The partisans at the PBS News Hour have skipped over the scandal of Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones sending texts in 2022 wishing to murder a Republican opponent and his small children, since he was “breeding little fascists.”
After almost two weeks of silence, they finally spent a piece of a minute on Jones in a story on Thursday…as a side note to promoting a Politico story on Republican non-candidates saying awful things. The segment carried the online headline: “Young Republicans’ hateful group chat sparks bipartisan condemnation.” The texts are worth condemning. The question is whether they matter on the same level as a statewide candidate for a law-enforcement office.
New York-based Politico reporter Emily Ngo, who also appeared on CNN and MSNBC – like she hit a liberal-media triple – touted the power of their report in ruining careers:
EMILY NGO: The fallout has been vast. The story and our reporting has reverberated widely across the nation. By our most recent count, we have eight of the 12 members of this chat that as you said is just filled with racist epithets and gay slurs and references to violence are out of their jobs so.
PBS and their guests didn't feel this way about people losing their jobs over awful things said after Charlie Kirk's murder. Ngo dismissed the Jones angle as part of a “permission structure” for bigoted Republicans:
GEOFF BENNETT: Some Republicans have condemned these messages outright. Others are trying to shift the focus, citing the leaked text from the Virginia Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones, who appeared to threaten a Republican lawmaker. How are GOP leaders for the most part framing this moment?
NGO: So it varies, of course, but we see now — and it's to be expected in this political climate — a lot of congressional Democrats and New York Democrats, including Governor Kathy Hochul, who are seizing on this and capitalizing on this to use against their Republican rivals, including those who immediately condemned these text messages.
But with this latest set of remarks from Vice President J.D. Vance, I find that I'm asking now whether there is a sort of permission structure being established slowly and steadily to allow some of these Republican leaders to excuse this behavior or at least — at the very least question why Democrats aren't condemning similar violent language from their camp, but particularly from Jones, as you say, in Virginia.
Bennett quickly returned to the “juicy” part, the massive bigotry among Republicans: "Based on your reporting and the conversations you have had connected to this investigative piece, to what extent has the current Trump era normalized or even emboldened the racist, homophobic, sexist language and attitudes among some young conservatives?"
Ngo replied: “These are jokes, dark humor, sort of a casual kind of cruelty that were repeated over and over again in a pattern. And we put them in the context of what's happening now in the political climate, where people are at each other's throats, where, in social media, on podcasts, including very, very widely listened to, watched podcasts, and very popular hosts, this language is being echoed, it's being exemplified. They're not getting this from nowhere. And sort of it's been OK in some stratospheres, when it really shouldn't be.”
As if Jay Jones doesn't show "dark humor" and "casual cruelty" among Democrats?
