Democrats Threaten To Shut Down Government, Media Has No Problem With It
Despite the establishment media’s current meltdown over the Trumpocalypse, the truth is the end of civilization has already occurred. At least that’s what they told us just a few short years ago. In case you’ve forgotten, back in 2013 the dastardly Republicans “shut down the government” for two whole weeks. The result was, well, not a lot, but according to the breathless reports leading up to, during, and after the two-week (partial) shut down, society as we know it came to a screeching halt.
Weirdly, repeated threats of a potential shut down by Democrats so far have not resulted in really any mainstream media reports that seem at all concerned that the world will end, again.
On Monday, Democratic congressional leaders, headed up by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, issued more threats of their likely obstruction of a Republican budget. Their non-negotiables: any budget including funding for a border wall or a “deportation force,” or failing to fully fund the EPA or Planned Parenthood, is dead in the water. In other words, if the GOP tries to promote the Trump agenda, the Democrats will shut this sucker down.
“If Republicans insist on inserting poison pill riders such as defunding Planned Parenthood, building a border wall, or starting a deportation force, they will be shutting down the government and delivering a severe blow to our economy,” Sen. Schumer said in a statement on Monday.
The response from the Big Three, CNN and MSNBC to Schumer’s threat: not much. In fact, none of them covered it Monday morning. Online, a few outlets, like Bloomberg, touched on it, but with no panic, no chiding of Democrats, only reminders that the Republicans (with no blame falling whatsoever on the Democrats) “shut down the government” back in 2013.
To underscore the difference in coverage, MRC’s Kristine Marsh helpfully takes us on a walk down memory lane about those “endless days of outrage” from the leftist establishment media surrounding the catastrophic “shut down” of 2013, which included parading cancer-stricken children and declaring Christmas ruined:
On NBC’s Nightly News October 3, 2013, anchor Brian Williams whined, “All kinds of people are getting cheated out of salaries, benefits, medical treatment.” NBC then showcased a child with cancer whose hopes for recovery were dashed because drug trials were halted due to the cut to the NIH funding. Yet NBC purposefully didn’t mention that Republicans voted to restore funding to the NIH the day before and were stopped by Senate Democrats. So who really deserved the blame?
Brian Williams didn’t mince words again October 14, when he deliberately laid blame on Republicans:
WILLIAMS: This current showdown and this current government shutdown traces its history back to a determined core of GOP House members who are vehemently against ObamaCare and were willing to shut down the government because of it.
… Towards the end of October, NBC was still complaining about the shutdown. CNBC correspondent Bertha Coombs hyped that it could be “the Grinch that stole Christmas” for families affected by the two week shutdown.
Today’s Bryant Gumbel also openly blamed Republicans.
GUMBEL: Yeah, but I called it the GOP shutdown….I thought it was a false equivalency for people to say it was a government shutdown, a failure of government. It was not. It was a few individuals who were trying to extort the government.
So if the Democrats’ threats turn to action and their political machinations yet again lead to a (partial) shut down, will their allies in the establishment media sound the alarm in the same way and blame them as they did the obstructionist Republicans? We all know the answer to that one.
