Salon - Media messes up coverage of voting rights, blames Biden for GOP's racism

[TomCADem]

This article hits the nail on the head and explains why the media, and even many progressives, end up blaming Democrats for GOP racism. For example, look at this Board. Rather than discuss any of the 50 Republican Senators that are actively supporting racist vote suppression efforts in the States, you have much of the attention being focused on Manchin and Sinema, two Democrats. All this focus obscures and gives a free pass to Republicans.

This is sort of like how right wing media managed to flip the script and blame President Obama for not doing enough to stop racial tensions. Likewise, Republicans blame Biden for not doing enough to overcome their anti-vaccine misinformation efforts, which have lead to the death of many unvaccinated Americans.

At this point, I guess everyone on this Board should take responsibility for their crazy, racist Trump supporting uncle. Why are you not doing enough to prevent him from displaying a Trump flag? We will not blame him, because he is a Republican, and we expect no less.

https://www.salon.com/2022/01/20/media-messes-up-coverage-of-voting-rights-biden-for-gops/

emember: With Republicans, every accusation is a confession. Nowhere is that more true than in the discourse around fair elections and voting rights, both of which Republicans stand firmly against. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats attempted to pass a bill that would both protect voting rights and strengthen elections against blatant Republican sabotage. In response, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., lied and said that Democrats don't care about "securing citizens' rights," but just "about expanding politicians' power."

The opposite is true, however. It's Republicans who are swiftly dismantling the right to vote, in the name of preserving their own power. As such, the party has been passing state-level voting restrictions targeting people of color, redrawing district maps to marginalize minority populations, and running unmistakeably racist purges of election offices. So President Joe Biden was right to ask, in a speech in Atlanta last week, "Do you want to be the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?"

Republicans made their choice Wednesday, using their filibuster power — which is shamefully being protected by two turncoat Democrats, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — to block the passage of the Senate voting rights bill. Some Republicans are no doubt personally racist, in full agreement with Donald Trump's repeated insistence that racially diverse voters in cities like Philadelphia and Detroit are "frauds". Some are just worried about their own power, which they know is threatened in all Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity, have equal rights to the ballot box. Either way, the use of the filibuster — in line with its history — was leveraged by Republicans as a tool of white supremacy.

The obvious people to blame for this gross behavior are Republicans themselves. But what's the fun in that? So, instead, far too many in the media are letting Republicans off the hook and instead fixing the blame on Democrats for somehow not doing more to make Republicans less evil.

[JoeOtterbein]

1. K n R ! Thanks for posting! nt

[JustAnotherGen]

2. Spot on

And we shouldn't give Mitch MicConnell any wiggle room on his 'African Americans' comment.

He did not misspeak. It was deliberate. And it was a 'tell' of who he and his 49 other band of merry malcontents deliberately and maliciously disenfranchised including that traitor Tim Scott.

[2naSalit]

3. K&R

[TheRealNorth]

4. 100% agree

Media is spinning the failure of passing the bill as some sort of huge surprise blow to Biden..... most of us knew Mancin and Sinema were not going to budge.... but we put them and the Republicans on the record. And guess what, if we just do nothing (in terms of trying to pass legislation) then we would have been blamed for that as well. Fuck the MSM and the few Democrats that are acting like Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi didn't do enough. Truth is, Mancin and Sinema have us by the cajones and if they bolt for the Republicans, then Moscow Mitch is back in charge and we get nothing- no more judges, no more appointments, no Supreme Court seats if one should come up.

[TomCADem]

5. Also, Manchin and Sinema Are Not Expressly Opposed...

…to voting rights legislation. Their opposition is focused on the filibuster. Republicans are the ones who are expressly trying to pass laws to suppress the vote.

Even so called moderate Republicans have not shown any willingness to entertain a debate about protecting the right of Americans to vote.