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17 September 2024

The Media As Stenographers for the Ruling Class

Rod Dreher

To most observers, even on the political Right, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that Donald Trump lost the debate with Kamala Harris. Trump was unfocused, blustery, and unprepared, leaving many golden opportunities to go after the vice president unexploited. This was entirely Trump’s fault, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. His debate loss is mostly his fault.

Mostly. It is also true, however, that Trump was put at a disadvantage by the ABC News moderators, who repeatedly intervened to “fact-check” Trump’s statements, but let Harris pass unharassed. Moreover, their questions were sometimes bad jokes. For example, race is a major issue in American politics and culture, and Kamala Harris, who is black, has joined just about every major far-left racialist cause. In 2020, she even promoted a fund to bail out leftists jailed in Minneapolis for race rioting. The Biden-Harris administration has gone all-in on the increasingly unpopular DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) campaigns.

Of the many substantive and important questions that could have been posed about race, what did David Muir of ABC News put to Trump? He asked Trump why he questioned whether or not Harris is black. This put Trump on the defensive for his dumb remark, and Trump failed to turn the trivial but hostile question around to discuss serious racial conflicts in American life. Nevertheless, this was but one example of how media bias distorts and deforms the campaign process.

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