In 2016, we got the "disinformation" narrative. The Russians were flooding us with propaganda aimed at getting their flunky, Donald Trump, elected. Lack of actual evidence killed this strategy (Adam Schiff hasn't figured this out yet), so for the 2020 election Democrats and the media that serves them pivoted to the "misinformation" narrative. Misinformation is any information they don't want the public to see, but the actual definition of the word is "incorrect information that's spread unintentionally. Both sides do that, and sometimes it's intentional, making it "disinformation." The media, from its high perch, sorts out the confusion for the masses lacking the sophistication to distinguish between truth and falsehood. They're ramping up their vigilance—aimed squarely at the conservative side—as the election cycle gets ready to kick into high gear.
Self-appointed misinformation and disinformation watchdogs such as The New York Times and The Washington Post assure the public they have no truck with such gutter journalism. They want us to know that if they spot it on social media or in media outlets not on the "approved" list, they'll work with their allies, some of whom are in the government, to suppress it.
As the Twitter Files revealed (and as journalist Matt Taibbi spelled out at a Congressional hearing), Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies have developed a formal system for taking in "content moderation" requests from the FBI, DHS, HHS, DOD, and the CIA. Many requests have also been made by private organizations funded by the federal government. While it's the job of the media to investigate those improperly attempting to curtail First Amendment rights, the media has decided to partner with them instead. If Twitter refused to delete an account, government and NGO operatives would call reporters from NYT and the Post, who’d then call Twitter, demanding action. So much for the media being the people's last line of defense against government censorship. When a government gets into the fact-checking business, what citizens can soon expect is propaganda from the Ministry of Truth. This is what's currently happening with Brazil's left-wing regime, which has put up an official fact-checking website.
But the Times isn't concerned with that possibility. In July, the newspaper warned that a federal judge’s decision to restrict the government’s communication with social media platforms could have a negative impact on combating hate speech and disinformation. Implicit is the suggestion that the threat's from the Right. As there's no consensus on what constitutes "hate speech," which is mere name-calling according to some, a government attempt to suppress it would soon slide into authoritarianism. The Times quotes a "disinformation expert" from University of North Carolina as claiming that the court ruling could impede work meant to keep false claims about vaccines from spreading. Speaking of Covid, Anthony Fauci told Americans, in its inchoate stages, not to wear masks, and that the virus posed less of a danger than the common flu. The doctor continued to spread misinformation throughout the pandemic, some of it probably to conceal his own involvement with gain-of-function research in the Wuhan lab where the virus probably originated. Still, the media backed him up every step of the way, throughout all his prevarications. He's one of them, and they protect their own.
What keeps the Democrats up at night is that Joe Biden is a tired, bumbling old man who most of them don't want to run again. The guy can't get through a public appearance without saying something bizarre. Biden's such a weak candidate he could lose to Trump. In order to save our democracy, the Democrats are desperate to give their geezer a boost. So it's time for the censorship brigade to march to the front lines. Instagram has already slapped a 180-day suspension on workers for RFK Jr.'s campaign before they could even make one post. LinkedIn shut down Vivek Ramaswamy's account for comments on China and climate change it disagreed with—"misinformation." But the crackdown's just beginning.
The Democrats and MSM are blind to the irony that the self-appointed information police are the same ones who promoted the disinformation, signed off on by all the intel chiefs, that Hunter Biden's laptop was a product of Russian dirty tricks. The Times and Post bought this whopper, but the New York Post—not on the approved media list—was on top of the story from the beginning, and it revealed its sourcing. Eventually, the Times was forced to acknowledge that the laptop belonged to the President's son, which it did by burying that news at the end of a piece that wasn't even about the laptop.
The Washington Post issued this warning on September 5: "Why a perfect storm of misinformation may loom in 2024." The article cites a survey claiming that politicians and social media pose the most serious misinformation threats. That's Republican politicians, as Democrats don't do that. But what would you call it when Joe Biden claims for years that he never talked to his son about Hunter's sleazy influence-peddling business? It can't even be called misinformation because it's a straight-up lie—"disinformation." VP candidate Joe Biden, a big bank guy who used to be called the "Senator from MBNA," once told a black audience that Mitt Romney wanted to let the big banks write their own rules. Affecting an African-American accent, he said, "He gon' put y'all back in chains!" What variety of information would that be called?
If it's only the GOP spreading misinformation, who spread all those unproven Russian-interference claims, like the Steele dossier that turned out to be funded by Hillary Clinton's campaign? A national poll that surveyed 1000 participants from all political parties last year in August found that more than half the Democratic Party’s voters have the false impression that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down legal abortion in the entire nation when it overturned Roe v. Wade in June. Now where could that misinformation have come from? How about Florida's "Don't say gay'' law? There's no law in Florida forbidding teachers to mention the word "gay."
The Democrats' obsession with misinformation from the Right not only makes them look hypocritical, but it's hurting them at the polls. An article that appeared in Vox last year—"Latino voters are being flooded with even more misinformation in 2022"—is indicative of the narrative that Democrats are losing the Latino vote because of Spanish-language misinformation when, in fact, Latinos, who tend to have traditional values, aren’t comfortable with the Biden administration's progressive stance on social issues. Transing the kids isn't something they embrace. A party that can't identify why it's losing one kind of voter can't find a way to win back that voter, but facing the truth can be hard.
The current misinformation fixation is reminiscent of Trump's insistence throughout his last campaign that the election was fixed. It was a built-in excuse for losing then, and it's now looking like a built-in excuse in case Biden, who's too old to campaign outside his basement for a second term, flames out. If that does happen, we'll reminded once again that the Republicans aren't the only ones who deny election results.