Steering the Story

When I was a eleven or twelve, my brother and I spent a summer at our grandparents' house in Iowa.  Grandma was a skilled card player and we played many card games while there.  Grandma also had a magic trick.  You would select a card and place it in the deck and she would then ask you to select suits until you had only your suit left.  Then she would ask you to select card ranges until it finally narrowed down to YOUR CARD!  However, after a couple of times through, it became clear that she was really the one selecting.

Grandma: "Pick two suits."

Me: "Spades and diamonds."

Grandma: "That leaves you with Hearts and Clubs.  Pick one of those."

Me: "Clubs."

Grandma: "Among the clubs, pick face cards or numbers."

Me: "Face cards."

Grandma: "That leaves you with numbers.  Pick high or low numbers."

As you can see, Grandma either eliminated my selection or stuck with it, depending on what my card was.  She always steered me to my card.  The mainstream media does something similar.

BLM firebombs a police station in Minneapolis.

Media: Mostly peaceful protest

Tea Party protests tax and spend policies

Media: Intolerant racists hate black president

BLM blocks off part of Seattle and declares it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ)

Media: Mostly peaceful protest.  Look! Someone has started farming!

Truckers protest mask & vaccine mandates in Canada by driving to Ottawa and honking horns

Media: Nazis!  Fascists!  Danger to democracy!

Antifa tosses firebombs in both Berkley and Portland, deface buildings, break windows

Media: Antifa are activists and protesters who oppose Trump's fascist agenda

Parents attending school board meetings demand removal of Critical Race Theory curriculum

Media: Domestic terrorists threaten teachers

After a while, it becomes clear that the media describes violent rioters who lean left as mostly peaceful and generally justified in their actions, though perhaps a bit overenthusiastic.  However, non-violent protesters who lean right are domestic terrorists and insurrectionists.  These wrongheaded radicals need to feel the full force of the law and be denounced at every opportunity.  The media selects the adjectives and positive or negative coverage based more on the politics of the 'protesters' rather than the actions.

Electoral Shenanigans

Thad Cochran, Senator from Mississippi, recently won a runoff election against Chris McDaniel, a Tea Party challenger.  Of interest, he only won thanks to the votes of black democrats who took part in the Republican primary.  This is one reason I think open primaries are silly since it allows the other party to potentially choose its competitor.  However, those are the rules and it can bite both ways.  So far, so good.  But now it turns out that the Republicans were behind this.  Former Governor Hailey Barbour's nephew was involved in getting black Democrats to vote against McDaniel by selling the idea that the Tea Party candidate would bring back segregation.  Really?

Looking at the numbers, the Tea Party candidate got more Republican votes than Thad did.  It was Democrat voters who gave Thad the win.  That is not good for the party.  Thad will not get those Democrats to vote for him in the November election and these shenanigans may have convinced many Republicans to sit out the election.  Republicans and Democrats will join forces to defeat Tea Party candidates.  Why?

 

Of course, both parties have already said that the Tea Party is "far right-wing" and "racist."  For the uninformed, that is enough.  In fact, the Tea Party generally has 3 goals: Constitutional restoration, responsible budgeting, and economic freedom.  Our government has long since breached the limits of the Constitution but has recently become tyrannical.  The government needs to shrink back to the specified limits of the Constitution.  Next, the overspending has gotten out of hand and the huge deficits spell doom if not reined in.  Lastly, there must be a return to economic freedom.  There has been entirely too much regulation and corporatism (aka crony capitalism) in recent years.  The government should not be deciding which businesses prosper and which don't.  Entrenched politicians of both parties dislike these goals since it inevitably strips them of power.  Few willingly surrender power; doing so is what made George Washington so great.

 

http://www.teapartypatriots.org/ourvision/