This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a new high in the anti-GOP bias shown by CNN, this time blaming the political divide on the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Roger Ailes, Fox News, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and, of course, former President Donald Trump.
Over one hour last night, Fareed Zakaria pointed a big finger at the GOP in his special, The Divided States of America: What Is Tearing Us Apart? Over and over, the answer was boiled down to Republicans. And if that wasn’t enough, Republicans were sometimes described as racists.
Zakaria said, “When scholars spent time with Tea Party activists, they found that behind the talk of taxes and big government were people mostly motivated by fears about race and immigration.”
He moved on to how Ailes “turned his channel into a right-wing bull horn, blurring facts and opinion like never before.”
He added, “Trump had a role model for his exploitation of the class divide: Sarah Palin, who did it first.”
His final target was Gingrich: “Before there was a Donald Trump, there was a Republican pioneer who paved the way for the Trump brand of destructive politics. … His legacy has been both dark and far-reaching — a permanent state of war between the parties.”
Some excerpts from CNN’s The Divided States of America: What is Tearing Us Apart? which aired Sunday night, Jan. 31:
FAREED ZAKARIA: When scholars spent time with Tea Party activists, they found behind the talk of taxes and big government were people mostly motivated by fears about race and immigration.
JON MEACHAM: The people who have been most radicalized by the Trump years believed that diversity was an idea, not a vivid reality.
ZAKARIA: In 1950, the year our political parties were said to be too similar, the country was about 90% white. Now in 2021, as we face an existential crisis of political division, America is about 59% white.
MEACHAM: We are living in the most vivid manifestation of the politics of fear in our history. That’s where we are now.
…
ZAKARIA: Ailes became the go-to right-wing media strategist of the 1980s, infamous for his vicious attacks.
TV AD NARRATOR: As Gov. Michael Dukakis gave weekend furloughs to first-degree murderers.
Another mastermind: Roger Ailes. He created Fox as a vehicle that blurred news and opinion, facts and falsehoods.
— Fareed Zakaria (@FareedZakaria) February 1, 2021
ZAKARIA: In 1996, Ailes found his destiny when billionaire Rupert Murdoch came calling. The right wing’s favorite hatchet man was now creating a new news network. The old, mainstream media cartel had splintered.
BRIT HUME, IN OLD FNC PROMO: These days, people think TV news is about as unbiased as the commercials.
ZAKARIA: On cable, every channel needed to find its own slice of the audience. Ailes turned his channel into a right-wing bull horn, blurring facts and opinion like never before. Big ratings and profits soon followed.
…
ZAKARIA: Donald Trump had a role model for his exploitation of the class divide: Sarah Palin, who did it first. When America’s hockey mom became John McCain’s running mate in 2008 —
SARAH PALIN, FORMER REPUBLICAN ALASKA GOVERNOR: They say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick.
ZAKARIA: She leaned heavily on identity politics, on American values and culture, to rile up her base.
PALIN: I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment.
ZAKARIA: Her brand of America, talking about the real America, saying, ‘I’m one of you,’ was the precursor of Trump’s war on elites.
GEORGE PACKER: Sarah Palin, who I think of as John the Baptist to Trump, she was the one who came first.
DONALD TRUMP: Governor Sarah Palin.
…
ZAKARIA: But before there was a Donald Trump, there was a Republican pioneer who paved the way for the Trump brand of destructive politics.
A key cause of the animosity: the Republicans turn politics into war. Who started that? Newt Gingrich—the original mastermind, so to speak, behind today’s mayhem.
— Fareed Zakaria (@FareedZakaria) February 1, 2021
NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER REPUBLICAN HOUSE SPEAKER: I am a genuine revolutionary. They are the genuine reactionaries. We are going to change their world.
ZAKARIA: This is the story of Newt Gingrich, the man who wrote the playbook for the modern conservative movement. … It was a very different time in politics when civility and compromise mattered. House Republican Leader Bob Michael was widely known as Mr. Nice Guy. Imagine that.
VAN JONES: Newt Gingrich comes in with a buzz saw.
GINGRICH: What we are living through is a fundamental civil struggle, a civil war fought in public speeches rather than with armies.
ZAKARIA: The Gingrich philosophy: The only way for Republicans to win back power was to be nasty — really nasty.
GINGRICH: For the Democrats to basically say not only are we going to rape you but you have to pay for the hotel room is a bit much.
ZAKARIA: To treat Democrats not as opponents but the enemy. … His legacy has been both dark and far-reaching — a permanent state of war between the parties.
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Quite a pretentious feat by CNN and Zakaria in managing to blame all of the nation’s ills on the tone of the rhetoric from conservative political figures, as if liberals are blameless for political divisiveness. By choosing to blame only one side, CNN and Zakaria are exacerbating the very problem they claim to be trying to diagnose.”
Rating: 5 out of 5 SCREAMS.
