There’s an awful lot of hand-wringing among liberal journalists about a looming civil war tied to the election and race, as though they and their peers haven’t been the ones to stoke this all along.
At the New York Times, liberal Farhad Manjoo said that watching the Republican convention “drove me to despair,” and “In that four-night celebration of Trumpism, I caught a frightening glimpse of the ugly end of America, an authoritarian cult in full flower, and I am not keen to stick around much longer to see if my terrifying premonition pans out.”
The Washington Post ran an extensive piece in its Outlook section guessing that a landslide win for Joe Biden would result in “a relatively orderly transfer of power,” while “every other scenario” would mean “street-level violence and political crisis.” (This is otherwise known as “the Bret Stephens effect,” wherein a person feels compelled to support Biden because they’re otherwise in fear of what voters might do if he doesn’t win.)
Firstly, we’re already in a state of national unrest and violence, as seen in the Black Lives Matter protests and rioting in cities across the country. Both Democrats and the media are responsible for excusing and encouraging all of it, so to hear them a little skittish that there might be some new spark of chaos after or during the election makes you wonder why one form of it was acceptable while another one terrifies them.
The reasoning is simple, though. They believe the looting, vandalism, and arson leading up to the election was, at least until recently, a political benefit for Democrats. Likewise, they believe stoking fear about violence resulting from President Trump winning reelection is also to the benefit of Democrats.
The manipulation never ends.
