RVAWonk on Twitter Nails it about @WHCA / Michelle Wolf Debacle

[CousinIT]

Link to tweet

Media & society have a natural tendency to normalize those in power, by virtue of the fact that they are in power.

This is what we're seeing as much of the WH press corps directs more outrage at criticism of the admin's lies than they've ever directed at the lies themselves.

UNROLLED thread (emphasis mine): https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/990744064717983744.html?refreshed=yes


Media & society have a natural tendency to normalize those in power, by virtue of the fact that they are in power.

This is what we're seeing as much of the WH press corps directs more outrage at criticism of the admin's lies than they've ever directed at the lies themselves.

eli friedmann
@eligit
Do journalists understand what they’re dealing with?
Time to stop treating this administration with restraint and civility.
These are dangerous people.

Link to tweet

…


From the very beginning, most of the DC press corps treated Trump as just another candidate. Even their criticism of Trump is inherently rooted in the assumption that he is just another president, like the others. They've never stepped outside of that box.

They criticize Trump for saying X or doing Y, but inherent in that criticism is the assumption that Trump actually cares about the norms he's violating or the institutions he's degrading. Each incident is framed as an isolated blow, rather than part of an intentional assault.

Possibly the worst part about the DC press corps' criticism of Michelle Wolf is that they're gaslighting the American people. They're doing the exact same thing Trump, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, & the rest of the administration do on a daily basis.

They're criticizing Wolf for something that never happened, and they're insisting that what we all saw with our own eyes is not what actually happened. I actually re-watched the entire thing today to make sure I wasn't going crazy. (I'm not).

Possibly the worst part about the DC press corps' criticism of Michelle Wolf is that they're gaslighting the American people. They're doing the exact same thing Trump, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, & the rest of the administration do on a daily basis.

Instead of focusing on the substance of Wolf's criticism — that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a complicit oppressor on behalf of an authoritarian regime-in-the-making — they diverted America's attention to a joke about eyeshadow.

The reason they're focusing on eyeshadow rather than the actual target of Wolf's criticism is because to acknowledge the substance of her joke would require them to confront the fact that they either lie, enable liars, or turn a blind eye to lies to maintain the access they need.