On the masthead of the Washington Post is the slogan "Democracy Dies In Darkness." It's getting dark, and we're not talking about the winter solstice.
From doom and gloom reporting on inflation, to legislative sausage-making, to supply chain problems, to vaccinations, media outlets have taken the cue to cover the Biden Administration as a failure from the Republican political class and their bullhorns in the right-wing propaganda mill. After all, Beltway media are naturally wired for Republican power. What is more pernicious is the tendency of the major media outlets to downplay or ignore altogether the revelations about the coup plotting by Trumpists after the 2020 elections.
From the weak coverage of the coup memo by Trumpist hack "lawyer" John Eastman to the latest revelation of former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows power point presentation that provided "options" for former Vice President Pence to overturn the free and fair election on January 6, the media's instinctive (and cynical) "both siderism" is playing out in the worst way to protect our democratic republic from authoritarianism. From the linked WaPo piece by Margaret Sullivan on the Eastman memo:
"In a normal world, the Eastman memo” 'would be infamous by now, the way 'Access Hollywood' became the popular shorthand in 2016 for the damning recording of Donald Trump’s bragging about groping women.
But it’s a good bet that most people have never even heard of the Eastman memo.
That says something troubling about how blasé the mainstream press has become about the attempted coup in the aftermath of the 2020 election — and how easily a coup could succeed next time." (our emphasis)
She notes that the Beltway media tends to put these Trumpist outrage stories in the "shocked but not surprised" category and move on to other news. It hasn't gotten any better in the past few weeks with the Meadows power point coup presentation either:
"The PowerPoint includes recommendations like declaring a national state of emergency, invalidating all electronic votes, and informing lawmakers of foreign interference. Curiously, the major threat to democracy was nowhere to be found on the front pages of major newspapers around the country.
A quick look at the Newseum’s Freedom Forum archive of daily papers shows a whole lot of local issues mixed in with tributes to the late Bob Dole. Major papers like the New York Times and Washington Post put Dole’s memorial front and center, with below-the-fold articles on the pandemic, foreign policy, and other pressing issues rounding out the rest of the page. A look at many states’ largest newspapers by subscribers appear similar in their covers, though some stand out for the prevalent advertisements and lighter fare. Newspapers have to retain their readers somehow, though a major story like Meadows’ big revelation seems like an awful lot to overlook." (our emphasis)
A lot to overlook indeed, but what you can't see in the darkness won't hurt you, right?
