Covington, The Media, And The Program

     I must have written it a hundred times by now, but apparently it hasn’t yet sunk into some heads:

They who value power over all else:
Will do anything to get it;
Will do anything to keep it;
And will do anything to increase it.

     In other words, the power-luster has no ethics and no inhibitions. He does not recognize the concept of morally forbidden, as that would impede his pursuit of his One True Love. Moreover, his hangers-on will bend over backwards to serve him. The health of the remora, after all, depends on the health of the shark.

     There! Now that I’ve buried the lede about six feet deep, let’s proceed to the meaty part of the day’s fulminations.

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     I’m reasonably sure I don’t need to explain what I mean by the Covington Catholic incident, so let’s pass on immediately to the core of the thing.

     The media, Leftists in the Punditocracy, Leftists throughout the Internet, and a bunch of Democrat politicians and activists collaborated on a deception: a video clip edited to produce a wholly incorrect portrayal of the incident. Then they used that portrayal as black propaganda:

• Against the assembled group of Covington Catholic students;
• Against white Christians (especially Catholics);
• And against Trump supporters.

     And as you know if you’ve paid attention to subsequent developments, unedited videos of the actual events have revealed their deception for what it was.

     I’ve said to myself over and over that “they’re not stupid.” Yet one could easily think they believed, in this age of the ubiquitous video-capturing cell phone, that they could get away with it. Or is that a step too far? Did they merely think that even if their deception were unmasked a day or two afterward, it would nevertheless be tactically useful? If so, why?

     It took me a while, and a lot of hard thought, but I believe I have the answer. Rather than dump it on you like a truckload of gravel, I’m going to lay out the breadcrumbs I followed to reach it, in the hope that you’ll find them equally illuminating. So empty your bladder, refill your coffee cup, and fasten your seat belt. It’s about to get ugly.

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     The annual March for Life excites hatred among Leftists like no other political event. It’s predominantly white, Christian, and conservative. It attacks the Left’s supreme sacrament: abortion. And year after year it is entirely peaceful and orderly. Compared to practically any Left-oriented event, it’s a glowing model of what a political demonstration should be.

     Therefore, the Left deems it a high-priority target. With an outspokenly pro-life Administration in Washington, it becomes an even higher priority target. They seethe at the event and strain to defame or corrupt it. But until this year they’ve done no better than to deny it significant media coverage.

     The Left has other targets, of course. The Trump Administration, the steadily blossoming popular support for it, and the New Populist Conservatism have excited its ire. To some extent it shares that ire with the Old Conservative Establishment of institutions such as National Review and the (defunct) Weekly Standard. Over the past two years the Left’s tacticians have learned that they can expect a degree of cooperation from the Old Conservative mouthpieces when an event that stimulates their superciliousness toward Us the Unwashed can be suitably framed. So they remain alert for potential opportunities.

     Along comes the 2019 March for Life, a gaggle of young white Catholics, and a scattering of MAGA hats. The confluence of targets is incredibly juicy, but what can be done about them? Can we send in a provocateur? Who’s available?

     An ideal provocateur would be non-white and presumptively non-Christian. It would be best if he were old and wizened as well, and willing to take a modest risk for the Cause. Hey, that’s Nathan Phillips standing over there with his drum. Let’s see what he can do!

     Phillips wades in. Nothing much happens. But a suitably edited clip can be used to make it look as if the Covington boys encroached on him. It will take time for an accurate depiction of the event to surface and circulate. Meanwhile our media allies can whip up the base, which as we know is fueled by hatred of Christianity, Trump, pro-lifers, and everything traditionally American. Let’s run with it!

     And they do. And for a little less than a day they get everything they want from it. The Internet explodes with fury at the Covington boys, at Christianity, at the pro-life movement, and at the “racism” of President Donald Trump and his Administration. The Old Conservative Establishment farts dutifully chime in with their own condemnations. The doxxing and death threats get into high gear. The Left’s base is satisfyingly energized.

     But here we come to the punch line: Even though the extended videos swiftly circulated immediately afterward give the lie to all this Leftist outrage, the Left’s planners still regard their tactic as having made a profit. They got enough of what their base needs to bolster its allegiance and activism to outweigh the hit on their media allies’ credibility. Besides, they reason, it’s only “our people” who think the media has any credibility left, anyway.

     They will do it again. Mark my words.

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     Dystopic / Thales’s essay of yesterday nicely lays out the Left’s assignment of roles to its media allies. Whatever they might claim (or posture), the major media are not purveyors of facts. They are not interested in true depictions of important events. That would lose them the love of their Leftist masters, and with it all the “access” their service has earned them over the years. Their task is to spread propaganda: the blacker, the better.

     Black propaganda of the sort depicted here has several aims:

• To occupy and divert the public’s attention;
• To present a fallacious but useful slant on recent events;
• To fuel the portion of the electorate that seeks reasons to be enraged;
• To motivate that portion to undertake further action against the Left’s targets.

     Even if the propaganda has a limited lifetime – and less than a day is very limited indeed – it can still be counted as profitable if it succeeds adequately in those aims. Compare this with the newspapers’ practice of making lurid claims on the front page above the fold...and then retracting them two or three days later with a “correction” on Page A38.

     We are so far gone from a time in which Americans trusted one another to be men of good will, to dispute with facts and reason under the assumption that those are the things that matter, and to hold to the moral absolutes that have underpinned Western Civilization since the time of Christ that I can’t even see it in the rear-view mirror. We have gone from being a “high trust” society to a society in which trust is awarded only after checking the other guy’s bona fides and finding them satisfactory.

     But the Left is pleased. Totalitarians cannot rule enduringly over a high-trust society. The consolidation and maintenance of their power requires that their subjects be more suspicious of one another than of them. Divide et vince, divide et impera.

     With that I yield the floor to my Gentle Readers.