The Media ‘Jumps the Shark’

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I’ve been critical of the media, as many of you are. But recently it’s jumped the proverbial shark. In other words, it’s gotten so outrageous, it’s almost incomprehensible, unfathomable.

Elon Musk, according to the Media Research Center, has had 96% unfavorable coverage in our American media. What did he do that was so wrong?

He rescued astronauts who were stranded in space. Tesla has revolutionized the electric vehicle industry. Social media is open and free, due to his acquisition of X. Starlink has more satellites—that private entity that he created—it has more satellites than the governments of the United States, all of the EU countries, and China combined. It is the world’s methodology of accessing high-speed internet from remote places or anywhere.

So, what has he done wrong?

If you look at the media coverage of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the deported illegal alien who beat his spouse—and by the way, there’s new information, even today, coming out about the violence, which he inflicted on his wife. He dragged her out of a car. He hit her in the face repeatedly. She was afraid he was going to kill her. This was a horrible person. We have the tapes from the trafficking stop where he was speeding. His license was invalid. He had members that he was trafficking that were illegal, as was he.

I could go on and on. But he is a sympathetic character in the media’s eyes. And the greatest Renaissance man of the 21st century is a villain. It makes no sense.

When we get to this question of illegal aliens, we had Judge Hannah Dugan—the Wisconsin judge—who, remember, she hid an illegal alien. I shouldn’t say “hid”—obstructed federal authorities from accessing him when they knew they had a writ out for him. And he was in her courtroom on charges that he had assaulted three people. And those victims were in the courtroom.

Judge Dugan did not say to the victims, “Here is the person who assaulted you. I wanna watch this courtroom drama and see how justice is carried out.” No, she ignored them. She ignored the prosecutor. She took the law in her own hands, broke her oath of office, and escorted him out.

What’s my point? On PBS, on their nightly “News Hour,” public TV, the conservative commentator—and I think that with all due justice to David Brooks, he wouldn’t consider himself a conservative anymore. But nonetheless, that is how PBS operates Left-Right, by getting someone who really isn’t a genuine conservative to reflect the conservative view of half of America.

But he said that she was at one point heroic. It’s not—David, it’s not heroic to break your oath of office. It’s not heroic to betray people who are in your courtroom seeking justice and to snub them. It’s not heroic to try to help somebody evade a federal authority and put their lives in danger. They had to chase him down. They had no idea what he would do or who he might meet. And so, she was aiding and abetting a criminal. That is not a heroic thing to do, especially if you’re a judge.

And then we come to Sen. John Fetterman. This is very strange, the media’s reaction to him. Remember he ran for the Senate. And during that campaign, he had a severe stroke. And he was nearly incapacitated. He was running against the Republican TV medical guru Dr. Mehmet Oz, who’s now in charge of the federal programs that oversee Medicare and Social Security medical plans, Medicaid and Medicare.

But here’s my point. During that campaign, people had legitimate differences of opinion with him. And they were worried that he was non compos mentis. He hadn’t fully recovered from a stroke. The Left said, “No, he’s fine. This is very cruel to suggest that a candidate who’s struggling to be rehabilitated is somehow demented or something.” OK, so he won.

And then gradually over the last two years, he has—I don’t know what the word—he has reacted, in opposition, to the hard left drift of the Democratic Party. Especially on the taboo subject of support for Israel. He’s been a staunch supporter of Israel. He’s even said that he might even support the confirmation hearing—he did—of Pete Hegseth.

And what was the media’s reaction? Suddenly they went from A to Z, from the alpha to the omega. They said, “Something’s wrong with him. We have inside reports that he’s non compos mentis. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He might have to step down.”

This was the same group of media grandes that said that he was perfectly fine when he seemed to be an authentic progressive. When he’s not, then, all of a sudden, he’s a threat to the sanctity of the Senate and should be removed.

This is incredible, what the media is doing. Remember, this is not new. They told us that President Donald Trump was non compos mentis, that the acting attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, and the interim FBI chief were considering wearing a wire to see if he was demented. And remember in response to that they brought in a Yale psychiatrist to swear through a telediagnosis—which is totally unprofessional—that he was cognitively challenged. And in answer, Donald Trump took the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and aced it.

But what am I bringing up that for? Because former President Joe Biden really was mentally compromised. And he was gradually in a state of mental and cognitive decline. And the media told us he was fit as a fiddle, at least until he was removed from his candidacy by the insiders of the Democratic Party.

The media, in other words, has no credibility. It has no ethics. It has no moral compass. It’s just an extension of the progressive project. And it makes the necessary adjustments with what it calls “the truth” depending on the political utility to the Left, in general, and the Democratic Party, in particular.

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