I know it has been a while. I finally found a topic that I wanted to write about before I talked about it. The topic is hyperbole. For those who don’t know what that means, hyperbole is exaggeration intended to convey strong emotion or to emphasize a point, something not intended to be literal. All too often, we expect everyone to understand and approve our hyperbole, but someone we are arguing with, we want to hold up their words to a fundamentalist stringency that marks them as idiots. As Christ said, we strain at a gnat but swallow a camel.
We Need Trump in the Bullseye
This is a prime example of hyperbole. Biden gave a speech saying that Democrats needed to put Trump in their bullseye. Now the Republicans are getting up in arms about the statement, very upset because Trump has since endured an assassination attempt. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/15/biden-call-to-put-trump-in-bullseye-was-a-mistake-00168455
On one hand…..surely we all understand that the choice of words was exaggeration. Surely none of us is so crazed as to think that Biden actually was calling for assassination. Having said that…..
It’s Going to be a Bloodbath
I try to be centrist. But I also call out things, when I have a listening ear that isn’t serving a closed mind. My liberal friends, those with charitable hearts will forgive Biden and let bygones be bygones and simply live in peace. But make no mistake….there are reasons, frankly, legitimate reasons, why your conservative friends find it hard to let it go, as I believe most of you wish.
Does anyone remember when Trump was castigated by the media for saying if he lost the election it was going to be a bloodbath? With very few exceptions, liberal and even some centrist media reported this as though he were calling for riots, sedition, and revolution. Here are some examples of the reporting.
Media Manipulation
In the above videos, from supposedly centrist media, NPR, who I would have thought would have done better, made it through the first part of the video not telling us what to think, simply reporting the facts. But that is not good enough any more. You can’t make up your own mind about Trump based off of his hyperbole. We have to be sure to explain: “This is what Trump does…he uses words that get a rise out of people, then he can wave his hand and blame the media for creating some false narrative, but while many are litigating what he meant by those comments, going less noticed is Trump standing there and saluting January Six rioters, calling them hostages and patriots, and saying the prosecutions are a disgrace.”
That sure is a lot of words to say in order to prove to us that the half of the population who supports Trump are in fact (because after all, if you vote for this man you are like this man) wanting a bloodbath, and we know that because we know there were rioters in that audience (I guess we have the whole roster before us…there is no possible thought that maybe he was maybe addressing the whole nation and not JUST the people who took part in January 6). Your neighbor that voted for him are wicked dupes who want to bring out pitch forks and torches as soon as there is an excuse.
In the next, we have a reporter challenge Pence. “Do we REALLY understand what he means”? Because again, we can’t be allowed to do our own thinking. I am not smart enough to look up his speech and decide for myself, the reporter has to tell us. So why is the Tired Blogger hopping up and down about this?
I don’t doubt there are plenty of liberals who think that January 6 justifies all of this. The “fact” that Trump was a Russian asset justifies this. The media has told us a hundred reasons and a thousand times why anything we do or say against Trump is justified. But I tend to at least mostly agree with Scott Jennings.
At the very least, if you are going to even pretend to be fair minded, in my mind we have to come to an agreement that there was January 6, there was an assassination attempt. Maybe both sides should 1) take accountability for what they have done or said, 2) reporting has to get back to being less partisan, 3) if reporters can’t stop themselves from telling us not just the facts, but how they should be interpreted….I think it is our duty as citizens to STOP LETTING them do our thinking for us. Shut OFF the news for a while. Reflect, pray, meditate, read something that doesn’t just tell you how bad Trump is. Or Biden.
Wake up while you still have a Republic.
Tired Midnight Blogger (What Blogs at Midnight) 