OPINION:
If the Joe Biden administration is truly going to create a Disinformation Governance Board within the Department of Homeland Security, and if Nina Jankowicz is truly going to head up this group, a la George Orwellian Ministry of Truth, then at the least they ought to start with the Democrat Party and with Dems’ faithful water carriers in the press.
Why not go after those most known for presenting false information as fact, right?
Democrats plus mainstream media equal massive misinformation, disinformation, and deception campaigns. That’s called bang for the buck, right there — 2021 alone was a banner a year for ‘em.
There was The Washington Post with its November gaslighting of two-plus years of false Steele Dossier reporting. You know, the reporting that resulted in a Pulitzer Prize for Russia collusion coverage — the same Russia collusion coverage that proved to be little more than disinformation?
Then there was the White House’s own disinformation campaign about inflation — both the denials and then the reversals of logic, when Joe Biden’s own economic experts tried to seriously claim that rising prices on gas, food and the like were actually evidence of a prosperous, positive economy. That was followed by leftists in the media claiming the same.
“Why inflation can actually be good for everyday Americans,” CNN wrote in December.
“Inflation Is Good for You,” The Intercept wrote in November.
Yay, team Biden. Way to stick it to the American people and make them feel guilty for complaining about their economic struggles.
Moving on.
Moving on to border lies.
Biden, to NBC, in mid-2021 whined about inheriting “one god-awful mess at the border” from President Donald Trump, in part because “we didn’t find out they had fired a whole lot people, [and that border control was] understaffed considerably.”
That’d be true — if it had been Opposite Day when he said it. Biden’s border mess was a creation of his own which came by way of his utter booting of all-things-Trump. Border wall, be gone. Deportations, be gone. Disinformation is de order of de day.
How about that Chris Cuomo?
And speaking of CNN’s finest moments — how about that Jim Acosta and his brash lie that podcast host Joe Rogan took a “controversial treatment designed for animals” to treat his COVID, or that equally bold lie from Erin Burnett who said Rogan “took a drug intended for livestock.” How about that bit of Ivermectin disinformation?
“Let’s try to keep track of the Democrat lies,” as Howie Carr wrote in The Boston Herald in July of 2021.
“Democrats lie and the media lets them,” as Scott Jennings wrote in the Courier-Journal in May of 2019.
I’m not a socialist, I’m a progressive. I’m not a socialist, I’m a democratic-socialist. Climate change is settled science. Face masks work. We’re not teaching critical race theory. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, and it depends on what the meaning of “is” is.
Democrats lie. It’s what they do; more than that, it’s what they have to do in order to win any political support at all for their horrible platforms and agendas and legislative goals. They can’t win on vision so they have to spin, skew, distort, distract, deceive, deny and deceive some more in order to gain any traction in the political world, to score any wins, to win any elections. They are the party of disinformation — the party that sparked even a book about their habitual disinformation campaigns, called “25 Lies: Exposing Democrats’ Most Dangerous, Seductive, Damnable, Destructive Lies and How to Refute Them,” by Vince Everett Ellison, published January 11, 2022.
The fact Democrats now want to appoint a disinformation czar to help minority communities see the lies of elections and campaigns is disinformation in itself.
It’s not that Republicans don’t lie.
It’s not the American people themselves don’t spin a yarn or two — or three or more — whenever the mood strikes.
It’s just that Democrats are now the ones acting as if they don’t lie — as if they only give good information — and that therefore, they should be the ones in charge of deeming which information is information, and which is disinformation.
But here in America, disinformation is just another word for free speech. Americans have the right to speak as they wish; it’s a God-given authority; no government stamp of approval necessary.
If Democrats want to monitor and label speech fact versus fiction, they best start with their own. But better would be to abandon the whole idea of a department of misinformation.
Step one is to get the people accustomed to the idea of government-sanctioned speech.
Step two is to regulate.
Step three is to stifle. And that’s where the Chinese rubber meets the American road.
Only communist, dictatorial, tyrannical countries give government the right to monitor speech. Disinformation czars don’t belong in America. They should be drummed from politics, government and society, the faster the better. They’re cancers that will kill individualism and grow collectivism.
They’re evil, pure and simple.
But thing is, in America, Democrats, have a right to their political lies. Democrats have a right to spin their speech and skew their platforms and distract from their true intents and yes, even deceive the public with their narratives and messages and agendas and campaigns. It’s incumbent on the people, the voters, the watchdogs, to call them out and argue for truth and ultimately, take the final say at the ballot box. That’s how we do things here in America.
That’s called freedom.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.
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