The other day, the Richmond Times-Dispatch ran an article entitled, Meet the 8 Republicans (and counting) who want to unseat Sen. Tim Kaine. So yes, the Richmond Times-Dispatch allowed us to “meet” those eight Republicans, but only in the sense that the newspaper article provided readers with: a) how those Republicans plan to (falsely) attack Sen. Kaine, including some of their attack lines (presented by the RTD verbatim, without any fact checks); b) very cursory, anodyne, whitewashed biographies of these candidates, with ZERO mention of their far-right-extremist positions on just about every issue or the many bats***- crazy things they’ve said; c) information on how much money they’ve raised; and d) what the “horse race” might look like. In other words, this is the exact OPPOSITE of the type of journalism our democracy needs, and also the exact OPPOSITE of what brilliant NYU journalism professor/media critic Jay Rosen says the political media SHOULD be doing, which is:
“Not the odds, but the stakes. That’s my shortand for the organizing principle we most need from journalists covering the 2024 election. Not who has what chances of winning, but the consequences for our democracy. Not the odds, but the stakes.”
Unfortunately, it appears that the political media – in this case, the Richmond Times-Dispatch – is unwilling/unable to change, or simply unaware/uncaring that it even has a problem. Which means the public will continue to be misinformed, badly, just as they were in 2016 with the relentless “BUT HER EMAILS!” bullshit, or in 2021 with the creation of a completely fake Glenn Youngkin character, one that was supposedly just a “moderate,” “non-Trumpy,” “normie Republican” and “suburban basketball dad.” Lessons learned by the political media from THOSE debacles? Based on the aforementioned RTD article and other examples too numerous to mention, it appears that they – sadly – have learned literally NOTHING.
Anyway, with that intro, just imagine how (if at all) the “mainstream media” would cover the following, unhinged interview the other day with Scott Parkinson, one of those Republican candidates vying to take on Sen. Tim Kaine. See below for audio and highlights, along with a few annotations noting the wild lies, lunacy, etc. Enjoy? LOL
- “Well, you know, I gotta tell you, brother, this is one of those situations here where I think that people on the right, people that are Trump supporters, have been watching Donald Trump over the last several months, close the gap in the head to head polling against Joe Biden. Trump has positioned himself as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. And there’s a lot of people that look at the political timing of the latest indictment here on August 1st, as something that is not just coincidental, as it pertains to Devon Archer’s testimony behind closed doors to Congress related to the Hunter Biden bribes, and Joe Biden’s involvement with those business dealings. It’s not just a coincidence that the polling has narrowed, and that the timing of the indictment comes out right now.” (Pretty much every word of this is false – obviously the charges against Trump have to do with the MANY SERIOUS CRIMES Trump committed, not some supposed narrowing of the Biden vs. Trump polls – do you see anything like that here? Also, the lunacy regarding Devon Archer is just bizarre, given that Archer’s testimony did NOT back Republican claims, but instead “Archer said he was not aware of any wrongdoing by Joe Biden, he didn’t witness the Bidens discussing Hunter’s business, and that he’s not aware that any foreign policy was changed to benefit Hunter Biden — which goes against claims that Republicans have long made about the Bidens.” So again pretty much every word Parkinson says is just completely wrong.)
- “We know that January 6th is certainly a stain on American history. But that being said, when you think about why so many Americans were marching toward the Capitol, and what their frustration ultimately boiled down to, was whether or not we had free and fair elections. After 2016, Hillary Clinton began The Resistance, right? You had all sorts of people saying that there was Russian interference as to whether Donald Trump was duly elected President of the United States. And in 2020, we had a similar reaction with the boomerang, on the other side, with many Republicans not trusting the reforms that states took when it came to unconstitutional actions from many governors in blue states where they changed election laws, and ran up the score with early voting, mail voting, dropboxes. Things that most voters were unfamiliar with. And that just sort of breeded this new uncertainty around the trust and integrity in our electoral system.” (Again, WTF is Parkinson talking about? Really, he should have just stopped with “January 6th is certainly a stain on American history,” and certainly NOT started his next sentence with the word “but,” then proceeding to somewhat justify the motivations of the insurrectionists. As for Hillary Clinton, right wingers are obviously obsessed with her for every unhealthy reasons, but no, she didn’t start “The Resistance.” Also, it’s 100% certain that Russ interfered in the 2016 election – according to a bipartisan U.S. Senate investigation, “Russia conducted a sophisticated and aggressive campaign to influence the U.S. election to help Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton and that folks on Team Trump were more than happy to accept help from the Russians.” As for early voting and dropboxes being “unconstitutional” or somehow “[running] up the score,” just…nope on all counts. In fact, early voting is even being pushed by Glenn Youngkin now; is Parkinson accusing him of acting unconstitutionally?)
- ” There’s one thing to keep in mind here. There’s very, very serious allegations from President Trump and his role that actually could lead to the death penalty. And if you think about how outrageous that is, I could never imagine the United States of America being a place where we put to death a loser of an election, based off of these weaponized and political decisions being made by US Special Counsel Jack Smith. We’ve looked at Smith’s history, we’ve looked at the activities of his family in relation to supporting Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and others. We know that the Democrat Party is playing for keeps. And for far too long, the Republicans have sort of said, hey, you know, let’s let the process play out here. We don’t know exactly what happened.” (Where to even start here? First of all, let’s just repeat the fact that Trump is accused of – and almost certainly committeed – many VERY serious crimes, up to and including attempting to overthrow our country’s constitution, democacy, rule of law, 2020 election, etc. Second, it’s highly doubtful Trump will get the death penalty, but if he ever were to receive that penalty (again, that’s extremely unlikely), it wouldn’t be because he lost an election or because any of the charges against Trump are “weaponized” or “political,” but because, again, Trump is accused of – and almost certainly committed – MANY SERIOUS CRIMES. But hey, who cares about that, right? Ugh. As for Jack Smith’s wife, what on earth does she have to do with any of this? The fact is, Jack Smith is the special counsel, and he’s “registered to vote in the U.S. as a political independent.”)
So…yeah, that’s just ONE of the far-right, conspiracy-minded candidates running to take on the superb Sen. Tim Kaine in 2024 (another one is Hung Cao, who you can read about here and here). Can you even imagine this guy as your U.S. Senator? And can you even imagine the “mainstream” political media – the WaPo, RTD, etc. – informing its readers clearly and directly that what this guy has to say is false and unhinged? Nope and nope.
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