I subscribe to Boehlert’s Press Run commentaries because he provides some of the best insights around into the failure of the press to do its job. Given that the Republican National Convention is about to start and it’s going to be a spectacle of extended propaganda, Boehlert’s offerings are going to be needed more than ever.
The GOP is handing a blank check to Donald Trump for the next four years. Via Charlie Pierce:
On Sunday, the country was in receipt of the final proof that the Republican National Convention, due to kick off tonight from various bunkers, hideouts, and undisclosed locations here and around the globe, is going to be a profound test of whether or not the American republic has been rendered a vapid puppet show by the malignant moment through which it is now passing—a moment which is, in itself, the product of four decades of malignant moments that we all were asked to tolerate and applaud. Meeting in Charlotte, the RNC’s platform committee announced that, this year, there will be no party platform, per se. Instead, the convention will be dedicated to acts of fealty to El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago. It is giving him his own private North Korea.
WHEREAS, The RNC, had the Platform Committee been able to convene in 2020, would have undoubtedly unanimously agreed to reassert the Party’s strong support for President Donald Trump and his Administration;
WHEREAS, The media has outrageously misrepresented the implications of the RNC not adopting a new platform in 2020 and continues to engage in misleading advocacy for the failed policies of the Obama-Biden Administration, rather than providing the public with unbiased reporting of facts; and
WHEREAS, The RNC enthusiastically supports President Trump and continues to reject the policy positions of the Obama-Biden Administration, as well as those espoused by the Democratic National Committee today; therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda;
RESOLVED, That the 2020 Republican National Convention will adjourn without adopting a new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention;
RESOLVED, That the 2020 Republican National Convention calls on the media to engage in accurate and unbiased reporting, especially as it relates to the strong support of the RNC for President Trump and his Administration; and
RESOLVED, That any motion to amend the 2016 Platform or to adopt a new platform, including any motion to suspend the procedures that will allow doing so, will be ruled out of order.
The reference to the Joe Isuzu character in the photo up top is because of the difference between him and Donald Trump. Every time Isuzu lied in a commercial, there’d either be a disclaimer appearing on screen, or some giveaway in the commercial. Trump has been lying for years and the media does nothing while he and the rest of the GOP repeat the same lies and debunked claims time after time. They won’t even use the word “lie”.
The resolution quoted above explicitly shows the GOP’s attitude towards the press — and the media has refused to push back against it. What Boehlert has to say today is more damning than ever:
If Biden lied like Trump, he wouldn't be allowed on TV
Normalizing GOP convention
The media's four-year campaign to normalize Trump's radical behavior will hit a dispiriting pinnacle this week when the incumbent appears on primetime television and delivers a nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Aired by the cable news outlets as well as the major networks, the Trump speech will carry with it all the trappings of official, mainstream American politics.
Trump though, will likely lie nonstop about an array of pressing topics, including a pandemic that has claimed the lives of 180,000 Americans and crippled the U.S. economy. The four-day event, where Trump is scheduled to speak every night, will be a bastion of lies, conspiracy theories, and disinformation, on a scale never before seen in the history of U.S. political conventions. And television news will gladly deliver it, without question.
We know the lying will be ceaseless because untruths define Trump's presidency. He uses the avalanche of falsehoods not just for partisan political gain, but to chip away at our democracy — to undermine the country's faith in shared facts. Given that precedent, does television news bear some responsibility for helping Trump spread dangerous lies about a raging public health crisis, by granting him a primetime platform four nights running?
"It is a genuine dilemma," Mark Lukasiewicz tells me. He's the Dean of the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication at Hofstra University and served as Senior Vice President of Specials at NBC News. "News networks should not knowingly propagate lies and disinformation."
I'd wager that if Democratic nominee Joe Biden lied the way Trump does — without pause, and without apology — he wouldn't be allowed on TV. Because television news would never normalize a Democratic madman.
emphasis added
Read the whole thing, and sign up for Press Run. There are several subscription options, including limited free access if you want to try before you buy. We cannot rely on mainstream media to do its job anymore. Boehlert nails it with this:
Republicans under Trump have rigged the system and they know it, which is why there is no hesitation to lie. The Beltway media have chronicled 20,000 Trump lies since taking office, yet won’t even call Trump a "liar" in its news pages.
Specifically, the GOP knows it has rigged the convention game because the mainstream media, so terrified of "liberal media bias" calls, don’t have the nerve to turn off Trump — to unplug his primetime platform. The GOP knows the press will present the Democratic and Republicans conventions as similar events, just taking place on different sides of the political spectrum. The GOP knows the press won't lean into the mountain of lies and radical rhetoric this week, because it's in the media's best interest to portray Republicans as mainstream players. That way the press can present a safe, Both Sides look at the unfolding fall campaign.
emphasis added
There’s recognition that Democrats need to win by a landslide to make it harder for the GOP to claim the election was rigged even as the GOP does its best to do the rigging. If that wasn't bad enough, Democrats have to do it in a media playing field tilted against them.
If the major networks had any smarts (or journalistic integrity), they’d run convention coverage on a taped delay and add disclaimers across the bottom of the screen every time a lie was trotted out. (It shouldn’t be that hard — the GOP uses the same ones over and over.) The talking heads will be presenting a ‘balanced’ set of anodyne comments and horse-race coverage instead of critical analysis. No one would survive a drinking game that involved a drink for every lie.
Someone should do a video mashup of Joe Isuzu and Trump comparing outrageous lies and the media failure.. (Lincoln Project anyone?) Late night TV hosts are going to have field day this week. What does it say that we can only deal with this stuff by pretending it’s comedy? Tom Tomorrow is getting overwhelmed by it all.
In case you never saw a Joe Isuzu commercial — they mostly ran in the 1980s — here’s a couple of samples.
Does this sound like Trump promising a miracle cure for the pandemic — and talking about how wonderful he is?
Remind you of the way Trump will throw anyone under the bus (or the SUV) while he shovels out BS? How he makes shameless use of his family?
Give Joe Isuzu credit — at least he didn’t resort to nasty personal attacks, childish insults, or racism to sell cars — and the commercials made sure to let us know it was all exaggeration. Pity the media can’t take something important like choosing who will run the country with the same regard for the truth. Isuzu exited the U.S. because of lack of demand for their products. Let’s hope the GOP meets a similar fate.