If the mainstream media were hoping to learn from the mistakes of 2016, there were plenty of lessons for them to revisit. Unfortunately, the elites that pontificated on network news channels and in Washington Post thinkpieces had zero interest in understanding why they got Trump’s election so wrong. To do that, they would have needed both self-awareness and humility. Because they lack both, nothing improved. In fact, things have only gotten worse.
Four years of hair-on-fire reporting about Trump’s tweets, a Russian hoax, two impeachments and dozens of ‘anonymous’ sources later, the activists in journalists’ clothing finally got their way. Joe Biden, the basement candidate, was elected president. The press didn’t care that the 78-year-old lover of ice cream hadn’t been right on a single foreign policy decision over the past four decades (just ask Robert Gates). They didn’t mind that Joe barely took their questions or that he often didn’t know which state he was in at any given moment, geographical or mental.
While Candidate Biden — with his history of hair-sniffing and gaffe-making — was never an easy sell, President Biden is proving to be even harder. With each passing day it becomes tougher for Joe’s cheerleaders to defend his deadly Afghanistan withdrawal, or his ‘righteous’ (and also deadly) follow-up drone strike, or his southern border crisis, or his ‘unexpectedly’ dismal jobs reports.
It should come as no surprise that some Americans are slipping out of their Trump Derangement-induced hazes. Much to the chagrin of Brian Stelter and Jennifer Rubin, people aren’t buying the Ministry of Truth’s approved storylines as wholeheartedly as they did just a few months ago.
Last week, rapper Nicki Minaj decided to tell her fans on Twitter that she was not attending the Met Gala in New York City because she has not been vaccinated. She even explained why. But the most interesting part of the story wasn’t Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s testicles — it was the media’s reaction to her tweets.
MSNBC’s Joy Reid condescendingly expressed her ‘disappointment’ in Minaj during one of her nightly monologues. Minaj, like most people, does not appreciate being talked down to — and so the superstar came back swinging. She brought up Reid’s old homophobic blog posts and her tweet from last September where Reid said she could not trust the vaccine (because of Trump, of course). Minaj also retweeted a video in which Fox News’s Tucker Carlson defended her position.
In the video, Carlson said, ‘It’s the last part of Nicki Minaj’s tweet that enrages them, the part where she says you should pray on it, make the decision yourself like a free human being and “don’t be bullied”. So our media and public health officials didn’t like this because they make their livings bullying people.’ Minaj responded with a bullseye emoji.
Blue-check Twitter’s Hasan Piker replied to the rapper, ‘You know he’s a white nationalist right?’
What happened next is my favorite part of the entire ordeal. You see, there was a glitch in the woke system. In Woke World, Piker’s shaming tactic should be effective. Thanks to political correctness, pushed by Big Tech, limousine liberals and trust-fund social-justice warriors, a radical progressive must only yell (or tweet) ‘racist’ and their opponent usually backs down and/or apologizes for whatever grave offense they have committed.
But it didn’t work. Instead, Minaj responded, ‘Right. I can’t speak to, agree with, even look at someone from a particular political party. Ppl aren’t human any more. If you’re black & a Democrat tells u to shove marbles up ur ass, you simply have to. If another party tells u to look out for that bus, stand there & get hit.’
Despite the graphic imagery, I found her response oddly poetic. Minaj was saying something that I’m sure many high-profile celebrities had thought, but few have had the guts to say.
The rapper may be misinformed about her cousin’s friend’s reaction to the vaccine. But that isn’t the point.
As the Daily Wire’s Jeremy Boreing wrote, ‘Nicki Minaj is thinking for herself, and she is wrong about the vaccine. The right to think for yourself IS the right to be wrong. Being wrong is part of freedom. Being wrong can be an important part of the journey toward discovering truth. Nicki Minaj is on that journey.’
People are fed up with being told they don’t have the right to think for themselves, that they no longer have the right to be wrong. It is especially infuriating when the people who are censoring ‘wrong’ opinions are the same ones who spend most days issuing ‘corrections’ and ‘updates’ and retractions to their bogus — I mean ‘evolving’ — stories.
Another moment this week that hints the pendulum is swinging came courtesy of Bill Maher. The comedian appeared on Democratic spokesperson Jimmy Kimmel’s ABC show. Kimmel, who recently joked that the Floridians who died of COVID-19 since the beginning of the summer had left behind ‘orphaned ferrets’, asked Maher whether he thinks our country can unite despite politics. Making ghoulish jabs at dead people and brainstorming on how to restore unity all in a few days’ work — what can’t Kimmel do?
Maher suggested people should try to talk less about politics: ‘It’s a big country with people who don’t think like you no matter what side you’re on and you’re not going to convince them. Just accept it.’
His advice was met with head-nodding and awkward laughter from Kimmel, who can’t even get through his nightly monologue without referencing Donald Trump (who has been out of office for eight months).
Later, Maher talked about how the liberal media ‘scared the shit’ out of people over COVID-19. It was hilarious watching him explain this issue to Kimmel — who clearly thinks the media has done a bang-up job in their handling of this pandemic. Jimmy should know — after all he is one of the panic pushers!
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a late-night comedian, a cable-news anchor or a New York Times or Washington Post journalist. If you occupy the elite media echo chamber, you prefer giving lessons to taking them. The knuckle-headed refusal to learn from past mistakes or change behavior is why all of the above are failing in such spectacular fashion.
