Blaming the Democrats

In February 2016 kicking off this blog I wrote in Six Points:

"Beyond the Pale
The strategy of employing pure adversarial tactics in order to win on policy results in actions that are so extreme as to go "beyond the pale". Unfortunately, these tactics are made subject to the "he-said/she-said" journalistic approach even by the objective press , which can make them especially effective."

Like the Muslim ban of the first days of the Trump administration, the current manufactured crisis on immigration is a standard Trumpian move. Act to create a crisis and make false claims about responsibility for that crisis.

Deny responsibility and accuse the Democrats. Take advantage of the inclination of the mainstream press toward false equivalence: "GOP, Democrats are outraged but at odds over ending family separation at the border"

Let's not forget, only six weeks ago, Kirstjen Nielsen was the one being berated for failure to separate families at the border. Trump berated her for a half hour in front of other cabinet members and she reportedly prepared to resign.

Compare the actual headline to a possible alternative:

Nielsen crumples to pressure from Trump, Sessions on separation of families at the border

OR  a headline, with a subheader:

Trump administration plows forward with family separations at the border, continues pattern - shun personal responsibility and blame Democrats, the party out of power. 

Under mounting pressure, Trump enlists First Lady to drive home false message

Those headlines exist in a fictional universe of straight, objective reporting of the news. When Trump falsely blames Democrats for his new policy of family separation, he is following his standard course of action that deflects all responsibility to opponents. Take credit whether or not merited and shun responsibility, even for one's own actions. In this case, tapping into the softer image of Melania to make a "both sides" plea is a truly cynical bad faith ploy.

Our objective news media has improved since 2016 by reporting lying, but they (Wapo and especially NYT) only reluctantly report patterns of behavior by politicians as news, preferring to relegate those to opinion columns. But opinion is the "maybe true, maybe false" category where good faith opinion columns based on factual evidence can coexist in an equal frame with bad faith opinion columns that rely on false and misleading evidence."

Just reporting lies is not enough. The type of lie - blaming Democrats or Obama - needs to be reported. Low information people who are not steeped in the daily rundown on politics only see the ongoing battle of two equal and opposite sides. And when Republicans hold all of the power in Washington, but like to pretend they do not, blaming the Democrats is ridiculous.