The Left Continues To Self-Destruct

By Dr. Michael Brown

Rather than learn some valuable lessons from the resounding electoral victory of Donald Trump and the Republican Party, it appears that the left is lurching further leftward, thereby paving the way to its own demise.

Here are some recent examples.

The Washington Examiner claims that, according to inside sources, "CNN is taking an increasingly negative approach toward its coverage of President-elect Trump, causing at least some tension within the network."

Another inside source told the Examiner that, "CNN has always pledged to hold Trump accountable and that's what we should be doing." However, "Since the election, CNN has out MSNBCed MSNBC," meaning, become even more liberal than the very liberal MSNBC. "In the long term," the source said, "that's a dangerous place to be."

Does CNN not recognize that its reputation for being the Clinton News Network has greatly damaged its credibility? Does the network not understand that appearing to be even more blatantly biased against the president-elect will do far more harm than good?

Perhaps even worse is a major article in the Washington Post, claiming (in the words of the Post's Executive Editor Marty Baron) that a "Russian propaganda effort helped spread fake news during election," according to "independent researchers." (These "independent researchers" are behind the anonymous PropOrNot website, which was the primary source of the attempted exposé.)

According to Ben Norton and Glenn Greenwald, writing on TheIntercept.com on November 26, "This Post report was one of the most widely circulated political news articles on social media over the last 48 hours, with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of U.S. journalists and pundits with large platforms hailing it as an earth-shattering exposé. It was the most-read piece on the entire Post website on Friday after it was published."

And what, exactly, did this article claim? (Remember that we're talking about the Washington Post, not the National Enquirer.) Norton and Greenwald explain that, "The group's list of Russian disinformation outlets includes WikiLeaks and the Drudge Report, as well as Clinton-critical left-wing websites such as Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig, and Naked Capitalism, as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute."

So, it is the evil and ubiquitous Russian Empire that is fueling the right-wing fires of Drudge Report (which, of course, is simply a news aggregator rather than a news manufacturer) along with the libertarian fires of the Ron Paul Institute. Who knew?

So much for the liberal media being careful not to discredit itself in the aftermath of its election misreporting, because of which one can only wonder how long the New York Times slightly introspective mea culpa will last and how deep it will go.

The Times did, though, make a strong appeal for the Democrats to put their emphasis back on the economy rather than on leftist agenda items. But have the Democrats learned their lesson? Their consideration of Rep. Keith Ellison for party chair indicates that they are not getting the message either.

As noted by Fred Lucas on the Stream, "The leading candidate to be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., has said he wants the Democratic Party to come out against the Second Amendment, compared the 9/11 attacks to the Nazi Reichstag fire, and was affiliated with the controversial Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam."

Lucas also points out that Ellison "once said eventual nominee Hillary Clinton would have to prove she's not a Republican to get his support." Seriously?

Do the Democrats really think that identifying a radical-left Muslim as their party chairman will help them regain political power in America? Have they learned nothing from the Trump victory?

To give just one more example of the left's failure to put its finger on the pulse of America, consider ESPN's response to the death of Fidel Castro.