Mainstream media keeps trying to confuse the the public

On balance, they choose to promote leftist or conservative narratives rather than news

You only have to watch a few minutes of CNN, MSNBC, CBS, the View, Rachel Maddow or Brian Stelter to hear the outright bullshit the left incessantly publishes to further their socialist goals. The latest round is claiming Donald Trump “lied” repeatedly during the debate with Joe Biden.

It is useful to think about just what Trump did say and whether his statements were lies, intended to mislead; opinions capable of reasonable belief; or, truthful statements. Let’s just run through a few of them.

Alleged “lie”

• Associated Press (AP) says Trump lied when he stated: “They talk about a relatively small number of people who went to the Capitol and in many cases were ushered in by police”.

Trump didn’t lie.

Real time footage of the event saw people ushered into the Capitol building by police. The total number of protesters was relatively small compared to the massive number of rioters in the BLM riots following the death of George Floyd. Trump is entitled to his opinion on what comprises a large number or a “relatively small” number.

Alleged “lie”

• AP claims Trump lied when he said of Biden: “He wants to raise your taxes by four times”.

Trump didn’t lie.

First time: Biden’s plan is to raise top personal income tax rates for Americans earning over $400,000 from 37% to 39.6%

Second time: Biden’s plan is to tax qualified dividends and long-term capital gains as ordinary income for incomes over $1 million.

Third time: Biden proposes increasing the net investment income tax rate to 5% from 3.8% for those earning over $400,000.

Fourth time: Biden proposes increasing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.

Alleged lie:

• AP says Trump lied when he claimed: “During my administration we had the best environmental numbers ever”

Trump didn’t lie.

CO2 emissions fell by the most ever during 2020, while Trump was in office. The pandemic was the major factor. Reductions in emissions from 2016 to 2020 were at record levels.

CONCLUSION

These are just examples. The attempt to parse every word in a debate and accuse a debater of “lying” has become part and parcel of the political atmosphere in United States today. A fair analysis of the statements made by Trump during the debate show they comprised opinions, which he is entitled to; statements of fact, which he generally had right; or, puffery which seems inevitable in a political debate anywhere on Earth.

After a review of 30 statements made by Trump during the debate that mainstream media allege were “lies”, I have found some that were simply true, some that were errors, some that were opinions, some that evidenced a misunderstanding of facts, and none that were outright “lies”.

We live in a society today where ideology is driving news organization to create news rather than report new, taking words and acts out of context to publish what they think will be persuasive arguments that voters should vote for one side or the other. This is a deplorable state of affairs and leaves the electorate with few sources of the factual underpinning of circumstances and events, with mainstream media essentially suggesting we should not believe what we see with our own eyes, hear with our own ears, or are told by relatives and friends in whom we repose trust.

Fortunately, social media has to some extent filled this gap with (for example) the X platform providing real time insights into events rich with photos and videos and despite the controversial nature of many posts, provides direct evidence of what happened which we can judge for ourselves. Almost everyone has a smartphone and with it a camera so the everyday onlooker now takes photos or videos of occurrences in real time and publishes them online (not without some editorialzing, to be sure) but news is now the purview of social media and the subscription based news feeds of CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, Washington Post, and New York Times have become virtually irrelevant.