Right-wing media and dumdumleft congratulate Trump for populist rhetoric, not policy
Saagar Enjeti steered focus away from Trump’s catastrophic COVID-19 response by asking on the March 18 edition of The Hill’s Rising, to the director of media at the Lincoln Network Marshall Kozlov, “the Right seems to be leading the way in terms of getting more cash into families’ as quickly as possible. More so than democratic leadership, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi, what do you make of that?”
The director of media at the Lincoln Network Marshall Kozlov disputed this, “the real thing everyone should be focused on — before talking about the numbers of the actual bailout is the speed. When is this money gonna come, I see the White House talk about how these checks won’t arrive til the end of April. That won’t actually help people who lost their jobs. We’re seeing across the country — people who work in the service industry particularly impacted by this.”
In the same broadcast, Krystal Ball asked Hill political reporter Jonathan Easley, “what happened with the congressional Democrats passing this paid sick leave bill that had this main corporate loophole for employers with more than 500 employees? I mean it looks laughably pathetic in comparison to what the White House is floating at this point. I recognize that Democrats are offering their own proposals, but what happened there?”
Easley did not push back on Ball’s framing, saying “its a little puzzling that democratic leadership in congress wasn’t prepared to really press these issues.”
The Intercept’s Investigative Reporter Lee Fang wrote in a Twitter post, “Trump suspending mortgage foreclosures, demanding cash payments to Americans, now invoking the Defense Production Act to force private firms to produce needed supplies is incredible. Kind of a shell shock for anyone who reported on any economic policies in the Obama years.”
Rebecca Parson, who is “a small business owner” and running for congress in WA-06, erroneously claimed in response to Lee Fang’s tweet: “Trump is leading from the left. Establishment Dem response is pathetic.”
“Progressive” shouter Jimmy Dore said on March 17 that Tulsi Gabbard is “way ahead on this,” referring to her legislation supporting an emergency UBI. And today Jimmy Dore convened digitally with Election Fraud Guru Tim Canova to discuss how Trump outflanked the democrats from the left on his decision to order HUD to suspend evictions and foreclosures, and for floating UBI.
Thing is, these measures should have been taken a long time ago, and we wouldn’t be dealing with as many infections, if it weren’t for Trump’s most impressionable advisor, Fox News.
Media Matter’s Matt Gertz highlighted in a March 17 article: “as late as Friday, [Fox & Friends’ co-host]Earhardt was suggesting it was a good time for air travel.”
Gertz further noted, if the “Fox Cabinet had taken coronavirus seriously from its earliest days, perhaps they could have gotten Trump to take it seriously as well.”
After reporting on Coronavirus infection numbers in the UK, Gordon Dimmack blamed the media for ‘overhyping’ Coronavirus, this incident was eerily similar to Lou Dobb’s show on March 9.
On March 16, Gordon Dimmack downplayed the Coronavirus pandemic, casting it as the media’s fault, ‘they’ve created a hysteria.’
It leaves me gobsmacked and smoldering with resentment at the hypocritical, tone-deaf choice by contrarians on the Left to lavish praise on the Trump regime for doing the bare minimum to stymie infections sweeping across the globe.
As commentator Kyle Kulinski rightfully pointed out “during a pandemic [Trump’s] totally fine with wiping out large swaths of the Iranian population […] what they’re doing is evil. Really? During a time of global pandemic you can’t say you know what, we’re going to lift the sanctions.”
Just tonight Media Matters’ Researcher Jason Campbell posted a clip of HHS Secretary Alex Azar saying “it’s not the responsibility of the federal government to ensure localities and states have enough swabs and face masks.”
Could you imagine the vitriolic condemnations if the HHS Secretary under Obama made the same mindbogglingly claim? Why are progressive commentators claiming we are “undergoing a political realignment” after Trump flirts with the idea of UBI.
Wouldn’t Kulinski’s time better be devoted to talking about how white supremacist Tucker Carlson imploring Trump at Mara-a-Lago to take the pandemic seriously was finally what spurred the President to action?
And if Kyle knows the Right and Fox News “are vapid careerists and they genuflect to power and partisanship,” why go along with weaponizing their narrative?
E-beggar Niko House likes to posture as if UBI will be the ultimate solution to the Coronavirus pandemic. Its not. And is only a short-term fix, as Ana Kasparian noted.
If you bill yourself as progressive you should consider whether focusing on Trump’s populist left rhetoric is worth exchanging for xenophobia and the collapse of society.
Or the fact, it is suspicious timing for implementing UBI, as food stamps are scrapped.
I certainly don’t trust Trump, and if you’re a believer in populist Left philosophy like me, you shouldn’t either.