Network news strives to report both sides, but this disguises the truth about Trump | Opinion
The presidential election is down to the wire. Regardless of who wins, I have concerns about how this campaign season played out and how to learn from it. The first centers on a new phenomenon in my lifetime with so many Republican stalwarts and independents endorsing Kamala Harris and stretching her metaphorical tent significantly beyond anything I’ve experienced as a former Republican officeholder.
Perhaps an historian can find a moment in our history where so many of the opposite party have abandoned their home and crossed the aisle to the opposition, but it does appear as though a record has been broken. In this case, of course, the opposition is a Trump-promised fascism that would have the effect of rewriting the United States Constitution, especially with a compliant Supreme Court majority in Trump’s grips awaiting its next opportunity to install Trump’s dictatorship.
The Cheneys are certainly at the top of the list of stalwart Republicans who have announced their support for Harris/Walz. It’s an impressive array of former officeholders and strategists, some of whom served in the Trump administration and now warn the nation of just how dangerous Trump is to the future of our democracy. The messages of Trump’s former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, and his former Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, are powerful warnings about a second Trump reign.
A sign of Harris’ gravitas in building Republican support for her candidacy is her promise to create a bipartisan policy council she would use as a sounding board for her presidency. She has also committed to a Republican serving in her cabinet, which is not that unusual.
Although it may be pollyannish to wish for such a thing, it is my fervent hope that if Harris is elected, she stays in the middle as she has campaigned and resists liberal Democrats who will encourage her to rule from the left. She cannot walk off with the spoils of office without understanding that, first and foremost, Trump may lose, but MAGA thinking will still be with us.
Harris could forge a new consensus among those who have joined her campaign effort from unlikely places on the political spectrum. This deeply divided nation needs new strategies and leadership on how to bring Americans together regardless of party affiliation, united in support of public policies that transcend the politics Trump has dumped on this nation.
What if she doesn’t win? Even more reason for this unlikely assemblage of Democrats, Republicans and independents to stick together and offer a loyal opposition challenging a dangerous Trump Administration. Call it a reconfigured Democratic Party with a larger tent or simply an association of patriots who put aside what has defined them in the past as they move to the center and create a loyal opposition that can win at the polls and frustrate the efforts of Trump and his fellow fascists in Congress. If not that, then perhaps a third party with its sights on Congressional races with MAGA incumbents.
Conservative Liz Cheney showed how folks can adjust their positions on the issues when she recently acknowledged her long pro-life voting record, but then acknowledged rigid state laws against abortion that endanger women’s lives. A small space for opposites to agree.
After watching hours of network evening news during this campaign, I have another concern, this one regarding The Fourth Estate, the term often used to describe the media, often recognized for its “explicit capacity of advocacy and implicit ability to frame political issues.
I watch Lester Holt read the evening news on NBC, and I find coverage sadly lacking in the network’s “capacity of advocacy and its ability to frame political issues” especially when one candidate and his party has made no secret of a fascination and advocacy of fascist government. From various online news sources and social media that few Americans have the time nor inclination to see, I have read and seen reports of the vulgar, crude and threatening statements Trump has made at his MAGA rallies, pledging to wipe out dissenting opinions and even attacking public servants working for the Federal Emergency Management Administration in North Carolina. Over the last year, such record-shattering language received minimal coverage on the evening news, certainly not in the stark terms Trump uses at his rallies.
One of Trump’s latest attacks is calling former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Congressman Adam Schiff, who is running for the U.S. Senate, “the enemy within.” Even when the media acknowledges such attacks, seldom if ever does it address how this endangers those who Trump attacks so viciously. How does a public official like Congressman Schiff or Congresswoman Pelosi ever walk the streets again without wondering who from Trump mania will attack? And that leads to an equally troubling question, “who in the hell wants to run for public office when those who disagree with Trump are singled out as enemies of the people?
You can ask Pelosi’s battered husband about that? He took a serious beating for his wife who was vilified by Trump.
Over the last year, NBC evening news missed opportunities to showcase Trump for the danger he presents to the Republic. For most of this campaign, we did not see adequate coverage of Trump’s worst behavior on 30 minutes of network evening news. The New York Times also fell short and was widely criticized for not reporting Trump’s most outrageous lies and distortions as though it was singing from an old hymnal when checks on the truth and facts were guardrails that candidates and parties respected.
When the networks do report on Trump’s threats to lock up his opponents, they search for a Trump critique of Harris as though the two candidates were equal in their dedication to the rule of law. But here’s the difference. When Trump threatens to use the military to crack down on his opponents, you cannot find any equivalent critique coming from Harris, but the media is sucked into his clever ploy.
According to the Pew Research Center, 65% of U.S. adults still view network newscasts over the course of a month, according to Nielsen data from February 2013. This is a big deal for a substantial number of voting adults who simple don’t have the time nor the inclination to hunt down online reports on Trump unconscionable behavior. For many viewers, that 30-minute network newscast may be all the news they consume. And then comes the onslaught of campaign commercials, many of which in this most recent campaign season have descended into a make-believe abyss without regard for the facts or the truth.
In these final weeks before the election, the networks have spent more time on Trump’s worst moments that question whether he even has the mental ability to serve as president of the United States. But it’s too little too late. For many months as voters were solidifying their choice for president, the networks played the equivalency game. Notwithstanding last-minute attempts to expose Trump for the danger he is, the networks are late to the game. The race is up for grabs and the “equivalency” networks deserve part of the blame.
Network news must search for a new protocol governing how they report threats to our democracy and threats that endanger the lives of Americans. They must counter early and often the designs of a most clever fascist who knows exactly how to play the news machines. The irony here is that Trump has threatened the press regularly, calling it the enemy of the people. As he attacks the press and belittles journalists, the networks bend over backwards to report both sides, as if there is equivalency in Trump’s attack on our constitutional system of government and its rule of law.