Some time in the next day or two I will be writing a column offering a list of reasons explaining why I’m not very panicky about, well, anything right now. I’m not saying that any of my readers are, I just like offering talking points that anyone can have printed in bulk, then have airdropped on liberal enclaves.
Longtime readers of mine know that I’m a giver.
The upcoming column was obviously inspired by the “ZOMG TARIFFFFFFSSSS!” freak-out going on all over dinosaur and social media, so I thought I would tee it up with something that I remembered from last year. There was a lot of emotion-free discussion among the Democrats’ flying monkeys in the mainstream media about the tariffs that the people who ran Joe Biden’s brain were hitting China with. For this column, we will focus on the two biggest players in Democratic political propaganda: The New York Times and The Washington Post.
This isn’t a column that’s for or against tariffs. Again, I’ll get into that in the next column. This is simply about the wildly different MSM coverage when it was Sir Sniffsalot behind the tariffs.
We will begin with this article from last September in the Times:
The Biden administration on Friday announced measures that will add tariffs to Chinese products worth tens of billions of dollars, a move intended to both protect American factories and project a tough-on-China approach ahead of the presidential election.
The tariffs, which range from 7.5 percent to 100 percent, will apply to clothing, solar panels, electric vehicles, syringes, steel and other goods that China has been selling at far cheaper prices than many American businesses, threatening to put U.S. factories out of business.
The steps are likely to raise the cost of some imports at a time when Americans are already dissatisfied with rising prices. But they also represent a major effort by the Biden administration to address a salient political issue for some voters: America’s dependence on China for an array of products.
Notice how the authors soft-pedal the likely negative response of the American public, then immediately shift to a “hey but this is a good thing” covering of the Democrats’ collective derrière. There’s no weeping and gnashing of teeth, or attempts to incite mass hysteria.
It’s almost as if the writers from the Times don’t view tariffs as a bad thing.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.
The article goes on to describe a “long awaited” report on a Biden administration review of the 2018 tariffs that President Trump placed on China. The report “concluded that the Trump tariffs had been effective in reducing U.S. exposure to harmful trade practices from China, and that they should be maintained.”
Not one word about $10,000 iPhones.
This was written after Biden had dropped out of the race and Kamala Harris was driving the Democratic nomination clown car. The Times was in full campaign mode for the Dems then. So, nothing to see here, move along.
Last May, The Washington Post weighed in on the Biden administration’s whopping tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles:
President Biden on Tuesday quadrupled tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to 100 percent and imposed new levies on computer chips, solar cells and lithium-ion batteries in a bid to prevent a flood of low-cost Chinese products from swamping his hopes of reviving domestic manufacturing.
Capping a three-year review, the president slapped tariffs on a modest $18 billion in Chinese products “to protect American workers and businesses,” especially in the auto industry, the White House said.
Hmmm…where else have we heard similar rhetoric?
The WaPo authors — apparently it’s impossible for a modern journo to write an article by him or herself — also brought up the Trump 45 administration’s tariffs, noting that even though “Biden criticized Trump’s tariffs during the 2020 campaign, he kept almost all of them in place once in office.”
I wrote in last Friday’s Morning Briefing that I am no expert on international trade or tariffs. That means that I’m going to have to do some research to find out how tariffs suddenly become racist and apocalyptic. Before that, however, I’ll make sure I get those talking points ready for the airdrop.
Click the button below to get the Morning Briefing emailed to you every weekday. Have your coffee with me, people. It’s free and it supports conservative media!
We’ll keep on top of the Left’s media bias narrative machine. You can help PJ Media by becoming a part of our VIP subscriber family. Subscribe here and use the promo code FIGHT for a huge 60% discount.
