Bob Ehrlich: It's Up to McCarthy to Take Down Biden's Weaponized Narratives
The drill has become distressingly familiar.
A generally displeasing (for progressives) event occurs: Donald Trump wins the presidency or inconvenient medical opinions arise during a pandemic or parent protests erupt at school board meetings or states require photo IDs at the polls or military murmurings arise after a foreign debacle. And then — seemingly overnight — a counternarrative emerges as lefty journalists aggressively ensure the correct spin.
But that’s only the half of it.
Rationale for the devilish event is then spun. The alleged perps are quickly identified, degraded and canceled (where feasible). A new narrative is then promulgated and embellished — all in order to further the political goals of the left.
Think about recent examples of the above. The Kremlin helped Trump win. Trump is a Russian asset. Alternative COVID treatments are merely right-wing disinformation. Angry parents are a threat to school board members — and “democracy.” “Voter integrity” is code for voter suppression. There are cabals of white supremacists embedded in the armed forces.
A common bottom line emerges: The opposition practices disinformation; the opposition is DANGEROUS.
The modus operandi is pretty effective (and a reliably compliant media is of enormous help) until the essential lite-ness of the narrative is exposed. (See e.g. the Mueller report, recently released “Twitter Files” and the indictment of former FBI agent Charles McGonigal.) How then to retrench after inconvenient/inconsistent facts emerge?
Well… enter Uncle Sam. Simply empower your favorite federal agency to open an investigation, conduct a midnight raid, or go all-in with major social media platforms in order to chill the troublemakers.
A suddenly woke private sector is happy to help. Recall how much the voter suppression narrative was aided by Major League Baseball’s removal of the All-Star Game from Atlanta, or the acquiescence of pro and college sports leagues to the vaccine mandates, or the business community’s virtue-signaling embrace of “ESG” as a sop to the climate crowd.
Back to the drill. The Biden era’s most popular narratives (see above) have generally been persuasive with the majority of Americans for the past two years. The era’s cultural information centers ensure that only one way of thinking is welcome — and that dissenting viewpoints are dismissed, or worse.
But the midterms brought dramatic change ideologically if not numerically to Washington. There is a new sheriff in town by the name of Kevin McCarthy. He is from California (of all places). He just survived a bruising leadership fight. An army of America Firsters will keep him focused. And he sees an opportunity to take down the most popular narratives that have informed the Biden years.
And so the “Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government” has been hatched. Its focus will be to investigate the genesis of the Biden-era storylines — and expose the extent to which the tentacles of the federal government were employed in their promulgation.
This is what out-of-power parties do when a chamber falls its way. Media blackouts are lifted. Troublesome questions are asked. Inconvenient facts become more difficult to deny. Misuse of power is exposed. New accountability is generated.
I suspect the new speaker may need more than 24 months to get the job done.
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