There Are Not Two Sides To The Trump-Ukraine Story
Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the James L. Knight Center, Friday, Sept. 16, 2016, in Miami. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
President Trump and the Republican Party are playing a dangerous game. As they begin to focus their fire on the identity of the whistleblower, we have to take a step back and not miss the forest for the trees. It’s easy to get caught up in every single Trump lie about the impeachment inquiry. We’ve debunked all of them at Rantt Media. But it’s vitally important for the mainstream media to focus fire on the objectively corrupt conduct of President Trump and not get tricked into giving undue credence to his lies.
When covering President Trump and the GOP’s lies, there must be an effort to actively avoid falsely equating Democratic and Republican arguments. You can’t treat vindictive claims on the right that are based on blatant lies as equal to those on the other side. If one side of the argument claims that crimes aren’t crimes and tells Americans not to believe their own eyes, the media cannot cover this as a legitimate political “strategy.” President Trump, the Republican Party, and right-wing media no longer exist in an objective reality and should be treated as such.
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Either way you look at it, Donald Trump’s extortion of Ukraine is illegal and impeachable. The President of the United States abused his power in an effort to extort the Ukrainian government to investigate his political targets. The President and his allies in his administration subsequently sought to cover up that corrupt activity. After a whistleblower exposed the truth of this effort, the White House released a transcript memo confirming the President explicitly requested these investigations from the Ukranian President amid withheld military aid.
Multiple witnesses have confirmed that there was not only a quid pro quo (extortion) campaign mounted to pressure Ukraine, but that President Trump was directly overseeing it. Donald Trump acted to further his personal interests in spite of the illegality of his actions and undermined American foreign policy in the process. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration and Republicans have launched a depraved disinformation campaign smearing the witnesses, including a Purple Heart veteran, and the whistleblower who sparked this saga.
Every single one of their arguments against the impeachment inquiry are in bad faith and not based in truth, but there is still coverage on some mainstream outlets that give their lies equal airtime without debunking them. While this has largely subsided, there was a period of several weeks where mainstream orgs rushed to legitimize President Trump’s false claims against Hunter Biden. That is playing into his hands. All President Trump really wants is an aura of corruption, which is why his administration pushed so hard for a public announcement from Ukraine about the launched investigations.
Many in the media are also avoiding an uncomfortable truth. It’s much easier to say the country is “divided” on impeachment than to say that one side is basing their beliefs on propaganda and lies from a right-wing media loyal to the president. If there was no Fox News, we’d be much higher than 50% of Americans supporting impeachment and removal from office.
Looking to make a difference? Consider signing one of these sponsored petitions:Members of the media need to be careful with the language they use that might falsely equate the two sides of this story. For example, when talking about individuals President Trump is targeting, at Rantt Media, we now use the word “political targets” rather than “political opponents.” Vice President Joe Biden is a political opponent because he’s running for the Democratic nomination. Hunter Biden and those on Mueller’s team Trump wants to be investigated are not political opponents. They are political targets.
This story is far from over. When the impeachment inquiry begins open hearings, the American people will hear more of these facts for themselves. This moment is vitally important and we all need to be vigilant. No making the same mistakes that were made during the 2016 election and throughout this presidency. President Trump has lied or made false claims over 13,000 times according to The Washington Post. It’s way past time to assume first that he is lying, rather than give him the benefit of the doubt, especially when all the evidence proves him wrong.
