Dishonest reporting by the mainstream media is going to lead to the re-election of Donald Trump. You can take that to the bank. This was showed during last weekend's feeding frenzy over a comment Trump made about the American auto industry and China building a mega-factory in Mexico. From Trump's complaint about the situation, the media excerpted the phrase, “there is going to be a bloodbath if I don't get re-elected.” This became a laughable debate, and, worse, ignored many important policy discussions.
Instead, they went with a dishonest report, which was plain to everyone.
What Trump was talking about was the building of a massive EV plant in Mexico to manufacture the BYD car and using the Canada-USA-Mexico trade agreement to pump these cars into the US by the thousands with no tariff. In essence, the Trump comment was, “I'm going to tax these cars one hundred percent. That's if I get elected. If I don't get elected, there will be a bloodbath.”
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Only an idiot would decide that he was not talking about the auto industry. But the media took the comment out of context to predict political violence. This is dishonest reporting no matter how it is analyzed. But no matter, let's do it anyway.
Unfortunately, ignored a genuine policy discussion that could be used against Trump.. Who is this car maker? Nobody even bothers to report that fact. It's BYD, as mentioned above.
And can Trump impose a one hundred percent tariff without violating an agreement?
Does anyone see that this is worthy of a genuine discussion?
After all, it was Trump himself who modified NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) and made it into one of his successes, now dubbed USMCA (United States Mexico Canada Agreement). This agreement was examined by China and exposed a free trade loophole that could be blamed on Trump by any policy wonk who took a look. Has anyone? Why bother when you can take a phrase out of context, hammer Trump with it, and think you can get away with it.
That's a lot easier than actual policy and free trade analysis.
One may argue that that China foresees a Trump presidency and new anti-China policies. Circumvent this by setting up shop in Mexico and flooding the US with ersatz Chinese products protected by the free trade agreement.
Does even one mainstream media operation think this is more important a discussion than a ridiculous out-of-context quote?
What is wrong with the editors of today's media outlets?
Even the right-leaning operations, such as Fox News, are not interested. They are happy to mock the other media outlets for the bloodbath hysteria.
None of this would be so bad for the media if it were not for the fact that, without exception, they all jumped on the out-of-context comment. All of them. Only a few fringe outlets, like the Young Turks, refrained.
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And this was worldwide. I saw a chyron on France24 that read, “Trump says there will be a bloodbath is he is not re-elected.” Scripps News, a newcomer to TV news that’s trying to be middle-of-the-road, ran a similar crawler. It was remarkable to watch.
If people want to see the part of the speech in Ohio where Trump discussed the bloodbath, it's here and in context on YouTube.
Later in the week, as blow-back on the out-of-context nature of the quote became discussed, the mainstream media did not pull back, but in most instances doubled down as if at a poker table, hoping to bluff its way to a winning hand. “Yes, it seemed to be about the auto industry, but we know what he means.” Everyone is a mind reader.
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Even Snopes and the fact checkers backed the media with the cop-out, “he used those exact words.” Snopes further showed its partisan colors by using a tweet (shown above) that added the word “violent” while never pointing out that Trump never said “violent” nor implied it. It would not make sense in context.
But no matter, the damage is done—though it’s actually done to the media and the dishonest pundits who have long since given up the high ground. And this time, it's a shame, since actual policies that need serious discussion were ignored in favor of the cheap shot.