Following the failed assassination of former (and future) President Donald Trump, the state media is now calling on everyone else to “lower the temperature” of political rhetoric. That’s rich. This comes after years of Democrats and leftists baselessly comparing President Trump to history’s greatest monsters and allowing partisans to declare Trump and his supporters an “existential threat to democracy,” all with no pushback or challenge by the state media.
There is a simple way to test the sincerity of the haughty media types suddenly parroting this newfound “lower the temperature” mantra: Are corporate media willing to commit to stopping the unprecedented, unsupported, and abusive lawfare against President Trump and his supporters by calling out those who make the most vile, hateful, and vitriolic attacks against Trump and the Make America Great Again movement? Are they willing to plead guilty to their role in the temperature-raising and pledge to do their part to now lower it?
Lower Temps by Ending Lawfare
First and foremost, if the left wants to “lower the temperature,” then they should call out the unprecedented manner in which Biden has chosen to try to be reelected: by vanquishing his political rival — not at the ballot box, but in the courthouse.
An honest “media” interested in “lowering the temperature” would demand Biden order the dismissal of all federal charges against Trump. That includes the infuriatingly biased charges of “mishandling” classified documents. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden clearly have more culpability than Trump on that score, but only Trump faces a government jihad.
If the media want to lower the temperature? Collectively, they should demand that Biden tell his Democratic acolytes in New York and Atlanta to call off the dogs in those Soviet-style proceedings. Even former New York Gov. and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has said that the novel legal theory used to convict Trump of a felony over a recordkeeping violation would never have been brought “If his name was not Donald Trump and if he wasn’t running for president.”
The case against Trump in Atlanta has already been waylaid by serious charges of prosecutorial corruption and is premised on an illegally recorded phone call. Want to lower the temperature? The media should be shouting questions at the White House mouthpiece-in-chief about Biden’s culpability in these grossly inappropriate prosecutions. If the media would do that, the temperature would start to come down, because it would help create some sense of accountability for Democrats that has not, to date, been seen.
Cut the Lawfare Against Trump Supporters
And where is the media outrage against the abuse of the legal system being deployed against Trump attorneys? Anyone who sincerely wants political unity and peaceful elections must insist that state bar associations, including the D.C. Bar, immediately cease proceedings against Trump lawyers. This would include reinstating Trump lawyer John Eastman, who has been disbarred for the crime of giving Trump accurate advice on constitutional principles. Dear Lowering the Temperature Media: Where are you on this one?
State media could also pressure Biden to call on the Democrat state attorneys general in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin to dismiss criminal charges against Trump electors. Democrat officeholders have brought these spurious charges in a clear effort to curry favor with Biden. Where are the media investigations to learn the extent to which these outrageous criminal charges against ordinary Americans were coordinated with the White House? Have we somehow missed those investigative reports?
It’s notable that Ketanji Brown Jackson, a leftist Supreme Court justice appointed by Biden, signed onto a high court ruling concluding that Biden’s Justice Department twisted an obscure bit of financial legislation to charge hundreds of Jan. 6, 2021, rioters with felonies rather than misdemeanors. A commitment to deescalating the “temperature” would mean Biden should commute and pardon the J6 prisoners his DOJ railroaded and create a compensation board to pay damages to these unfairly prosecuted American citizens.
Try Some Tough Coverage of the Left
Temperature-lowering would entail tough, critical coverage of those who have spent years using terms such as “dictator,” “evil,” “Hitler,” “threat to democracy,” “bullseye,” “taking him out,” “put him in jail,” “punch him in the face,” “real martyr,” “he must be stopped,” “dangerous MAGA Republicans,” “convicted felon,” “insurrectionist,” and similar terms about President Trump and his supporters. Will the media push back against those who employ such rhetoric?
It would also, necessarily, mean the media holding itself to account. The New Republic’s latest issue depicts Trump as Hitler on the cover. Even The New York Times edition the morning after the assassination attempt totally lacked restraint. Where is the media outrage about those publications?
How about this for a possible intensive media review: What should be the consequences if a national leader publicly says to put his opponent (by name) in a “bullseye”? Is that grounds for impeachment if some guy takes him up on it?
That seems worse than saying: “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Yet those words gave rise to impeachment and criminal charges against Trump. Where is the media frenzy over those “bullseye” words from Biden after the rifle shots in Pennsylvania on Saturday night?
The current president has gotten a free pass to engage in dangerous and shockingly inappropriate language about and actions against his political opponent, whom he has routinely described as a “threat” to America. Biden has done this although Trump’s previous term as president was marked by more prosperity and global peace than Biden’s tenure.
To the extent there was domestic unrest under Trump, it was leftist shock troops trying to destabilize his reelection by burning down cities. Biden’s handpicked Vice President Kamala Harris personally encouraged that rioting and violence. To calm our current political storm, the Biden campaign’s main message cannot be allowed to remain incredibly vitriolic and hateful.
‘Every Conceivable Measure’
While this extreme rhetoric coming from the left is now rightfully being discussed in terms of how it may have inspired an assassination attempt on Trump, it’s also worth examining how this extreme and dehumanizing language has been used to unfairly justify terrible things other than violence.
Last year, The Washington Post published an article from the once-respectable scholar Donald Kagan that urged Trump opponents to take “every conceivable measure” to stop Trump from getting elected again. Total weaponization of the legal system against Trump seems exactly the kind of thing Kagan was urging. Where do we go to find the media scrum attacking that as “raising the temperature” inappropriately?
Corporate media have allowed and encouraged Biden’s attacks on MAGA Republicans as he called them “dangerous” and a threat to the country. Shame on all of those who have participated in that defamation of patriotic, America-loving citizens. We all watched them on Saturday night: They helped one another, they staunched bleeding heads of perfect strangers, they didn’t stampede. Did these people look dangerous to you?
Every elitist “journalist” in America owes them an apology and should look to Joe Biden and ask, “Exactly why did you do that press conference attacking your fellow Americans as dangerous just because they are part of a movement that doesn’t include you?” Why don’t corporate media ask those questions? Where was the concerted assault against the “red” press conference when Biden went after millions of his fellow citizens as “dangerous” to the country?
There is no doubt that the lawfare against Trump, his lawyers, and his supporters, and the vitriol levied at those who attend Trump rallies and support the former president have gone far beyond the bounds of fairness and have recklessly destroyed many lives, including a murder in Pennsylvania over the weekend, to stop Trump from fairly winning an election.
Any elite institutions suddenly concerned about making sure that Americans all feel equally safe participating in the political process should be forced to affirm what citizens have long known: These political prosecutions, these vile attacks and name-calling, and the unwarranted insults hurled at patriotic Americans by virtue of their support for Trump are the real threats turning the United States into a banana republic.
Avoiding more violence and bitter conflict means putting a stop to it now. The holier-than-thou media have only to look in the mirror to see who has the primary responsibility for beginning that change. When the Greek chorus of the corporate media starts calling out Biden for all that he and his Democrat colleagues and ministers have done to threaten the ability of the American people to decide the 2024 election, then we can know they actually are worried about the nation’s political temperature.
Cleta Mitchell is the senior legal fellow for election integrity at the Conservative Partnership Institute in Washington, DC.
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