacks are chronicled in Hing’s article, although motivation is usually unclear. One pair of attackers did tell police they were directly influenced by Trump’s rhetoric, according to the Associated Press (9/3/15). Trump said he does not condone violence. Nonetheless, immigrant rights activists worry violence will increase.

Adele Stan in the American Prospect (9/9/15) put it boldly:

What Trump is doing, via the media circus of which he has appointed himself ringmaster, is making the articulation of the basest bigotry acceptable in mainstream outlets, amplifying the many oppressive tropes and stereotypes of race and gender that already exist in more than adequate abundance.

The headline for Evan Horowitz’s piece in the Boston Globe (8/19/15) claims “Donald Trump Blazes a European Path in American Politics,” and Horowitz asks, “Does Donald Trump represent the emergence of a new force in American politics, a right-populist movement that could reorganize the American” political spectrum? Missing is the fact that, from President Andrew Jackson in the early 1800s through George Wallace in the 1970s to Pat Buchanan, there have been right-wing populist movements in the United States. It is not a European import.

Part of this confusion over Trump is definitional: Scholars write entire books trying to map out the contours of right-wing political and social movements, especially the line dividing right-wing populism and neofascism. The pre-eminent scholar in this area, University of Georgia’s Cas Mudde, explained in the Washington Post (8/26/15):

The key features of the populist radical right ideology – nativism, authoritarianism, and populism – are not unrelated to mainstream ideologies and mass attitudes. In fact, they are best seen as a radicalization of mainstream values.

For many scholars, right-wing populism is classified as part of the “radical right,” while the term “extreme right” is reserved for insurgent groups seeking to overturn the constitutional order.

In his book Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, Mudde lists as common “extreme right” features nationalism, racism, xenophobia, anti-democracy and the strong state, including a law-and-order approach.

In his Ideology of the Extreme Right, Mudde wrote:

The terms neo-Nazism and to a lesser extent neo-fascism are now used exclusively for parties and groups that explicitly state a desire to restore the Third Reich (in the case of neo-fascism the Italian Social Republic) or quote historical National Socialism (fascism) as their ideological influence.

That’s not Trump. His ideology and rhetoric are much more comparable to the European populist radical right, akin to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front, the Danish People’s Party or Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. All of them use the common radical right rhetoric of nativism, authoritarianism and populism.

Salon‘s headline on Trump: He’s not, actually.

“Donald Trump Is an Actual Fascist” trumpets the headline in Salon (7/25/15) for Conor Lynch’s confused and badly researched article on Trump. Ignoring the current rise of xenophobic neo-fascist groups in Europe, Lynch tells us that “fascism died in the mid-20th century.”

Undermining Salon’s headline, Lynch tells us the “GOP are obviously not fascists, but they share a family resemblance.” The resemblance, according to Lynch, is explained in the famous quote attributed to Italy’s fascist dictator during World War II, Benito Mussolini:

Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.

According to Lynch, this “definition may very well fit the GOP ideology: a kind of corporate fascism.” Alas, the quote is a hoax, widely circulated on the internet butdebunked years ago. Mussolini never wrote or said anything like that, since the fake statement refutes Mussolini’s views on fascism.

More complicated is the detailed and erudite polemic in Truthout (9/15/15) by Henry A. Giroux, expanded from Tikkun (9/9/15). In “Political Frauds and the Ghost of Totalitarianism,” Giroux invokes the theories of world-famous philosopher Hannah Arendt on totalitarianism. He warns that widespread civic illiteracy in the US population is more than the media manufacturing “ignorance on an individual scale”; it is, in fact

producing a nationwide crisis of agency, memory and thinking itself…a kind of ideological sandstorm in which reason gives way to emotion, and a willful limitation on critical thought spreads through the culture as part of a political project that both infantilizes and depoliticizes the general public.

According to Giroux, “Donald Trump is not the singular clown who has injected bizarre and laughable notions into US politics; he is the canary in the mineshaft warning us that totalitarianism relies on mass support and feeds on hate, moral panics” and what Arendt called the “the frenzied lawfulness of ideological certitude.”

Xenophobic cartoon, 1899.

Yet long before the appearance of totalitarianism in the modern era, the United States saw mass movements that used force to subjugate or purge the degraded and demonized “Other.” As a nation, we enforced white Christian nationalism through the genocide of indigenous peoples and the enslavement and mass murder of black people for profit. For many decades, immigrants including those who were Irish, Italian, Polish or Russian were second-class citizens, not considered “white.” Women had few rights and were treated as the property of their fathers, then their husbands. Jews were perpetual outsiders. People with unpopular religious views were shunned and in some instances killed. Chinese were excluded, Japanese were interned in camps. Nativist racism periodically has cut a bloody gash through our body politic, without reliance on totalitarianism.

Trump is not an example of creeping totalitarianism; he is the white man growing hoarse with bigoted canards while riding at the forefront of a new nativist movement. Adele Stan bluntly suggests that to “ask if the rogue Republican’s surge is good for Democrats is the wrong question.” Instead, we need to ask what is wrong with America, “that this racist, misogynist, money-cheating clown should be the frontrunner for the presidential nomination of one of its two major parties?”

Trump feeds the resentment felt by many people who are white, male, straight or Christian who feel displaced by “Others” taking over “their” nation. These people see themselves as the real producers of value in the United States, and consider the disparaged “Others” to be parasites. Thus the 2012 campaign of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was built around the clandestine theme of mobilizing the “makers” against the “takers,” as reported by Eric Schulzke in the Deseret News(9/19/12). This is called “producerism” by scholars, and it is a central element of right-wing populism in the United States.

What fuels this sort of bitter backlash movement now? The late scholar Jean Hardisty of Political Research Associates argued in 1995 that a confluence of several historic factors has assisted the success of the right in the United States:

• a conservative religious revitalization,
• economic contraction and restructuring,
• race resentment and bigotry,
• backlash and social stress, and
• a well-funded network of right-wing organizations.

“Each of these conditions has existed at previous times in US history,” wrote Hardisty:

While they usually overlap to some extent, they also can be seen as distinct, identifiable phenomenon. The lightning speed of the right’s rise can be explained by the simultaneous existence of all five factors. Further, in this period they not only overlap, but reinforce each other. This mutual reinforcement accounts for the exceptional force of the current rightward swing.

Scholars Michael Omi and Howard Winant, in Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s, suggest that this set of circumstances makes many Americans fear the end of the “American Dream.” This backlash is picking up speed. The Republican voter base in the Tea Party long ago shifted its attention away from fiscal restraint toward anti-immigrant xenophobia, banning abortion and pushing gay people back into the closet.

Many scholars of fascism and neofascism now suggest right-wing populism can metamorphosize into these fascistic totalitarian forms, but they recognize that it seldom does–and that fascist movements seldom gain state power. Yet the demonization and scapegoating that accompanies right-wing populism in the United States is breeding a counter-subversion panic targeting immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims, feminists, gay people, liberals and leftists. Planned Parenthood has become a special target to appeal to the Christian Right.

Authoritarian, xenophobic nativism is not a European import in the United States.

While racism is not confined to the American South, a recent study by sociologists Rory McVeigh and David Cunningham, described onBrandeis Now (12/4/14), found that a significant predictor of current Republican voting patterns in the South is the prior existence of a strong chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in the area in the 1960s. McVeigh writes on the London School of Economics website (12/17/14) that although “populist politics appealed to many Southern voters in earlier times, the Southern Democratic Party was also a key instrument in the defense of white privilege and racial oppression.”

The passage of federal Civil Rights Act in 1964 propelled many Democratic Party “Dixiecrats” into the Republican Party, where they now appear at campaign rallies in freebie “gimme hats” touting Monsanto, Koch brothers fertilizers and Coors beer. They choose racial privilege over economic security. That’s What’s the Matter With Kansas. Now this mass base cheers Trump on while he is Mobilizing Resentment–the title of Hardisty’s 1999 book about the rise of right-wing politics in the US.

McVeigh argues that it is shifts in power dynamics and hierarchies in economic, political and social spheres that launch the processes in which radical right-wing groups attract members, and sometimes a mass base large enough to intrude into the larger society. Using as his analytical example the Klan in the 1920s, McVeigh demonstrates that the right-wing KKK in the 1920s was composed of white people attempting to defend their relatively more privileged position in the social, political and economic life of their communities (E-Extreme, 2-3/10).

According to McVeigh, in his book The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan: Right-Wing Movements and National Politics, “the Klan can best be understood as a response to devaluation in the economic, political and status-based ‘purchasing power’ of the movement’s constituents.” McVeigh adds that “right-wing movements often provide individuals with an effective vehicle for preserving status-based interests as well as political and economic interests.”

During the 1920s, millions of Americans joined the Klan, turning it into a major electoral force in several states with an important role in national politics. The tropes of racial threats posed by people of color as rapists and murderers were glued to the American psyche even before decades of stories planted by Klan organizers in their stump speeches for membership, notes Gerald Horne of the University of Houston, whom I interviewed for the Washington Spectator (8/1/15) after Dylann Roof allegedly murdered nine black people in a historic Charleston, South Carolina, church. Roof told a participant in a Bible study: “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country…and you have to go.”

In covering the story, the New York Times (6/22/15) invented a cowardly phrase, “white primacy,” to describe the blatantly white supremacist group, the Council of Conservative Citizens, where Dylann Roof apparently learned this storyline.

On the day of the Republican candidates debate, the New York Times (9/16/15) burnished Trump’s rising star, declaring that Trump was starting to:

conform to some of the demands of a presidential race, making him, in some ways, more of a typical politician. It suggests that, as much as the Republican electorate is becoming more comfortable with the idea of Mr. Trump as its standard-bearer, he is embracing the rituals and expectations of the role, too.

The Trump candidacy and the shooting in Charleston are connected thematically by a mobilization to defend white nationalism while the racial and ethnic face of America changes hue. The populist right and the extreme right fuel each other. The more we as a nation ignore this process of nativist demonization, the more targets will be painted on the backs of our neighbors. History will record how long these right-wing backlash movements will spread their virulent rhetorical venom in our nation. But as Arendt observed, history judges us as individuals as to whether or not we stood up and spoke out against the banality of evil.

---

Chip Berlet has written about bigotry for over 40 years, much of it while an analyst at Political Research Associates. He is co-author with Matthew N. Lyons of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort and has published scholarly articles on the dynamics of right-wing populism, fascism and totalitarianism. Additional resources for this article are at http://www.researchforprogress.us/jump/fair2015.html .