Listening to the media during this election you would think that the KKK is a massive, organized and well funded group of racists who are launching attacks against minorities across the country on a daily basis. They would have you believe there is a Klansman around every corner, in your grocery stores, your schools, your churches and under your bed. That these vile racists have formed a phalanx around their savor, Donald Trump, and their newfound power is sweeping across the nation, causing minorities to cower in fear wherever they go.
That’s about what I gathered from the mainstream media this year, and if a voter’s only source of news was CNN, the above observations are probably not far off from what they believe.
The truth is the KKK hasn’t been a powerful, threatening force in over 60 years, and even then it was not a nation wide force. When is the last time you heard about an old fashioned lynching, a cross burning or men in white roads chanting racist slurs around a bonfire at night? Sure, there are isolated issues of swastikas or other incidents, but it is no where near as common as the media is making it out to be. Also, some of these incidents have been proven to be hoaxes perpetrated by the very minorities they were meant to insult.
Are there still KKK members out there? Of course there are, but they are few and far between when compared to the average population, mostly sticking to private meetings in the back woods. At times they have held small demonstrations in public areas, but typically face such a backlash from the public that they are short lived.
So why have I heard the words racist, bigot or KKK from the media more than I ever have in my entire life this year?
One word…fear. Just take a look at some of these newspaper cover pages that tried to put the image in people’s minds of Trump and hooded figures.
Fear is a powerful motivator of people, especially during the election, and conjuring up images of scary men in white robes was the perfect engine to deliver this fear to the masses. The only problem was, very few people outside of the media and liberal social circles took it seriously. And why should they? Donald Trump lived 70 years of his life without ever being called a racist, bigot or accused of colluding with the KKK. The media really expected millions of voters to believe that this man has waited his entire life to run for president just to breath new life into the KKK and their beliefs?
Apparently the media really thought that narrative was believable enough to tip this election in Hillary’s favor, even though in reality it likely helped Trump by discrediting the press and their future accusations.
Although the media desperately tried to make the “KKK Trump” narrative stick through a one off endorsement by former Klan leader David Duke, the reality is that Hillary Clinton was closer to a Klansman than Trump ever was. Robert Byrd was a Democrat and United States Senator who Hillary once praised as “her friend and mentor”. She can be seen in the picture below enjoying his company:
So why didn’t you see this picture blasted all over the mainstream media networks during the election?
Well, it didn’t fit their narrative that Hillary was a shining champion of minorities while Trump wanted to send them back to the plantations. Thankfully, online social networks, such as The_Donald on Reddit, posted the above picture of Clinton and KKK leader Robert Byrd relentlessly in order to spread the message to voters.
And now, again, the mainstream media is trying to push the narrative that Trump’s attorney general choice, Jeff Sessions (Alabama) is a raging racist and connected to the KKK, with some outlets even going as far as to call him a “career racist”.
In reality, when Sessions was attorney general in Alabama, he actually prosecuted a KKK leader and insisted on the death penalty for him. He also successfully won a civil suit against the Klan, resulting in a 7 million dollar ruling, which effectively broke the backbone of their presence in Alabama.
I believe the media is rapidly running out of ammo to use against Trump and his administration, as they literally threw everything they had at him during the election. Now they are left with their typical game plan of trying to brand any conservative as a racist, even though only their most hardcore liberal viewers are believing it. In fact, a recent poll showed that 75% of Americans felt that the media was bias towards Trump and overly favorable towards Clinton during the election.
That’s three quarters of the country that believes the media is skewed and bias. They wonder why Trump got elected despite their best efforts to villainize him, but it’s because their claims became so outrageous than even mainstream voters could see through their bias.
Donald Trump and the media will likely continue to battle throughout his presidency, as it appears they haven’t learned anything from their massive failure during the election, and the more they push, the more Trump will bypass them and speak directly to the American people in order to avoid the “racist” spin the press would put on his messages.
The mainstream media has some serious self examination and housecleaning to do, but they won’t, so they will sit back and wonder why alternative news websites are gaining popularity while their advertising revenues plunge into the red.