Join me if you will for a thought experiment. In the list below, in place of “Fox News,” I’m going to use “NBC News.” While you read the bullet points, think of all the Republicans and conservatives currently defending Fox News over Donald Trump, and ask yourself one simple question: If NBC News was equally guilty of these exact same sins, would these exact same people would be siding with NBC?
– Just two days before a crucially important Republican presidential primary debate, NBC News released the following statement taunting the GOP frontrunner:
We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.
– NBC News Vice President Bill Sammon has a daughter working for the Marco Rubio campaign.
– NBC News is directly aligned with an open borders organization, a clear conflict of interest with one of the primary policy proposals being forwarded by the GOP frontrunner.
– NBC News is caught seeding the debate questioners with a Muslim advocate who “describes Donald Trump as a bigot and who visually portrayed him as being in agreement with national socialist Adolf Hitler.”
– NBC News seeds the debate with a question from an illegal immigrant.
Fox News is guilty of every taunt, insult, conflict-of-interest, and sandbag listed above. And everyone knows that if this was NBC News instead of Fox News that everyone on the political right — including Fox News — would right now be blasting NBC News.
Where is the integrity?
Where is the intellectual and moral consistency?
Where is the credibility?
There are three reasons this is happening.
1) Establishment Lost Souls
Like poor John McCain, many in the Republican Establishment are just too insulated and removed from the average voter to see how wrong this is. These are lost souls who have sold out to K Street’s failed status quo and have lost touch and any sense of empathy with Main Street. Their head has been in the DC trough for so long, they have forgotten how to lift their heads to see how the rest of us are doing.
2) The Lucrative Business of the Fox News Gravy Train
Many on the Right are defending Fox News for their own mercenary purposes. Fox News puts them on the talking head payroll, gives them exposure, sells their books, promotes their radio shows, and allows them to feel like they are part of an Exclusive Green Room Club.
The promise of the warm bath of Belonging is how many news outlets, not just Fox, convince conservatives to sell out their own.
Too many on our side can be bought. After all…
Cronies gunna crony.
3) Pure Politics
Although what Fox News is guilty of is objectively indefensible, some on the Right are simply using Trump’s withdrawal from the debate to their own political advantage. To hell with principle, anything that hurts Trump is okay with them.
Politics is a rough game. This sin is the most forgivable.
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On top of a long overdue challenge to a DC Media Cabal that has become entirely too powerful, Trump has done us another favor by exposing many on our own side for who they really are.