Democrats always seem to be the heroes in the copy of so-called “mainstream” media outlets. Republicans often emerge as the villains, squashing everything noble and good. The Left is typically described as the reformers somehow lacking an ideology.
Take a March 15 story leading the National section of The New York Times. The headline was “For Voting Rights Advocates, a ‘Once in a Generation Moment’ Looms: Opposition to restrictive Republican voting laws — and support for a sweeping Democratic bill — fuels a movement like none in decades. But can it succeed?”
The Left is described as “voting rights advocates” having their “moment” – because Democrats are in control of everything. Democrats have a “sweeping” proposal to fight those “restrictive” Republicans.
You can witness more of this careening tilt in the opening paragraph by supposedly objective reporters Nicholas Fandos and Michael Wines:
State and national voting-rights advocates are waging the most consequential political struggle over access to the ballot since the civil rights era, a fight increasingly focused on a far-reaching federal overhaul of election rules in a last-ditch bid to offset a wave of voting restrictions sweeping Republican-controlled state legislatures.
So Republicans are pushing “restrictions” that can be slimed as curtailing “access to the ballot” like “the civil rights era” (ahem, “racist”). Then the reporters laud the Democrat bill as a “landmark national expansion of voting rights.” Democrats often propose “landmark” legislation. That’s part of how The New York Times and other outlets less-than-subtly advertise for the Democrats.
Out of 35 paragraphs in this story, the vast majority describe how “advocacy groups” with names like Progress Arizona and Black Voters Matter are lobbying for the bill. Joe Biden’s got to have his “Lyndon B. Johnson moment,” they say. (Republicans, again tagged as voter-repressing bigots.)
Only one paragraph features a Republican argument against H.R. 1, that it’s a “cynical attempt by the left to put their thumb on the scales of democracy and engineer our laws to help them win elections.”
That quote came with a warning paragraph telling you not to believe the GOP: “Republicans are still inflamed by Mr. Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and the party’s unified message that voting restrictions, many of which fall most heavily on minorities and Democratic-leaning voters, are needed to prevent fraud, which studies have repeatedly shown to barely exist.”
The word “controversial” is not applied by these scribes to H.R. 1. There are no polls cited to see where the voters land. For example, a recent survey by the Polling Company found 77 percent of respondents agree voters should be required to show a photo ID when they vote. A McLaughlin and Associates poll found 81 percent support. H.R. 1 scraps that.
The McLaughlin poll also found 85 percent support for requiring signature verification for any mail-in voting. H.R. 1 would insure states could not enforce any witness signature or notarization requirement for mail-in voters.
The Times vaguely mentions “the Republican voting agenda that included curbs on mail-in and early voting and stiffer voter ID requirements.” They favor “curbs” and “stiffer” restrictions, not ballot-integrity measures.
This Times story doesn’t really explain what’s in this 800-page bill. But it passes along the Democrat flatulence that “the rollback of voting rights” is “an existential threat to the democracy on which all other liberal causes, from gun control to health care, depend.” So is this a “rollback” of voting rights? Or just the Left’s agenda?
“Repressive voting bills” are supported by the majority of voters, but liberal journalists really don’t care what the polls say. Journalism and liberalism are inevitably linked.
