It’s a day that ends in why, so what are the corporate media journalists doing? Either Zoomin with Toobin and journalisming all over the place or humiliating themselves on Twitter, making all the jokes about them seem truer than ever.
Over the weekend the 2nd option was what was going on over at the Washington Post, which decided to publish an article fact-checking a meme Elon shared. Yes, really.
You see, Elon was trying to explain why he seems like a conservative even though many of his personal beliefs are on the left, so he tweeted out this:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 28, 2022
The meme, of course, is more or less a representation of Maher’s famous statement that “Let’s get this straight. It’s not me who’s changed, it’s the left. A large contingent has gone mental, and I’m willing to call them out.”
The journalists over at the Washington Post saw that and decided to start journalism harder than ever, so they posted this article:
Analysis: What Elon Musk’s polarization graph gets wrong https://t.co/2W2SETgNla
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 28, 2022
The article more or less fact-checks the meme, saying:
One can see how this is appealing to Musk, who has leaned into the idea that Twitter is dangerously influenced by extreme left-wing thinking and whose recent engagement on the platform has been to express sympathy toward overt right-wing trolls. But the illustration is simply wrong — not solely in its obvious exaggeration for effect, but in its understanding of how the country has changed over the past decade or two.
It then goes on to try and fact-check a meme. Surely the journalists have better things to do.
That was promptly mocked, with surprisingly reasonably anons and commenters pointing out that a) WaPo didn’t even use the right meme and b) that they totally missed the point. Here are some of those comments:
It’s not a scientific chart, it’s a meme expressing how former liberals feel now that they are characterized as conservatives for believing traditional liberal points of view
It’s not a scientific chart, it’s a meme expressing how former liberals feel now that they are characterized as conservatives for believing traditional liberal points of view
— Mouse (@Josephreadingtw) April 28, 2022
This wasn’t even his graph
This wasn’t even his graph
— Razzy (@RazielRazmataz) April 28, 2022
Are you really writing articles about memes? This is what this paper has devolved into.
Are you really writing articles about memes? This is what this paper has devolved into.
— Donny Ceresa (@CrazyEe33) April 28, 2022
Well, apparently the rest of the regime media was in the market for even more a Twitter beatdown and hurting because then Economist journalist G. Elliott Morris decided to go on a long-winded Twitter rand about how “wrong” Elon is, also fact-checking the meme. Here that is:
https://t.co/Dgza08Lcj6 pic.twitter.com/9qNPoRA7Xo
— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) April 28, 2022
https://t.co/Zw3ZSBvV8d pic.twitter.com/DVuIRZelHK
— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) April 28, 2022
https://t.co/mOmUp5cr6i pic.twitter.com/vu89QekE1L
— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) April 28, 2022
People keep sending this chart to me and those people need to read up on the metric. This is a measure of how *consistent* voters are in their beliefs, not how extreme those beliefs are. It shows sorting not polarization.(IIRC when I was @ Pew some ppl called it “ideocentrality”) pic.twitter.com/oB6XKpyiPb
— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) April 28, 2022
And he too was promptly torn into, with commenters making fun of him for trying to fact-check a meme, particularly as everyone gets what Elon is getting at.
The right might seem farther right, but limiting immigration, cutting welfare, and protecting free speech have been conservative talking points for decades now. Even if some culture war issues such as gay marriage, though the right has hardly held the line on that issue, might make real conservatives seem like dyed in the wool reactionaries, the right has seemed to remain somewhat steady, at least in what it believes if not degree.
Meanwhile, the left is now pushing for transing the kids, is all on board for going after free speech, wants to cancel trillions in student debt, is all in on wacky racial theories, and has gone insane when it comes to what instruction schoolchildren should receive.
Whatever “data” from outlets like WaPo that he cites can’t cover that up and hide that the left has started going insane on some culture war issues, which is why Musk’s meme makes total sense on an intuitive level, whatever the regime media uses “muh science” to try and show.
The New York Post, reporting on that wild drift of the left toward the fringes, a counterpoint to what Morris claims, said:
Why the furor? Because the meme is right. As he explained in a follow-up, “I strongly supported Obama for president, but today’s Democratic Party has been hijacked by extremists.”
The American left has, over the past decade and a half, gone insane.
Firm support for affirmative action was overtaken by the insanity of “anti-racism” and critical race theory. Rather than accepting LGBTQ people, the litmus test became embracing gender transition for kids, mandatory use of “preferred pronouns” and denial of the obvious facts about trans athletes.
Criticism of law-enforcement excesses morphed into “Defund and Abolish.” Supporting immigration, into outright opposition to any border control.
That’s to say nothing of free speech. An American left that long cherished it now deems it an insidious form of “white supremacy.”
And it all comes packaged in fury at anyone who hasn’t gone along, let alone those who dissent.
Many traditional liberals, Elon and Bill Maher being the most obvious, feel left behind by a party that wants to trans the kids and teach them that whiteness is evil; even if Morris’ data is true when it comes to the average liberal, it’s obvious that the spokespeople for the left have cone crazy.
