Propaganda from conservative autocratic editorial pages

Standard misleading autocratic Republican motivated reasoning

This is a Jan. 6, 2022 example of routine radical right propaganda from the editorial page of the autocratic-plutocratic Wall Street Journal. It is a good but routine example of crackpot partisan motivated reasoning and deflection tactics. The WSJ autocrats ignore the reality of America’s situation as exemplified by this article, Campaigning to Oversee Elections, While Denying the Last One, from the New York Times[1]. The pro-autocracy WSJ editorial page published this deceit-riddled, hyper-partisan motivated reasoning as recently reported by The Week magazine, which wrote:

Democracy isn't dying, said the Wall Street Journal. Jan.6 was a national disgrace but the mob and Trump’s “‘war room’ of motley characters” never came close to overturning the election. The fact is that “America’s democratic institutions held up under pressure” -- thanks in large part to Republican officials who held firm and certified electoral votes and Republican-appointed judges who rejected “flimsy” election challenges. Not that you’d know that from listening to Democrats who “seem intent on exploiting that day to retain power.”

What the WSJ’s propaganda intentionally ignored are the facts that (i) the challenges to the 2020 election came in the form of a coordinated attack on the election from a sitting Republican US president and his close allies (the “motley characters”), (ii) most Republican Party elites and T****, the GOP’s leader, to this day still claim the 2020 election was stolen despite what the WSJ calls “flimsy” election challenges, (iii) Republicans who want the 1/6 coup attempt investigated or who stand for honest elections are being RINO hunted out of the party by the rest of the extremist authoritarian GOP elites, and (iv) as the NYT reported in the linked article above, Republicans are trying to take control of elections in red states to prevent a repeat of the non-existent massive election fraud in 2020, i.e., they want the power to overturn election results that Republican autocrats dislike.  

About those four omitted inconvenient facts. They are lies of omission. That is standard Republican propaganda tactics. Ignoring important, relevant facts like this is central to Republican propaganda. The WSJ editorial page exemplifies it quite well. Those ignored facts contradict the WSJ’s autocrat asserted opinion that 1/6 never came close to overturning the election. Despite the WSJ’s lies of omission, reasonable people can see 1/6 as having come close to succeeding. Both the ex-president and most congressional Republicans were and still are attacking the 2020 election as fraudulent. There was and still is major political power that drives the stolen election propaganda movement and responsive public opinion about it.

Also note the the WSJ autocrats’ cheap shot deflection about Democrats exploiting the 1/6 coup attempt to try to retain power. There is nothing wrong with pointing to 1/6 as evidence the Republican Party and its elite leadership are anti-democratic authoritarians who wanted to overthrow the government by guile and force. What is wrong with rationally and honestly exploiting a legitimate political issue for political gain? Nothing is wrong.

In my opinion, the Democrats would look a lot worse if they were not making a big deal of 1/6. Defense of democracy, the rule of law and truth demands no less than a strong, urgent, sustained response. Arguably, the Democrats are not making a big enough deal of it. In essence, what the WSJ autocrats and plutocrats are arguing is that (i) 1/6 was no big deal because not close to success in their opinion, and (ii) therefore it should be ignored and Americans should just move on. The Republican hope is that Americans will forget that Republicans anti-democratic extremists had everything to do with 1/6. It was not a matter of innocent tourists being confused or Antifa infiltrators causing confusion or any other crackpot lie the GOP has made up to deflect from its direct responsibility for what happened.

Hard questions: Does The Week magazine make the mistake called false balance or bothsidesism when reporting what is intentionally deceptive and flawed commentary from the WSJ? Do facts and sound reasoning in current American politics inherently favor the Democrats or the Republicans in their rhetoric and propaganda?

Footnotes: 

1. The NYT wrote this on Jan. 30, 2022:

Nearly two dozen Republicans who have publicly questioned or disputed the results of the 2020 election are running for secretary of state across the country, in some cases after being directly encouraged by allies of former President Donald J. Trump.

Their candidacies are alarming watchdog groups, Democrats and some fellow Republicans, who worry that these Trump supporters, if elected to posts that exist largely to safeguard and administer the democratic process, would weaponize those offices to undermine it — whether by subverting an election outright or by sowing doubts about any local, state or federal elections their party loses.