The mainstream media’s January demonization of the Covington Catholic boys made the media’s desire to smear President Trump’s supporters clear to even casual political observers. However, the vilification is still happening in far deeper and more subtle ways.
Approximately 1.28 million violent crimes took place in the United States last year, but it seems as though the only time political affiliation was mentioned as an identifier in a headline was when accused perpetrators supported the president.
After the horrific Las Vegas shooting, Newsweek breathlessly ran a story with a headline declaring “Las Vegas Shooter Was a Trump Supporter,” explaining that he was pleased because the stock market was doing well. It didn’t matter that we didn’t — and still don’t — know his motive or if it was political. The media was searching for anything that could link the massacre to the president and those who support him.
When an Iowa man was arrested for voter fraud in 2016, every major headline about the incident included that he was a Trump supporter. Yet, just two days ago in Texas, there was another arrest for voter fraud and the headlines simply describe her as a “woman.” It took a search through multiple articles to confirm her party affiliation. Shocker — she was a Democrat.
Every time a crime is committed, the first thing journalists do is rush to find out if the perpetrator supported the president. If the perpetrator happened to be one of the 63 million people who voted for Trump, you can bet the media will do everything in their power to make it go viral.
It’s no wonder that there have been so many hoax hate crimes reported about attacks by Trump supporters. The media unquestioningly runs these horror stories, makes them go viral, declares that all “red hats” are responsible for whatever fictitious crime — and then rarely bother to retract when it turns out to have been fake.
Let’s look at how crimes by the left are treated. The most recent and glaring example is the case of Charles Landeros — a member of Antifa who was wearing a “smash the patriarchy and chill” shirt when he fired two bullets at a police officer at his child’s middle school in Oregon. After he was fatally shot by an officer (who has been cleared of any wrongdoing), he was described in the headlines as an “armed middle school dad,” a father, or simply — “a man.” His radical political beliefs made their way into almost none of the headlines.
Perhaps the media was right to omit Landeros’ political affiliation, since the incident took place due to a likely-non-political custody battle. But the same standard is never applied to Trump supporters if their misdeeds can be used to spread hostility toward others who share their views.
The media is attempting to create an environment nationwide where “red hats” are looked at with scorn and condemnation so that people are afraid to express their beliefs or stand up for the president. They don’t want the right to be able to have conversations and make the case about why they support Trump. They know that if people have reasonable discussion without fear and hatred they risk the right winning more people over and their party losing again in 2020.
The Covington boys committed no crime and did no wrong, yet the media still pushed a misleading narrative that they were guilty of abuse — simply because they wore red hats. The left is hoping to seep it into America’s subconscious that supporting the president — or wearing a red MAGA hat — is racist.
There is no easy way to diminish media bias or to get members of the media to stop demonizing anyone who dares to be proud of their president. However, Laura Ingraham made a very good point on her program last week. She urged people to continue to wear their MAGA hats, and “when doing so, be sure to show everyone around you what true tolerance, kindness and inclusiveness looks like.”
While this won’t stop the liberal media’s shameful ways, it may just help someone shake off the indoctrination and hate that is being fed to them.
Adam Weiss is the CEO of AMW PR, a New York political strategy and communications firm. His firm has represented Kimberly Guilfoyle, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Corey Lewandowski, David Bossie, Anthony Scaramucci and more.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.