The Problem with Media is Balance
Why Trump’s September 18, 2021 Rally Will Fail
Good and great media like the Times wants to make this into a “fair and balanced” fight between two sides. It is not. One side is armed and organized; the other side is a rambling unorganized discordant group of peaceful yet angry voices.
Don’t listen to the media’s uneven reporting when it tries to show two sides in balance.
Over 97% of protests during the Black Lives Matter marches were not violent. One estimate by Time put it as 93 percent. I’m going with 99 percent personally. Over 3 million black and diverse and principled people were not “antifa”. Over 4,700 demonstrations took place, or about 140 a day according one estimate.
Antifa did not come until later, but now the protests are branded that way. The protests were almost completely peaceful, but the one percent antifa protestors, which includes many reports of the like of the ‘umbrella man’ was what the media clung to. The mainstream media did not describe each side accurately, and instead tried to ‘balance’ the ‘two sides’. There was no black left-wing militia carrying military style rifles on the streets in mass to balance of the white ‘antifa’ groups, or white right-wing groups.
There were no three million white protestors marching for Trump. Only scraggly groups of armed mostly white men invading the Wisconsin or Michigan capital buildings, or sieging the Capitol building on January 6th, or protesting in militia gear against masks. These crowds are small and fighting against justice, not fighting for it.
American has no balance. It’s tipped out of control. That’s the state we started in. That’s the path we continue down. The longing, the struggle, the fight, the lust, the need for equality is upon us, pressing on some of us to speak out for justice in ways as it has from the start. It is a fight, and a fight that is hopefully non-violent but not quiet, against other humans who contain urges of the opposite. They urge to suppress, with violence and threats of violence and brandish ‘open-carry’ weapons, those of us who seek real freedom of speech, those who wish to express ourselves, to be ourselves in public, vibrantly and without shame.
But struggle and silence are our natural state. The classroom says to follow, to respect, to be ordered. We cringed. Violence is not the only voice that stops us. But it is the main stick. The stick that beat the hands for decades. The nun wielded it and swapped it on the hand, a rap on the knuckles became a common phrase. Violence is the weapon of the oppressor in opposition to our voices.
On the September 18, 2021, the new riot of Trump followers threatens DC with violence. The internet reflects their voices, mostly hidden anonymously, behind fake names, in the dark. They can’t come out in public on the internet to voice their anger, their hatred, their death threats. Of they will never work in this town again. Son the streets, where it matters, their numbers remain small and get smaller. They will be tracked, recorded, those seeking justice on the internet or in the police offices will mark their words. This is the purpose of the September 18, 2021 rally.
The September 18 rally will fail for them and show their raggedy small numbers.
Compare it afterwards to Martin Luther King’s rally in DC or his march in Birmingham. We who struggle for justice have our names and voices heard. If truth is real, it has a name attached to it, and the name is attached to a real person.
Now the ugly names in politics reflect those voices and because they have names attached, they think their truth, which is not mine, is real. It is real because it is now historical fact and recorded. Donald Trump was a name that attached himself to his words, and we have them all recorded — thanks in large part to his Twitter addiction. His racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and other ugly phrases and words all captured. His belittling, name calling of opponents, etc., all shamelessly made in public. Recorded.
That is what Trump’s follower loves, the shameless bullying of others.
Thank goodness others have followed in his suit. Marjorie Taylor Green, the failed CrossFit businesswoman turned congresswoman, still rants openly against her ‘opponents’, like her calling them on July 6, 2021, “brown shirts”, a Hitlerian reference. The list of their remarks is recorded and full of mostly Republicans who show little to no remorse, shame, decency, or regret in making them. And don’t own up to their words or deeds when they make them, like Matt Gaetz taking underage girls across county lines for sex. Only those few, along with those Democrats who make remarks and express regret or apologize and resign.
I am glad for the march on DC, the out-of-control Insurrection on January 6th, on September 18, 2021. Because now we have faces recorded, we have names. And we see them shrink. Only 300 people showed up for the Save America rally that featured the Pillow Man and other conservative luminaries, like disgraced General Flynn. A pathetic American tour started with Gaetz and Green side by side in California. We see their nooses, pitchforks, guns, and their small raggedy numbers shrinking.
Compared to them, we are legion. We can write in full paragraphs. And now our large mass, and not just the brave few, will no longer be silenced.
