The Establishment Media Has Gaslit America for Four Years
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The Establishment Media Has Gaslit America for Four Years

Never has gaslighting gone so far, for so long, with such high stakes. Over the last four years, the establishment media has propped Biden up, pushed Biden out, and now it seeks to ram Kamala Harris in. There is a reason why Americans no longer trust the establishment media. A year ago, Gallup found that just under one-third (32 percent) of Americans had a “great deal” to “a fair amount” of trust that the “mass media” reports “the news in a full, fair and accurate way.” That matched “Gallup’s lowest historical reading, previously recorded in 2016.” At the time, “29% of U.S. adults [had] ‘not very much’ trust, while a record-high 39% register ‘none at all.’” By roughly two-to-one, Americans distrust the establishment media. (READ MORE: Despite the Harris Candidacy, I’m Actually Optimistic) In 2023, Pew had similar findings. The percentage of Americans who “said they followed the news all or most of the time” fell from 51 percent in 2016 to just 38 percent in 2022. U.S. daily newspaper circulation had fallen from roughly 60 million in 2000 to approximately 21 million by 2023. The last two months have assuredly lowered these statistics still further. Mainstream Media Refuses to Connect the Dots For four years, the establishment media sought to seal away the Biden-Harris administration’s glaring failures until the seepage could no longer be stopped. The administration’s shameful rush from Afghanistan was but the first of many foreign policy failures. Emboldened by the administration’s weaknesses, America’s enemies lined up to take advantage. (READ MORE: The Sacred Duty of Skepticism) China has not been this belligerent since the days of Mao decades ago. Russia invaded Ukraine, launching the first all-out war in Europe since WWII. North Korea is brazenly partnering with Russia more and more. The administration’s attempt to buy off Iran by giving it access to billions of dollars utterly failed; with it, Iran unleashed its proxies: Houthi rebels, Hamas, and Hezbollah. In our own hemisphere, Venezuela’s dictator unabashedly stole an election. In all these cases, the establishment media have ignored these failures’ connections to this administration’s actions. The same refusal to connect the dots is occurring with inflation. Despite soaring with the Biden-Harris administration’s spending, the establishment media treated rising prices as though they were an act of God. The establishment media have merely reported macroeconomic indicators, while Americans nationwide have suffered the Biden-Harris economy’s inflationary fallout. With illegal immigration, the establishment media ignored the southern border, begrudgingly covering it only when the consequences appeared outside studio windows in New York and Los Angeles. Even then, it refused to identify it as the Biden-Harris administration’s political sop to its radical Left. On crime, the establishment media continue to try to tell Americans things are getting better. This is at a time when Americans are increasingly retreating into their homes and have simply ceased reporting many crimes. Shielding the President From View Of course, there was the ultimate hiding of Biden himself. The establishment media, which reports and follows the president daily, somehow missed — or, in reality, refused to report — his failings for almost four years. Then, four months before the election, it turned on a dime and “dropped a dime” on the president literally overnight — that night being the night of his debate with Trump. Not satisfied to reveal Biden, it helped lead the charge to drive him from office. The establishment media’s treatment of Kamala Harris has been equally egregiously biased. Trying to follow the administration’s lead, it sought to ignore her. Still, her vice presidency’s problems kept getting out. After the regicide of Biden was accomplished, the media needed a new candidate for coronation. Once it was clear it had to be Harris, the establishment media forgot that it had been intentionally forgetting about Kamala. Suddenly, what once was the bad penny is the new one. (READ MORE: Trump and the Kennedys for Tax Cuts, Kamala Not) The establishment media now portrays Harris as joyful and inexplicably a candidate for change. Yet what has changed the most about Harris, namely her positions on fracking and illegal immigration, are reported as though there was nothing to them. The establishment media has been gaslighting America for four years. In each instance, it’s told America the opposite of truth to sell the opposite of reality. Each time it adds a spin to make Americans think they were obtuse for seeing the obvious. On foreign policy, the media would have us believe that America is now respected and liked. On the economy, it wants Americans to forget inflation’s effects and focus on macro statistics. On illegal immigration, it would have Americans take Kamala Harris’ disingenuous, politically expedient about-face at face value, ignoring four years of deliberate border failure and its resulting scourge: fentanyl, violence, terrorists, and heinous crimes. Above all, there was four years’ worth of insistence that Biden was great — until he wasn’t — and that Kamala Harris, who hadn’t been, suddenly is. Then it topped this by ignoring Harris’ avoidance of serious engagement with even the establishment media: This at a time when Americans must evaluate in short order a candidate who has never run in a single presidential contest over two elections. Throughout this administration, the establishment media has told America, “You are wrong, we are right, let us take care of you, everything will be okay.”  The instances go on and on, but always only one way: to the left. The establishment media is no longer reporting the news but distorting the news and gaslighting America in the process. J.T. Young was a professional staffer in the House and Senate from 1987-2000, served in the Department of Treasury and Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2004, and was director of government relations for a Fortune 20 company from 2004-2023. The post The Establishment Media Has Gaslit America for Four Years appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.