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They're Not Even Bothering to Hide It Any More

AP Photo/Paul Sancya

It’s becoming almost like morning prayer. I have to remind myself that social media isn’t real life. I’m also reminded that legacy media is just as much a part of the problem, because they are much more likely to report on anti-Semitism rearing its ugly head when the offending rhetoric or actions can be attributed to Republicans than if the hatred is espoused by the left.

While images of anti-Semitic chants at rallies and protests continue to sweep the country, and not just on college campuses anymore, but lining the streets of American cities with unabashed Jew hatred, it’s been stunning to see to what lengths the Sunday shows will go to avoid the problem the left has with a frightening chunk of their base. Up to now, they’ve largely decided to ignore it entirely.

Then, the life preserver the media was waiting for came with Elon Musk agreeing with an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory post this past week. Finally, some of the Sunday shows could report on anti-Semitism. Why? Is it because Musk is a Republican? I’m not sure that’s so. I think he’s probably libertarian in his views at best. It’s just that he’s gone on record saying that Joe Biden and the Democrats have been a disaster the last couple of years, and for that sin alone, he’s been branded as much of a traitor to progressive causes as if he had changed his political party affiliation formally.

On CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper yesterday, Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis appeared, and got asked by Tapper to condemn Musk’s anti-Semitism. Here’s that video clip:

Now Musk, back in August, endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy. I’m not sure why it’s a germane question to have DeSantis condemn the actions of a private businessman that’s got nothing to do with him, his staff, or his campaign. It’s a gotcha question in the same vein as when former Idaho Senator Larry Craig got caught playing footsie with his stance in a bathroom stall at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. As soon as that scandal broke, every reporter in media jammed a microphone into the face of every Republican they could find in order to make them comment on it, with the overall intent of making every person in the GOP Larry Craig. It’s an old play from the media bias playbook that by now should be just as easy to defend as the off-tackle play in football if you’re looking for it.

DeSantis answered the question flawlessly, but Tapper wasn’t content with it. He kept pressing. In fact, here’s all of his follow-up questions on the subject.

Something happened the other day, that I wondered what you thought about because you launched your campaign on twit are now known as x and right now major companies such as apple and Disney are pulling their ads from x because Elon Musk openly endorsed this antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jews are conspiring to replace white Americans with minority immigrants. I wondered if you saw the E comment, and if you condemn it?

Let me show you. Here is a post that Jews are pushing the dialectical whites and they’re pushing minorities and you have said the actual truth. He goes on to say that the ADL and other Jewish groups are pushing replacements of whites, it’s a lot of condemnation for singling out a specific religious group during a time E rapidly rising antisemitism. You’ve been very out front with antisemitism on the left. Is antisemitism on the right concerns you as well?

I don’t know how fringe the voices are, to be frank. Elon Musk is the wealthiest man in the world and we’ve seen major conservative media figures, Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens and others pushing hateful stuff pushing the nonsensical theories of white genocide and white replacement theory, and I would ask that major Republican figures like you use your voices, as well, to stand against it. But let’s turn on — turn to another topic.

Yeah. Absolutely. Jewish students just like Muslim students, gay student, all students should feel safe on campuses and the concerns Jewish students have right now is very serious. I’m just saying Elon Musk is a pretty powerful guy and he’s out there endorsing some pretty hideous antisemitic con pir see theories and I still haven’t heard you condemn it.

By now, if you only get your news from Jake Tapper’s program, you might not realize that Jewish students were told to go hide in the attic after being trapped in a library at Cooper Union. You might have missed an elected member of Congress being censured in a bipartisan vote for her “From the river to the sea…” anti-Semitic call for Jewish genocide. You certainly didn’t hear anything about the insurrection at the DNC this past week by anti-Israeli protesters starting a riot in the lobby and causing a lockdown to take place.

No, what you would infer from Jake’s line of questioning is that all the anti-Semitism that’s fit to report is on the right, even though Elon Musk really isn’t a man of the right at all, and that the main thrust of the interview should be to hang Musk around the neck of every Republican that appears.

Same program, a little bit later, Jewish-American Congressman Jamie Raskin appeared, and here’s the question he got.

Did Tapper ask Raskin about Rep. Tlaib’s “From the river to the sea” nonsense? Nope.

What was your reaction to Elon Musk?

The thing about the white replacement theory and I’ve got a lot of other topics I want to talk about, white replacement theory is white genocide and all of that nonsense. That stuff gets people killed at the tree of life synagogue, shoot being, the El Paso shooting and Buffalo — anyway, moving on.

Let me tell you, there’s worse stuff than that. That stuff is awful, but there is actual worse stuff than that. The video this week of the pro-Palestinian violence outside of the DNC that turned violent outside of the democratic headquarters and there were members in there and not all of them, but they were with the New York Branch which celebrated on October 7th saying that it was legitimate resistance. Another rally just down the street saying from the river to the sea and long live the intifada. What do you make of this as a Jewish-American, a proud progressive, a Democrat. There’s anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party these days.

There’s anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party by whom? It’s not asked. How prevalent? Again, unasked. Is it rising since the October 7th attacks? Not a chance that’s being asked.

No pressing four times to denounce Rashida Tlaib. No pressing four times for Raskin to denounce the anti-Semitic rallies on college campuses, in some cases resulting in extra credit being given by professors for attending. No pressing four times to condemn the flirtations with anti-Semites by Democratic presidential candidates Cornell West and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Tapper, to his credit, brought up the simple statement that there’s anti-Semitism on the Democratic side. What he failed to do was convey the magnitude of the problem on the left, or how much it’s exploded in the last month and a half since the start of the war in Gaza. No balanced reporting. Elon Musk? Let’s spend four minutes on it, because he is, for all intents and purposes, a Republican now. Maybe make news on it because we can make DeSantis squirm. Democratic anti-Semitism in the lobby of a fundraiser at the DNC headquarters? A simple one-off question to check off that box.

As for the Sunday shows in total, I’ll leave Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream off the list, because week in and week out, they cover the stories. They’ve covered the war, the brutality of Hamas, the anti-Semitism on college campuses, the violence at the DNC, the censure of Rashida Tlaib, all of it. That’s what Sunday shows are supposed to do.

The other four – Face the Nation w/Margaret Brennan, Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, This Week with George Stephanopoulos and/or Jonathan Karl and/or Martha Raddatz, and CNN’s State of the Union with either Jake Tapper or Dana Bash, those four caused me to do a clip service search of shows since the attacks of October 7th. I wanted to do a word search of each show to see how much time was spent on the censure of Rashida Tlaib. CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN Sunday shows came back with exactly 0 mentions. In fact, if you just type in the word Tlaib, you get no hits.

What about Harvard? Not even including anti-Semitism, mind you, or a more narrow search. Just putting in the word Harvard, which really has occupied the penthouse suite of university anti-Semitism since 10/7, although it’s a disease that has spread to campuses coast to coast, all four Sunday shows return exactly 0 mentions for the word Harvard from any of their transcripts over the last six weeks’ worth of shows.

Elon Musk? NBC and CNN covered it. The DNC riot from this past week? CNN only used it on their Sunday show in the context described above. The other three? Crickets.

Polling consistently shows that by far, Americans support Israel over Hamas in this fight, and understand why Israel has to respond in the way they are, although the margins are falling as the younger end of the population, poisoned and deluded by secondary education and TikTok, are increasingly taking the side of these modern-day Nazi terrorists. If only legacy media reflected where Americans are, instead of trying to continue eroding the polling. But alas, I have to remind myself. Social Media and legacy media, especially the closer we get to election season, are not real life.

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David Strom 7:10 PM | October 15, 2024
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