Name: Corporate Media Begin to Acknowledge GOP Coup Attempt - FAIR
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Corporate Media Begin to Acknowledge GOP Coup Attempt - FAIR

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&nbsp;Even though President Donald Trump had telegraphed his intent months in advance to steal the 2020 election, by planning to get judges, state legislators and/or the Electoral College to illegitimately declare him the winner—laying out a pretext by lying about widespread voter fraud—corporate media were slow to accurately convey the reality and significance of Trump’s election theft efforts. I’ve noted twice before (FAIR.org, , ) that corporate media betrayed their journalistic responsibilities by refusing to report, outside the context of opinion columns, that Trump has been attempting a coup, despite all the plain evidence.CNN ()Yet in the past few days, it seems corporate media have decided to report on Trump’s attempts to subvert the election and overturn its results as a fact, not as a matter of opinion. Here are some recent headlines:To be clear, although coverage has improved to more accurately describe what’s going on in the US, the media failure to report the facts much earlier is inexcusable. Considering that corporate media ran op-eds (e.g., The Week, ; USA Today, ), letters to the editor (e.g., Washington Post, ), stating the undeniable fact that Trump has been trying to steal the election months in advance, in addition to on Trump’s in , they cannot credibly feign ignorance.However, while corporate media appear to have stopped downplaying Trump’s election theft efforts for now, they have also run cover for the Republican Party’s complicity in enabling and actively assisting Trump’s efforts, as Trump cannot steal the election on his own.New York Times ()The New York Times report “Who’s Going to Tell Him? Republicans Shy From Asking Trump to Concede” () employed the language one would use to describe family members unsure how to confront an embarrassing relative, rather than a major political party enabling election theft with its silence. The lackadaisical report described how neither major factions of the Republican Party—Trump’s “most ardent followers” who defend him “at all costs,” or the “tenuous, strained alliance with the rest, who share his agenda but often cringe privately at his language and tactics”—are “particularly well suited for the chore of trying to persuade Mr. Trump” to “step aside,” or to “stop spreading claims about the integrity of the nation’s elections that are contrary to considerable evidence.”At other times, corporate media articles like Axios’ “The Electoral College Play” () reported on the Republican Party’s coup attempt as if it were a mere competitive sports strategy:As the weaknesses of President Trump’s legal cases to overturn Joe Biden’s win become clearer, Republicans are talking more about the Electoral College — hinting at an extreme last-chance way for Trump to cling to power.What we’re watching: In this long-shot scenario, Trump and his team could try to block secretaries of state in contested states from certifying results. That could allow legislatures in those states to try to appoint new electors who favor Trump over Biden.When Trump’s “most ardent followers” like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated in a press conference that “there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration” in response to a question about whether the State Department is preparing to coordinate with an incoming Biden administration, corporate media didn’t report on Pompeo’s shocking remarks as if he was an accomplice to an attempt to overturn a democratic election:And when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of the highest-ranking Republican officials, stated that Trump is entitled to launch , corporate media didn’t spell out the full significance of his statements—which amount to an insistence that elected officials have a right to resist being voted out of office:Why shouldn’t corporate media highlight McConnell and the rest of the Republican Party’s complicity in enabling Trump’s subversion, running headlines like “Republicans Support Trump’s Attempt to Subvert Election,” or “McConnell Endorses Trump’s Attempt to Overturn Election Results,” instead of functioning as stenographers? One possible explanation for this obfuscation is that corporate media seek to prop up the legitimacy of the Republican/Democrat duopoly in US electoral politics (which disenfranchises that threaten both major parties’ ), by maintaining the illusion of the Republican Party as a legitimate and normal political party.It’s not just leftist political commentators like Noam Chomsky (Salon, ) who characterize the Republican Party as a “radical insurgency” with views “off the spectrum of not only international opinion, but even relative sanity.” Even establishment political commentators like Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein from the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution (Washington Post, ) have claimed years ago that the Republican Party is “the core of the problem” for why Washington politics is so “dysfunctional”:The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise;; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.Thankfully, although one can still find infuriatingly passive headlines like the Times’ “Republicans in Congress Stay Largely in Line Behind Trump” (), corporate media have recently begun to move in the direction of condemning the Republican Party’s enabling of Trump’s coup attempt, or at least highlighting their complicity:While some may argue that the media refusal to describe Trump’s ongoing coup attempt as such is an insignificant semantic squabble because it to happen at the moment, particularly now that the Trump administration has President-Elect Joe Biden’s right to plan for a transition, it’s a mistake to think it won’t have any meaningful consequences simply because it won’t succeed.Journalist David Sirota (Guardian, ) pointed out that Trump and the Republican Party’s efforts are designed as much to “generate headlines as they are to win rulings and initiate prosecutions,” in order to convince public opinion that there is significant electoral fraud.Vox ()Vox founder Ezra Klein () pointed out that Trump is trying to create somethingakin to an autocracy-in-exile, an alternative America in which he is the rightful leader, and he — and the public he claims to represent — has been robbed of power by corrupt elites.This coup attempt, he writes,has made clear that would-be autocrats have a path to power in the United States, and if they can walk far enough down that path, an entire political party will support them, and protect them.A Morning Consult/Politico () found that 70% of Republicans don’t believe that the 2020 election was free and fair, which is a stark increase from the 35% of Republicans who believed so before the election. If enough Republicans are convinced that their electoral defeats can only be explained by Democrats cheating, this could potentially incite massive reactionary violence, led by an determined to at any cost (Washington Post, ). This is why it’s important for media to forcefully report and denounce these coup attempts in real-time.&nbsp;&nbsp;FAIR’s work is sustained by our generous contributors, who allow us to remain independent. today to be a part of this important mission.You can also support FAIR on Patreon! Click the button below!Right on! The president has been acting treasonously by actively subverting constitutional law. The republican elected officials have been complicit in this. I am so heartened by the present aRTICLE AND WISH THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA WOULD ACT LIKEWISE. thEY, TOO, ARE COMPLICIT IN NOT CALLING tRUMP OUT FOR WHAT HE IS – A DICTATOR TRYING IN WHATEVER SCANDALOUS MODE TO SUBVERT THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE. hE OUGHT TO BE IN JAIL!I was so happy to see this article because it is correct that this very real attempt for a coup has not been addressed as a serious threat … and time is running out. Fortunately, The View did also discuss this on TV a day or so ago, so maybe people will start to wake up and demand action while there is still time.Absolutely on target. Makes you wonder whose side corporate media is on.Great article. It’s about time journalism in general demonstrate courage and report on the obvious and to not play to the distortions that have suckered them and diluted the integrity of media institutions for at least 4 years.Yet another brilliant article, Joshua. Keep up the great work!The corporate media usually treat these elections like some kind of sports competition rather than as the CRUCIAL CONTESTS they truly are to see whether the USA is going to be seriously engaged in solving catastrophic global warming and other environmental horrors, and poverty and financial ruination for hundreds of millions of people worldwide before/during/after this Covid pandemic, and other direly pressing issues.Or whether it will just be “business as usual” cont’d by the duopoly of power-mad GOP henchmen and their corporatist DLC Democrat cronies from the Bill Clinton era onward.It is a challenge to assimulate all of the recent events especially now with a 6-3 SCOTUS majority.We have had so much tension and sighs of relief only to be followed with yet more tension.It wasn’t such a big deal when all Hannity and Carlson had to talk about was Bangazi or Hilary’s Emails but now they are pushing for a total rebuke of democracy and the formula from the Totalitarian playbook is to claim they are defending democracy and fighting fraud.It is not working but then again it is. Trump is the totalitarian the Republicans have dreamed of.Will Biden bring back some shred of common decency or will the rift only get stronger? I think that he is not stiring the pot but the pot will keep stirring with the power coming from the extreem right.There needs to be a clear break from the extreem right. Toomey would not be able to say what he is saying if he wanted to run again. That is the grip that the far right has on the party.This story is fine, but it strikes me as a “dog bites man” account, and sometimes it is worth acknowledging the irony of the moment. Yeah, the Republican Party is in contempt of rules, laws and facts that threaten its perch, and yes the media was slow to get to calling 45’s enablers out for defending a legal right to delay and deny and make baseless claims.But why not reference the four-year, full-bore media barrage of Russia, Russia, Russia that was just as baseless, but was done with zeal and aplomb, and questioned the legitimacy of an elected leader? What 45 and his supporters are doing is most likely payback for what the Democrats with total media collusion did for four years.From the “media as lap dog” perspective, this conduct is totally consistent. By 11/20/20, a significant portion of the Republican establishment had called for Trump to concede. This created enough legitimate controversy to provide cover for the mainstream media report on this topic. But, notice they also continued to cover the events in terms sympathetic to Trump. This way, if Trump succeeded in his coup, they would still be allowed to exist under his regime. And, if he failed, they could maintain that they fulfilled their constitutional responsibilities by exposing Trump’s attempt to overthrow America’s democracy. Spineless – yes – but consistent.JohnO: “but if you believe that his campaign’s attempts to find dirt on Hilary amounts to proof that Russia interfered in the election… ”_____________________________________________________________WTF else is it then, ya moron? When foreign agents try to meet up with a campaign to give them dirt on a political opponent it is NOT JUST SOME FUCKING COINCIDENCE.I am aware that Trump supporters are finding alternative forms of media that confirm their worldviews. Those alternative media are now a national security risk. They should be shut down with FARA or with the same dirty tricks Roger Stone espoused.The next step is to end Trumpism once and for all. Facebook and Twitter should be obliged to force Trump supporters to read articles saying it’s a lie. Parler is probably a big FARA violation. I don’t know about MeWe but it needs to be brought to heel too.Then it’s time to bring that 70% figure down. If people try to get cute and use proxies around the de-Trumpification, Visa/Mastercard don’t have to serve the cult. Telecom and ISP companies don’t have to serve the cult. Private water, electricyt, and tility companies don’t have to either. They don’t have to obey the First Amendment.Brilliant observations.What a shame that all of them are simply common sense.The spoiled rotten consumer who has been given so much choice now has truth in whatever flavor they want. Gluten free, wild raspberry swirl, double stuffed, as long as there’s a taste for it, there’s someone willing to supply it for a fee.Fox started selling new Truth recently, with defections of actual news people like Shep Smith who could no longer stomach the hypocrisy and lies spun by the opinion hosts of his former network. There isn’t alternate truth. There’s only facts, and opinions but today opinions are being sold as facts.But CNN is also guilty of this. Don Lemon will offer his opinions as facts quite often. The network will publish headlines of people just expressing opinion as if those opinions are facts.We need an actual news source that doesn’t weigh in on the facts with editorialized takes. A fact network. Maybe that’s Reuters. It certainly isn’t the New York Times anymore. But a network that doesn’t lean towards any agenda other than relaying facts that no one can call fake would be a novel thing.Of course that would mean not declaring someone a racist or sexist as that is a subjective thing. Some people actually think Abraham Lincoln was too racist and wanted his statues removed from public places. If the man who freed the slaves wasn’t woke enough in 1865, no one is good enough for these imbeciles.We need to decipher what is subjective opinion and what is objective fact. Period. There shouldn’t be Facts Plus, or Facts Max, or Facts with add ons and premium packages. There should only be facts, separated from opinion channels.Jesus H. Kansas, you call THAT impartial, objective reporting?And I’m not even a Trump fan.When did FAIR become a partisan propaganda organ for the Democratic party?Color me disappointed and disgusted.You just blew your credibility with me.Another fear mongering article by Josh Cho. When Trump leaves the White House, will Josh Cho publish an apology article for his stoking the flames of fear? Will he be a coward and not publish an apology?Tim: We can find people on your side that are worse. How about the Hodgekinson (Democrat) who actually shot (not planned) representatives. Omar Mateen? I don’t hold your side accountable for those, but I guess that only goes one way.______________________________________________________________Yeah, it only goes one way because– and try to follow me here– the President is out there riling up these cultist dipshits to take action. Nobody on the Dem side of the aisle was exhorting any of their supporters to take any kinda terrorist action.Yesterday, one of Trump’s legal team called for the death of the cybersecurity pro who dared contradict Trump about the integrity of the election. Seb Gorka called for Dr. Fauci’s head to be put on a pike. Your side can’t spew that kinda shit and reasonably argue it’s on par with anything any prominent Dem has said since like the Civil War.And, again, if you don’t like my tone or think I have nothing but hate and vitriol, you’re free to fuck off and not engage with me. By the way: still waiting for you to produce anything I ever said labelling Trump as committing treason.Dave here,until fox news jumps off trumps band wagon there will be no CHANGE!!You got that ass-backwards.Dear traitor,Clearly, evidence that can be dismissed as long as a lawyer can argue like Lucifer is not then an Real evidence to what is going on.You know reporters like this are probably Asian secret Service And/or are for communist Party in the US and people just think it’s truth cause he reported it. BwahahahaWhat a crock of bull poop. When I can see with my own eyes Videos revealing the truth…I can only believe this reporter is a spie.FAIR’s 4-page, ad-free, newsletter publishes ten times a year bringing you the media analysis and activism that you won’t find anywhere else. Choose a print subscription, a digital PDF edition, or both together.FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. We expose neglected news stories and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, we believe that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information.Fairness &amp; Accuracy In Reporting124 W. 30th Street, Suite 201New York, NY 10001Tel: 212-633-6700We rely on your support to keep running. Please consider donating.This work is licensed under a License.

&nbsp;Even though President Donald Trump had telegraphed his intent months in advance to steal the 2020 election, by planning to get judges, state legislators and/or the Electoral College to illegitimately declare him the winner—laying out a pretext by lying about widespread voter fraud—corporate media were slow to accurately convey the reality and significance of Trump’s election theft efforts. I’ve noted twice before (FAIR.org, , ) that corporate media betrayed their journalistic responsibilities by refusing to report, outside the context of opinion columns, that Trump has been attempting...

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Joshua Cho is a writer based in Virginia.

Joshua Cho

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, holding corporate media accountable for distortions & omissions since 1986. http://mastodon.world/@FAIR

Corporate Media Begin to Acknowledge GOP Coup Attempt - FAIR

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