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| The left's own politics by shorthand is now being turned against it. |
| 2017-02-22 |
| h/t Instapundit Once asked by an aide to respond to a letter to the editor from one of his critics, Vladimir Lenin refused, saying: "Why should we bother to reply to Kautsky? He would reply to us, and we would have to reply to his reply. There’s no end to that. It will be quite enough for us to announce that Kautsky is a traitor to the working class, and everyone will understand everything." That has been the modus operandi of the left for decades. It doesn’t respond to arguments with arguments but with stigmatizing names designed to end debate. As the communications arm of the left, the media conforms perfectly to Lenin’s method. Instead of rebutting the arguments of conservatives, it has found it easier to brand them as "enemies" of science, women, minorities, the poor, and so on. ...But that demagogic shorthand only works as long as Republican politicians defer to it. For years journalists opined self-servingly under the guise of objectivity and got away it because Republicans were too afraid to shatter that illusion of objectivity. They permitted the media to serve as the arbiter of what qualifies as "mainstream," "extremist," "racist," and so forth, and made sure to stay within the media-determined parameters of any discussion. Donald Trump has blown up that absurd arrangement and is beating the media at its own game. He labels reporters in the same way that they label him. He upends their dishonest framing of debates by treating them as what they are, liberal partisans. His exchange last week with April Ryan, a correspondent for the American Urban Radio Network, captured that perfectly. She asked him a loaded question not as a neutral reporter but as a water-carrier for the Congressional Black Caucus. So he treated her that way. "I’ll tell you what, do you want to set up the meeting?" the president said to her, after she asked if he would meet with the CBC. "Do you want to set up the meeting? Are they friends of yours?" Of course, they are friends of hers and she was trying to score a partisan point for them. Had Trump not deconstructed that for the audience, her question might have done him damage. Instead, it fell flat and looked unserious. ...If he treats it as an opposition party, that’s because it is one. The fury of the media is the fury of exposed partisans, for whom ruling had once come so easy and now is too hard. IMO, one area of common blindness is to view the Press, or the bureaucracy, or the academia, as servants of the Democratic Party. They're not. They are the New Class, and Democratic party --- along with major parts of the other party --- are part of the New Class and its loyal servants. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |