The national media was always going to rave about the Democratic convention while portraying the Republican one as a dark and cynical affair. But it was especially rich to see CNN’s Jake Tapper complain that the GOP had engaged in historical revisionism regarding the coronavirus, when that’s what the media have been doing for the past two months.
Republicans aired a video during the first night of the convention on Monday that highlighted several Democrats who praised President Trump for supporting their states with personal protective equipment and ventilators. The video also recalled the pundits and Democrats who, like everyone else, underestimated how contagious and deadly it could be.
It puffed up the president in a way that Democrats would reasonably roll their eyes at, but it wasn’t anything you wouldn’t expect from literally any other campaign-style video.
But after it played at the convention, Tapper came on the air to call it “complete revisionism.” And CNN displayed a graphic on screen all morning the next day declaring that Republicans were trying to “rewrite history.”
It’s laughable. If anyone is rewriting history, it’s the national media which would have the public believe that Gov. Andrew Cuomo is a political hero, that New York is a shining example of how to squash the spread of the virus, and that Dr. Anthony Fauci has been an infallible voice in this saga.
None of those things are true. Under Cuomo’s stewardship, New York lost more lives than any other state, and part of that result can even be traced to specific decisions he made about putting coronavirus patients into nursing homes. At more than 32,000 fatalities, it’s not even close. New Jersey has seen more deaths per capita, but its total is still less than half that of New York.
New York, as of Tuesday, had suffered about 170 deaths per 100,000 residents. Texas, the state with the fourth-highest death total and with a Republican governor, only suffered 41 deaths per 100,000.
Chris Cuomo at CNN said in late June that New York was “doing way better than what we see elsewhere” and that there was “no way” that would be the case if not for the governor. I get that they’re brothers, but really?
And Fauci’s track record is, at best, middling. He told us we didn’t need masks — masks were useless. Now, he swears by them. He said we wouldn’t need to change our daily routines. Now, he advocates for more lockdowns. That’s not the standout performance of a wise and decisive public health official. That’s the fumbling of someone who doesn’t seem to know any better than the rest of us.
The GOP convention video might have put a glossy veneer over Trump’s leadership, but it’s the media that have tried to rewrite history.
