By: Ken Willette – April, 2019
The old slogan for Fox News—Fair and Balanced—was always a mirage. I could care less. Where else can I track the positive benchmarks of the Trump economy, learn about the real human toll associated with illegal immigration and witness the rebirth of a muscular US foreign policy that protects our allies and keeps our enemies up at night.
But now more than ever the battle lines have been drawn over our entire system of capitalism, the genius of private property rights and free enterprise and the rule of constitutional law. The core belief structures that transformed this nation into the greatest political, economic and military power on earth are being attacked on a daily basis. Even worse are the far-left backgrounds of some of the commentators, who have proudly paraded long-dismissed theories on communism and voiced approval to outlandish conspiracies.
These radical voices are dominating MSNBC, CNBC and CNN, which still play the smoke and mirror games of pretending to be impartial and honest. Sadly, most news sources on television peddle rumors as breaking news (former CIA Director John Brennan’s unverified comments), showcase celebrity gossip as truth (Jussie Smollett’s MAGA hoax accusations) and promote innuendo over cold-hard facts (the refuted conclusions reached in the Steele dossier).
Thousands of segment hours are focused on the non-existent Russian collusion, the perceived hate of mainstream conservatives and the unproven damage being done to our constitutional republic by Trump and his minions.
Please don’t confuse my arguments in this column that we must always separate biased coverage from fact-based coverage, because we can both spotlight an important topic and portray it with facts and statistics. But look very closely as to what is being catapulted on the vast majority of our nation’s airwaves:– socialism; open borders and unbridled immigration; the imminent death spiral of our planet; and ways to demonize opposite views.
If we really look across the ocean of television, is it any wonder that 90% of media coverage has been documented as negative to Trump? On MSNBC, we have Rachel Maddow and also Chris Hayes, who has deep roots with The Nation magazine. Over the decades, The Nation has eagerly promoted articles glorifying Marxism. Do we really need any additional historical evidence on the empty and deadly promises of Marxism?
Respected worldwide academics have determined that the total deaths under communist regimes could range between 80 and 100 million due to execution, genocide, false imprisonment and famine. But should we really trust the commentary of Chris Hayes, who sees the world through Marxist lenses? Personally, I love my freedom too much to experiment once again with either a socialist or communist system.
Then we switch the channel to CNN and cringe at their new slogan—“Facts First,” which is very ironic since they give nightly airtime to Van Jones, who had to resign from the Obama White House in disgrace. Van Jones is an especially controversial commentator with a checkered history. He freely admitted that he directly participated in two riots. He described himself as a Marxist revolutionary. And diving straight into the conspiratorial cesspool, he signed onto a petition calling for an investigation into whether 9-11 was an inside job! But this guy is front and center every night, as a voice of reason on CNN. Notice a disturbing pattern here?
Even the occasional GOP voices on these other networks are often hollow conservatives. Take, for example, Ana Navarro. She vehemently hates Trump, based on her campaign history with Jeb Bush, and attacks him at every opportunity, regardless of the topic. She even filed her nails one time as a visual stunt, when a guest talked passionately about MS-13 gangs, the personal losses of angel families and the heinous crimes committed by some illegal aliens against US citizens, including law enforcement. Should we listen to someone who has such disdain and disrespect on the issue of illegal immigration and assert she is conservative? No, that conservative train left the station years ago for the likes of Ana Navarro. Trump consistently has an approval rating of between 80% and 90% amongst identified GOP voters, but you would be hard pressed to locate any pro-Trump commentators on CNN, MSNBC and CNBC. Please tell me how that is not being done on purpose?
Could we, with a straight face, really believe that ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, part of Bill Clinton’s administration, was impartial to Hillary during the 2016 campaign? Can we really say that CNBC is not far left when that network provides regular airtime to liberal economist, Paul Krugman, who has repeatedly made erroneous predictions about the Trump economic record since November 2016?
In Krugman’s case, he said that the stock market would collapse under Trump. It has only skyrocketed. Liberal economists have stated that the unemployment rate could not go lower, that manufacturing jobs would never return to our shores, that wages could not increase and that the GDP could not reach 3%. They have all been proven wrong, but the greater shame is that these liberals are betting against the US economy. CNBC, MSNBC and CNN are giving them an audience. Are they secretly praying for the economy to tank to finally prove their predictions?
Thankfully, many Americans still perceive socialism and communism as harmful to our freedoms. Most Americans still assert that the economy is strong. And most Americans are not in favor of open borders. Fox News remains a steadfast conservative harbor against the unrelenting barrage of frenzied speech on today’s news channels. Now, more than ever! ◊