Stop Letting Republicans Create Their 'Own Reality'

By Steve M. — August 31, 2020

The mainstream media is now implying that violent protesters are the central issue in the presidential election, or at least one of the central issues.

That's what Donald Trump's campaign wants the #1 issue to be. Is it? No, it isn't.

Gallup routinely asks an open-ended question about what’s the most important problem facing the country today. In August, 35 percent said something about COVID/disease. 12 percent economy. 10 percent race relations. Only 4 percent crime. https://t.co/mHxoAWM0Fc

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) August 28, 2020

Here are the top six responses in August to the question "What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?" according to Gallup.

Coronavirus/Diseases: 35%
The government/Poor leadership: 22%
Race relations/racism: 10%
Economy in general: 7%
Unifying the country: 4%
Crime/violence: 4%

But Trumpworld has been bellowing about blood in the streets for months, and the media wants a horserace, so that's what we're talking about.

Will Stancil says the press is turning the issue into "this year's 'e-mails.'"

Now, they were feeling uncomfortable with the way the campaign had become all about Trump's failings. They wanted to be able to say "But Republicans argue that Democrats will contribute to _______."

So they picked "black urban unrest" because hey, that sounds scary to them.

— Will Stancil (@whstancil) August 29, 2020

Will it work? We'll see.

*****

How else are Trump and his allies creating their own reality? Well, you might believe that the Trumpers' attempt to promote coronavirus misinformation over the weekend failed...

Twitter on Sunday took down a tweet containing a false claim about coronavirus death statistics that was made by a supporter of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory -- a post that President Donald Trump had retweeted earlier in the day.

The tweet -- which has been replaced with a message saying, "This Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules -- from "Mel Q," copied from someone else's Facebook post, claimed that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had "quietly" updated its numbers "to admit that only 6%" of people listed as coronavirus deaths "actually died from Covid," since "the other 94% had 2-3 other serious illnesses."

That's not what the CDC said....

The CDC's latest regular update to a public statistics page on the pandemic -- there was nothing especially "quiet" about it -- said that for 6% of the deaths included in its statistics, "Covid-19 was the only cause mentioned" on the deceased person's death certificate.

That is not at all the same thing as saying only 6% of reported Covid-19 deaths "actually died" from Covid-19. It simply means that the other 94% were listed as having at least one additional factor contributing to their death.

Highlighted in the "Mel Q" tweet -- you can see a screenshot here -- was the sentence "For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned." This is treated as a new revelation.

However:

Context: No, in the first place, that's been on the CDC website forever. Here it is in May. But dishonest folks get more likes by saying it's new. https://t.co/yg5m4cdjHx

— Bad COVID-19 Takes (@BadCOVID19Takes) August 30, 2020

Yes -- if you go the link directly above, you see the same CDC page from May 28, with the sentence "For 7% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned."

It won't surprise you that this fake "revelation" is still circulating on right-wing sites:

But it's also still out there in the mainstream press. Here's a story from WFLA in Tampa: "New CDC Report Shows 94% of COVID-19 Deaths in US Had Contributing Conditions." Here's Fox 5 in San Diego: same headline. The story is up at this local TV channel's news site, and this one. It's presented as new information, and the context is ignored:

And the excess deaths are indeed cause by the virus. We know because states with very few COVID deaths don't really have excess deaths. https://t.co/t4i4kJnaHl

Bottom line: ~200,000+ people now dead would be alive but for this virus.

— Bad COVID-19 Takes (@BadCOVID19Takes) August 30, 2020

Republicans know how to lead the media around by the nose. They knew how to do this long before Trump came along. They can do it with a frontal assault or a subtle release of disinformation about an innocuous government report.

The press doesn't have to rise to the bait. But it usually does.

*****

UPDATE: And there you have it.