NEW YORK (AP) — It was a split screen for the ages on MSNBC Monday: on the left side, President Donald Trump talking about restoring law and order. On the right, a tear-gassed young woman vomiting in a Washington street.
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For a nation rubbed raw following a traumatic weekend, cable television news did little to promote peace, love and understanding in its most-watched hours
Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC poke and prod the nation’s divide on most nights, and each has been amply rewarded in the ratings. Trump’s stern speech and walk to a nearby church after protesters were forcibly cleared out of the way Monday raised the temperature on those networks even higher.
“The president seems to think that dominating black people, dominating peaceful protesters, is law and order,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper said. “It’s not. He calls them thugs. Who’s the thug here?”
At the same time on Fox News Channel, Tucker Carlson said that Trump provided “a powerful symbolic gesture, a declaration that this country, our national symbols, our oldest institutions, will not be desecrated and defeated by nihilistic destruction.”
For the most part, the television commentators talked past each other to vastly different audiences. CNN and MSNBC concentrated on peaceful protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police; the Fox News focus was on violence and property destruction in the streets.
The same arguments have animated American politics for decades, but cable news uses megaphones to amplify them.
Trump has the full authority to use the federal government to go into states to restore order, Fox’s Sean Hannity said.
“If the liberal mayors or governors in most cases are unwilling and unable to protect their own citizens, the federal government will,” he said.
Not so fast, Rachel Maddow said on MSNBC.
“While there are depths that even the most doomsday predictions about the Trump presidency did not plumb, this rubicon moment arrived tonight in the haphazard and slipshod way that has become familiar for most of the other previously unimaginable dark turns this country has taken since Mr. Trump has become president,” she said.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo concluded of Trump: “This is who he is, and it’s not what the country needs right now.”
“You’re not surprised, are you?” his colleague Don Lemon said.
Trump came off Monday as “a modern-day dictator,” Lemon said.
But the headline on Fox News at that moment was “Chaos Blankets American Streets.” Reporter Bryan Llenas showed pictures of broken glass in front of storefronts littering New York City streets.
Criminals and domestic terrorists are using George Floyd “to try to murder America,” host Laura Ingraham said.
“The president tonight reaffirmed his duty to defend the Constitution,” she said.
Problem is he lacks absolute power
Cossack police riot in DC so trump could get a foto op at church. Same time he gave his threat-speech. Attacks on peaceful protesters now. Attacks on Jews by his fine volk next. As predicted.
I understand we now use the codeword “thug” to mean “black person.” That being the case, the President is not a thug.
> “concentrated on peaceful protests”
I saw some of that. The CNN commentator was dutifully describing the scene and protests as peaceful even while standing in front of a building engulfed in flames and while he himself dodging projectiles.
Attacks on Jews ch”v will only come from your beloved volk. So says your kurva Rachael Madcow. Verstanden ?
Not to worry so long as the government checks keep on rolling the shnorrers no matter what religion what color will keep on voting for those who spread the money.
Who needs a Zionist Israel when the goldeneh medinah pays you to be the token yid. The Yid in America is on borrowed time. The Yid will not be able to buy himself out of this. America is sinking quickly.
Fine people on both sides
He will be a hero when he actually sends tanks in in to Nyc , ignore the damn law about the crazies on here saying we can’t . Roll in those tanks and shoot to kill . Anyone looting a store gets shot by tanks in the way out .
You want to protest ? Apply for a permit . Only those that follow permit laws are allowed . You step out of bounds , you get shot in the leg ( wouldn’t shoot to kill for stepping out of the line only for looting like animals ) . Then trump will be a hero . Arab springs don’t work and peaceful BLM protests are nonsense too. Countries need to end this stupidity and navitity
We’re already at war. A sports commentator was suspended for saying ALL LIVES MATTER. He was forced to apologise to the BLACK LIVES MATTER crowd.
This is what’s in store.
Bring in the tanks, shoot looters and reelect Trump.
Our country can be in shambles 5 months from now.
ap is the biggest thug