The post-assassination-attempt edition, with selections for Worst Media Political Violence Analysis Award.
1. ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA – ABC NEWS
The skirt was too short, taken to the upper levels.
When looking over the disturbing and fractured impressions in the media, choosing the worst may be a case of subjective measurement. But among the worst has to be Martha Raddatz speaking to George Stephanopoulos. Martha went on a tangent to literally suggest Donald Trump was responsible for his being targeted. She dredged up strained examples of how he spoke with inflammatory comments previously, including the infamous and wholly debunked “bloodbath” comment.
As we all know – and Martha, by appearances, does not – that term was used in reference to what might transpire in the auto industry, and by extension, the general economy. He used it, correctly, as an economic term. And we say “by appearances” because Martha knows this to be the fact, making her position here all the more disturbing.
“President Trump and his supporters have contributed to this violent rhetoric as well” – @GStephanopoulos on #ThisWeek 15 hours after assassination attempt on Trump. @MarthaRaddatz: “Absolutely, George....And let’s remember January 6th.” pic.twitter.com/VJs38FgAiU
— Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) July 14, 2024
2, Gilded Reframe – CNN
Recommended
Well, how DARE he show strength under fire!
Our second nomination for worst analysis is for Jamie Gangel. As she was speaking to the video of Trump being ganged by the Secret Service and him managing to pump a fist to the crowd, she found the display from the man who just had his head nearly perforated by a sniper’s bullet to be distasteful and completely unacceptable at that moment.
CNN's Jamie Gangel attacks Trump for saying "Fight! Fight! Fight!" after someone tried to murder him.
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) July 14, 2024
Literally, she complains about what he did 5 seconds after he was shot
"That's not the message that we want to being sending right now. We want to tamp it down" pic.twitter.com/GHhU2lLI2Z
3. Both Kinds of Standards – CBS NEWS
The possibility of their violence is far worse than the actuality of your violence.
Speaking on a panel, Samantha Vinograd looked over the event of a GOP candidate being targeted for assassination and placed her concern in the proper context; there is a real fear that conservatives may potentially say and/or actually do something of a violent nature as a result of…um…well, you know, the very real violence that erupted toward the lead figure on the Republican ticket.
On CBS, Margaret Brennan and Samantha Vinograd talk up "retaliatory violence" from right-wingers, and then we hear of January 6. Knew this line was coming.... pic.twitter.com/JO9572UlXn
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) July 14, 2024
4. Pounce of Prevention – POLITICO
This could possibly be the most impotent attempt at the tired #RepublicansNotice narrative.
Jonathan Martin is having a rough go of it this week. After admitting on Chuck Todd’s podcast that the two of them had been aware of Biden’s depleted condition and there were concerns all over Washington, he next comes out with this pathetic deflection. He finds that Republicans are managing to be angry over the attempted killing of Donald Trump (the temerity of it all!), and they are pouncing and seizing on the event to blame Democrats!
In wake of the rally shooting, GOP officials have been quick to blame Democrats for demonizing Trump.
— POLITICO (@politico) July 14, 2024
The speed and intensity of the response reflected the boiling anger so many Trump loyalists felt long before tonight, writes @jmart. https://t.co/0UM4Jd0Flv
5. Pathological Media Amnesia – CBS NEWS
What will you people who are targeted do to curtail this leftist violence?!
Margaret Brennan was one of the more impassioned journalists eager to avoid blaming this shooting anywhere toward the left. Discussing things with cohort Robert Costa, she directed that the Republicans needed to “take the temperature down” and how this could “inspire retaliation, and we want no part of that.”
She then went fully over the horizon when she spoke to Steve Scalise, himself a victim of a political shooting by a Bernie Sanders supporter, and Brennan had the audacity to command that Scalise, of all people, work within his party to tamp down the violent rhetoric.
CBS's Margaret Brennan lectures Steve Scalise, who was nearly assassinated in 2017 by a leftist: "Have you specifically instructed members...to rein in some of the rhetoric...some are using online that is somewhat incendiary...really blaming this, somehow, on the administration?" pic.twitter.com/M3MQINzuuH
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 14, 2024
(Dis)Honorable Mention: BlueAnon – WASHINGTON POST
For nearly as long as QAnon has been an ongoing concern in the press, on social media, left-wing kooks have been labeled for their conspiracies with “BlueAnon.” Well, the quick on the uptake digital correspondent Taylor Lorenz describes how liberal crackpots are suggesting the assassination attempt is a false flag ruse, and she acts as if she has uncovered that such a thing as BlueAnon exists.
We have to guess that when you operate with denialism from inside of a bubble, then something like this manages to appear on your radar for the first time.
This passage from @TaylorLorenz is so surreal, I began to wonder if we really were in @awstar11's reality. But then I remembered that lack of self-awareness is her stock in trade.https://t.co/i8bkixlaQI pic.twitter.com/XZoaGD14P1
— D0DD (@Amuk31) July 15, 2024
(Dis)Honorable Mention: Presentation Paradox – VANITY FAIR / NEW REPUBLIC
When it comes to calming the waters, we won’t turn to the one throttling his outboard.
Ever since the Biden meltdown at the debate, as the press became entirely exposed for their partisan malpractice, Brian Stelter has been on a crusade to rehabilitate himself, and by extension, those in the press. Over the past couple of weeks, he has offered up excuses, deflections, reinterpretations, and any other manner of conciliatory words to extract himself from culpability.
Following the attempt on Trump’s life, he seemed to sense how the media would be looked at as having stoked intolerance and division, so Stelter delivers a thread painting a picture of common folk America actually being a tight-knit community with no acrimony.
One problem is that the condescending Stelter is not positioned in this community. Worst than this, his attempt to posture as the voice of political unity and harmony is blasted out of the water by the fact that he was one of the major contributors to the issue of New Republic Magazine, out right now, that has a collection of contributions spelling out what a fascist state under Trump would look like, complete with his Hitler image on the cover.
While @BrianStelter paints a treacly picture of America, which is largely accurate, there are two disqualifiers:
— Brad Slager - Scrubbing Down In a Bloodbath (@MartiniShark) July 15, 2024
- Brian is part of the self-described elite class tearing down conservatives
- He was a contributor to this @NewRepublic nightmare piece with Trump-Hitler fantasies. https://t.co/lF3dvDGnoD pic.twitter.com/MGCaQTOZm4
