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The Off Year Election Meltdown Edition

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Nov 03, 2021
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"Riffed from the Headlines" is Townhall's daily VIP feature with coverage on the deeply flawed aspects of journalism in the nation. We'll look to bring accountability to the mishaps, malaprops, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in mainstream media. (For a VIP discount, drop SLAGER in the signup form.)

11.03.21

Instead of combing through the daily wreckage and delivering the media malpractice through a variety of categories, today will be a look across the journalism landscape and see all the distemper and hair ignition taking place in the press following the sweeping GOP victories across the country.

One of the best filters to use in order to see the bias in the press is an election cycle. The coverage, positioning, and interpretations of the races are one thing, but the results are the biggest reveal. Just note how when Democrats win, the general consensus is, "Now, the people have spoken, and a mandate has been delivered." But if there is a major Republican victory, the coverage becomes, "What went wrong?!"

We watched for months where two primary subjects were used by Democrats and the press: racism and Donald Trump. The voters rejected these methods, but the result is in the aftermath, the press has turned up the volume on these topics. It is a traditional analysis that any GOP victory is the result of a racist voting base, but this year sees Trump as the added component. Last night and today, the attitude in the press has been, "Well, race and Trump led to losses; we should talk LOUDER about those topics!"

Understand, in Virginia, in order to avoid being racist, you had to vote for Terry McAuliffe. Seriously. 

The man fails on multiple levels as a white person, so just how he is expected to be the torchbearer of other races is a complete mystery.

This, of course, was the media trend through the night and into today. Racism is the only answer to explain this major victory over an entrenched Democratic figure. Problem is, there are too many indicators that contradict this tired claim.

In the Virginia Lieutenant Governor race, Winsome Sears became the first female POC to win a statewide seat, and then the Attorney General race went to Jason Miyares, a Hispanic (also the first-ever victory). He defeated the incumbent Mark Herring, who, by the way, has his own blackface scandal.

At MSNBC, Joy Reid was her usual rational self, saying that the GOP winning elections leads to others becoming violently dangerous.

She clearly wants to redefine the dictionary as well. Like those on the Left struggling with the "Let's Go Brandon" chant reflecting Biden opposition, the reality of parents wanting to have a say in their kids' schooling is a problem. So sure, let's just say that the word "education" means something else entirely.

There is a high level of desperation when it comes to Critical Race Theory since this was one of the linchpin issues that drove the electorate in Virginia. Across the news outlets, they have been spreading massive doses of misinformation from CRT is not being taught and that people do not even know what it is to this dose of comedy from Andrea Mitchell calling CRT a conspiracy theory.

Just to give anyone interested the ammunition, here is a concrete piece of evidence that the Virginia Department of Education has CRT in its database.

Oops.

One of the other areas of struggling for the Wednesday morning quarterbacks is the need they possess to make these results about Trump. Despite Youngkin distancing himself from Trump throughout his campaign, his victory is desperately attributed to the man he barely acknowledged.

Lost on these wizards is that they are the ones invoking the name of the man who they, at the same time, say cannot be mentioned in polite company. It is the same with the impotent charge of racist dog whistles. They claim these are phrases meant to be heard by the racists, yet they are by admission the ones who hear these phrases, so...

And since race is such a hot topic in the press, can we not call it racist that the same journalists focusing on race ignore the minorities who saw success last night? On CNN, they introduced a segment on some of the minority election victories – the keyword there is "some."

Tellingly, even when they did mention the GOP minority candidates, you get the palpable sense they do so grudgingly.

Here is more comedy. Julian Castro of MSNBC lends commentary about Virginia, but he somehow could not make any comment about the voting results in San Antonio, a city he knows intimately. 

In his former city, a GOP Latino challenger John Lujan flipped the House seat, an area that has a deep Hispanic voting base, and went for Joe Biden by 14 percentage points. There is no explanation because the racist component is not dare uttered.

Then, just in closing to all of this denialism, here is an overview of what happened last night from Capt. Oblivious himself, MSNBC's Chris Hayes.