MEDIA SHAME FILE
Outlet: ABC News (Australian state media)
Headline: Donald Trump turns aviation tragedy into new front in the culture wars
Summary: Australian journalists loathe Trump and most have some form of Trump Derangement Syndrome, meaning their stories on him provide a great insight into their mindset, their left-wing biases and their lack of integrity.
It should be noted that although there are a handful, mainly News Corp columnists, who have sensed a “vibe shift” and are covering Trump favourably, almost all of them (we say “almost all” because even though we don’t know of any we will give one or two the benefit of the doubt) abandoned him in his hour of need after Jan 6, or were conspicuously silent for years afterwards. They are fair-weather supporters and not to be trusted.
This piece is a great example of how the taxpayer-funded national broadcaster, which fell for the Russia Hoax, the Covid Hoax, and just about every other Trump-related fake news moral panic over the past decade, uses the old “accuse your enemy of what you yourself are doing” trick to smear Trump and anyone who dares support him.
Because in the end, this isn’t about Trump. It’s about you, and the Overton window, which as the article points out is shifting to the right. Journalists desperately want it to be socially unacceptable for you to support Trump again.
The article hits several common anti-Trump talking points in order to reinforce ingrained dislike, or remind people why they used to think they disliked him:
- Trump acts inappropriately – he’s not presidential, he’s not respectful, he demeans the office, he’s crude etc.
- He says things that aren’t true – he’s a liar, he’s dishonest, he’s stupid, he’s ignorant, he pushes misinformation
- He engages in personal attacks – related to point 1, he’s rude, he’s mean, he’s uncivil, he’s boorish, he’s low class
- He violates norms – he goes too far, he’s an extremist, he crosses the line
This is achieved by framing his reaction to the Washington DC plane crash as “exploiting a tragedy to play politics”, while framing his comments as “claims” that are expressed in a nasty way, when they are actually fact, and expressed in a way that most people don’t mind.
What the ABC’s North America correspondent Carrington Clarke does here deserves fleshing out, so bear with us as we break it down.
First, he tells the reader that Trump is using the crash to play politics, ignoring that fact that all politicians do that all the time (“it’s fine when we do it”). Eg. is calling for a ban on guns after a mass shooting “exploiting a tragedy?”
Then he plays on the reader’s assumed dislike for Trump by using loaded terms like “blizzard of accusations”, “mocked”, “direct swipe”, “sarcastically calling him”, “profanely insulted”(the profanity was the word “bullshit”), “tirade”, “partisan attacks”, “no such qualms”, “rail against”, “fan the flames”, “cruel personal language”.
Never mind that Trump is constantly on the receiving end of all of the above from the media and his political opponents, and has been since 2015.
Again, it’s a case of “attack the enemy for what you yourself are doing” – there’s just no way Clarke doesn’t remember the years of nasty, mocking hit pieces on Trump, and how his opponents used every tragedy they could, eg. Covid, to try and get rid of him.
The same can be seen in the way the Democrats deal with Trump. When he was saying he might investigate Hillary Clinton (and it’s important to note that he never did), he was a norm-destroying wannabe dictator who wanted to weaponise the justice system against his political opponents.
But then the same people who were up in arms about “Hillary for prison” spent the last four years trying to put Trump in prison, and it turns out that they were weaponising the intelligence agencies against him while he was running in 2016.
All aided and abetted by the media, including by the ABC.
But back to the article at hand.
Next Clarke lays out Trump’s “claims” – that diversity hiring at the FAA could have been a contributing factor to the crash, and sneakily tries to “debunk” them.
Let’s look at a few key paragraphs:
“His strongest opinion? That progressive policies had allowed incompetent people into critical jobs.”
DEI hiring policies by definition allow less competent people into critical jobs. At what point a “less competent” person becomes “incompetent” would depend on the circumstances of a particular case, but it’s undeniably true that progressive DEI policies result in higher levels of incompetence. No admission of this by the ABC, of course.
“He mocked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for its ‘diversity push,’ claiming the agency was too focused on inclusion and wanted people with severe disabilities to become air traffic controllers.”
This is not a claim, it is a fact. And this does not become less true if expressed in a mocking way. Also, he puts “diversity push” in quotes to make it seem like a claim, when, again, it is a fact.
“He insisted that air traffic controllers need to be ‘talented, naturally talented geniuses,’ implying that a person with a disability couldn’t be one.”
Disabled people are, by definition, less able, or not at all able. Acting like disabled people can do anything able people can do is absurd, and on the level of transgender madness. Men can’t become women, and disabled people aren’t as competent as normal people. Everyone knows this.
“If it turns out that the individuals involved in this tragedy were hired despite failing to meet the accepted standards of the job, Trump may feel vindicated.”
Here the journalist shifts from laying out Trump’s comments, to making a strawman argument against them while also letting the ABC off the hook on the DEI issue. Suddenly the issue is not “should we have disabled air traffic controllers?”, but “were the air traffic controllers at the time of the crash DEI hires?”
But Trump never said that the individuals involved were diversity hires, and they don’t need to have been for his criticisms of DEI to be valid. Hiring less competent people for the sake of diversity for a decade degrades an entire organisation, and we don’t know what caused the crash.
But the ABC is not interested in diving into the DEI argument, because they know it’s a losing one, so they’ve subtly shifted the goalposts to launch their own personal attack on Trump. Now the article is about how mean Trump is.
“But there is no evidence that this occurred.”
This phrase is a dead giveaway, and first emerged in Trump’s first term when outlets like CNN decided they needed to “factcheck” the president in real time. Journalists think they are being clever when they use it, as it is interpreted by the reader as “this is false”, or “he is lying”, but what it really signals is “the journalist is biased”.
“The employees working in the control tower that night must now be under immense psychological pressure, having witnessed and been involved in such a catastrophic event.
To then have the president suggest that incompetence played a role likely only compounds their pain.”
This is couched with the words “suggest” and “likely”, but the reader will come away from this with the impression that Trump has, “without evidence”, attacked hard-working control tower workers and “compounded their psychological pain”.
The ABC wants you to think Trump is a mean, lying, tragedy-exploiting, norm-violating bigot who is hurting innocent air traffic controllers to push his anti-DEI (code for “racist”) agenda.
“In the lead-up to his second term, there were questions about whether Trump might soften his approach.
Would winning re-election — including the popular vote and stronger support from minority groups — satisfy his ego? Would he become more conciliatory, particularly in moments that demand it?
His response to this tragedy gives us a clear answer.
Trump remains the same politician he has always been.”
Here it is, the key to the whole article. They are trying to reset the narrative on Trump, because it’s too socially acceptable to like him now.
Don’t let your friends, family and co-workers fall for it.
Key quote: “He insisted that air traffic controllers need to be ‘talented, naturally talented geniuses,’ implying that a person with a disability couldn’t be one.”
Subtext: “If you like or support Donald Trump you are as evil as him”
