Christiane Amanpour welcomed CNN colleague and senior political analyst John Avlon onto her Monday show that is aired in the U.S. on PBS to discuss President Joe Biden’s latest speeches. In Avlon’s world, Biden is fighting the dark forces of “white supremacy” and “Christian nationalism.” Ironically, he also believes that it is important for journalists to be more activist as currently there “is an assault on truth.”
On Biden’s speech at Mother Emanuel Church, Avlon first recounted the church’s history, “I think, a relatively renewal of an old idea that we've debated in the United States, often with violence, unfortunately, which is the resistance that exists to a multiracial democracy that characterized the run up to the Civil War, certainly, but especially reconstruction and the violence around overturning Jim Crow.”
That was surely a reference to the 2015 mass shooting by a white supremacist, but Avlon continued and sought to smear great numbers of people, “we see it in more benign and politicized forms to this day. And I think that's what Joe Biden -- President Biden was speaking to. In many ways, it's a companion to a speech at Valley Forge just a few days ago, kicking off his campaign where he said this is about defending democracy. I think this puts a finer point on it.”
Avlon added, “One of the great obstacles to the fulfillment of democracy's ideal in the United States is white supremacy, is white nationalism, is, in some cases, Christian nationalism when it is combined with a racial animus as we've seen too many times. And sometimes you've got to listen carefully to hear those strains. But if you know your history, if you're willing to confront it clearly, then all becomes more evident.”
Since he was devoid of examples, it appears Avlon was just throwing around buzz words to scare people. People can agree that white supremacists who conduct mass shootings at black churches are evil people, but by going on about “benign” forms of the same ideology, Avlon seeks to tie people who are not white supremacists to the shooter.
Avlon’s partisan ramblings are noteworthy not just because they are partisan ramblings, but because he insists that his fellow journalists must echo him, as he later claimed, “We have a fundamental responsibility. And I think it's a civic responsibility that connects journalists, but also citizens. There is an assault on truth that has been going on for several years.”
What about the idea that white supremacy is prominently found in “benign” forms? No, Avlon simply meant Donald Trump, “It is fomented and crystallized often by Donald Trump's lies, and they need to be called that, but they're amplified via social media, which amplifies often the most conspiracy theorist version of events, the most confrontational version of events, amplifies people who played the base.”
Further lamenting the media has lost its gatekeeping abilities, Avlon proclaimed:
You know, I think the days of gatekeepers and Walter Cronkite saying ‘that's the way it is’ are long gone, but that's exactly why I think we need to strengthen guardrails around our democracy, guardrails around democratic norms. We need to call out lies for what they are as we simultaneously recognize that Trump and the drift towards hyper-partisan media and maybe a fragmentation via social media has been successful in selling outright lies to people who are susceptible to that kind of confirmation bias.
It would be one thing if Avlon had history of good fact-checking, getting his facts correct while going after both sides, but he doesn’t. He goes after one side, often getting his facts wrong.
Here is a transcript for the January 8 show:
PBS Amanpour and Company
1/8/2024
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And I was interested that Biden couched the beginning of his speech as a fight for democracy. What did you make of the speech? And then we'll ask about, you know, the impact of going to South Carolina.
JOHN AVLON: Well, Mother Emanuel Church is less than a mile from my parents' house in Charleston. And so, it's an area I know well. And it has really become a sacred civic space because of the massacre that occurred there, and what a reckoning that was.
It was in -- I think, a relatively renewal of an old idea that we've debated in the United States, often with violence, unfortunately, which is the resistance that exists to a multiracial democracy that characterized the run up to the Civil War, certainly, but especially reconstruction and the violence around overturning Jim Crow.
And we saw it at Mother Emanuel that day, and we see it in more benign and politicized forms to this day. And I think that's what Joe Biden -- President Biden was speaking to. In many ways, it's a companion to a speech at Valley Forge just a few days ago, kicking off his campaign where he said this is about defending democracy. I think this puts a finer point on it.
One of the great obstacles to the fulfillment of democracy's ideal in the United States is white supremacy, is white nationalism, is, in some cases, Christian nationalism when it is combined with a racial animus as we've seen too many times. And sometimes you've got to listen carefully to hear those strains. But if you know your history, if you're willing to confront it clearly, then all becomes more evident.
…
AVLON: We have a fundamental responsibility. And I think it's a civic responsibility that connects journalists, but also citizens. There is an assault on truth that has been going on for several years. It is fomented and crystallized often by Donald Trump's lies, and they need to be called that, but they're amplified via social media, which amplifies often the most conspiracy theorist version of events, the most confrontational version of events, amplifies people who played the base.
And I think that's something that we're still getting our hands on around. You know, I think the days of gatekeepers and Walter Cronkite saying “that's the way it is” are long gone, but that's exactly why I think we need to strengthen guardrails around our democracy, guardrails around democratic norms.
We need to call out lies for what they are as we simultaneously recognize that Trump and the drift towards hyper-partisan media and maybe a fragmentation via social media has been successful in selling outright lies to people who are susceptible to that kind of confirmation bias.
