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In 2016, the idea that a sitting president would refuse a peaceful transition of power was unthinkable. It was simply a thing that was and had been for over 100 years.
By 2020, rejecting the peaceful transfer had shifted into the Overton Window. In 2021? Insurrection and murder.
By 2020, rejecting the peaceful transfer had shifted into the Overton Window. In 2021? Insurrection and murder.
This rightward shift has been happening for years, in no small part due to the press. Instead of treating "neutral" as truth, facts, objective reality, and popular sentiment, the press instead has framed "neutral" as between Democrats and the GOP.
Democrats have broadly championed popular social policies like universal healthcare, a living wage, gun control, and abortion access. They favor popularly-supported and scientifically-backed policies for things like addressing climate change and the ongoing pandemic.
If you look at the true ideological and political center of our country, not based on the center between two opposing political parties, but the center of public sentiment, Democrats are pretty squarely in the center. The progressive wing is a little to the left, but not by much.
Republicans represent roughly 25% of the US population that is increasingly at odds with popular public sentiment and goals. They are against abortion, gun control, expanded healthcare access, a living wage, immigration, and equitable voter access.
They are not only not the center of the country, they have, as a party, moved increasingly away from the center, to the point it's almost impossible to find points of connection between their party positions and the center at all.
But the press continues to treat the center as somewhere between Dems and the GOP. When it comes to masks, it doesn't matter what the CDC recommends or that 90% of Americans wear and support wearing masks.
Anti-maskers are treated as a large, reasonable political faction.
Anti-maskers are treated as a large, reasonable political faction.
We've seen this legitimization and normalization with all sorts of fringe ideology purely due to its association with Republicans: unfettered 2A, shutting down abortion clinics, ramping up fossil fuel dependency, fearmongering about universal healthcare...
Since November, this has rapidly progressed into legitimizing and normalizing things which destabilize our democracy: rejecting the outcomes of elections, refusing a peaceful transition of power, a violent insurrection, and threats to execute political opponents.
This month, the press has continued to give time to Republican leaders who claim the 2020 election was stolen, who refuse to condemn the insurrection, and who have publicly professed a desire to execute Democratic leaders or refused to condemn those who have.
The press has taken Biden and other Democrats to task over not showing sufficient desire for unity, whether through pursuing impeachment of a president who incited a violent insurrection or through supporting wildly, broadly popular COVID relief.
The press has given space for people like Josh Hawley, who helped incite the insurrection, to whine about being "canceled" and "muzzled."
The focus post-insurrection has been about humanizing and understanding the attackers. Normalizing them. Sympathizing with them.
The focus post-insurrection has been about humanizing and understanding the attackers. Normalizing them. Sympathizing with them.
As I said, the Overton Window has been slowly pushing into radical territory for years, but in the last 3 months, it has yanked abruptly into a space where rejecting elections, coups, and executions are the new normal.
We don't come back from this without significant change.
We don't come back from this without significant change.
And despite five years of journalists raising red flags about how they actively contribute to this shift and how they need to learn and adjust to avert further social deterioration, newsrooms continue to demonstrate they have learned nothing.
Trump and fellow Republicans organizing and inciting a violent attempt to overthrow the government is treated as on par with Democrats supporting higher taxes on billionaires.
Protesting masks is treated as less radical than supporting universal healthcare.
Protesting masks is treated as less radical than supporting universal healthcare.
Democrats speaking out against colleagues who incited an attack which nearly resulted in their deaths are treated as equally extreme as those colleagues who have openly called for the deaths of their fellow lawmakers.
Supporting cutting (again) wildly popular checks to people struggling to keep roofs over their heads and food on their tables or closing out insurrectionists' social media accounts are treated as radical as QAnon conspiracy theories and "militias" who continue to plot terrorism.
We simply cannot continue down this path and maintain democracy. And we won't unless newsrooms start making major changes to how they cover these things.
They should start by setting policies to defend at a basic level democratic norms, facts, and science.
They should start by setting policies to defend at a basic level democratic norms, facts, and science.
From there, newsrooms MUST detach their notions of what constitutes the political center in our country from a Red Team vs. Blue Team ball game approach.
There are polls on virtually every major policy proposal. Use those to tell you where the center is.
There are polls on virtually every major policy proposal. Use those to tell you where the center is.
Finally, newsrooms have to stop giving radical, violent ideologues and their supporters air time and sympathetic coverage. Period. There is no debate here.
This includes ending comparisons of left-wing support of popular policy to calls for coups and murder from the right.
This includes ending comparisons of left-wing support of popular policy to calls for coups and murder from the right.
