Nolte: Why the Media's Moral Panic Around Ukraine Failed to Reboot Biden's Presidency

The moment Russia invaded Ukraine, the White House, Democrats, and the corporate media saw an opportunity to gaslight the American people into a reboot of His Fraudulency Joe Biden’s presidency.

This campaign has fired utterly and entirely.

As he continues to hit record lows, the polling for Biden looks as awful as it did pre-Ukraine. What’s more, the polling for Republican chances of romping all over Democrats in the 2022 midterms looks as good as ever. Ukraine has done nothing to alter anyone’s perception of Biden as anything other than a failure. In fact, on the specific issue of Ukraine, Biden’s poll numbers are underwater.

So what happened?

As we all saw in the first days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the goal of Democrats and their corporate media allies was to swamp the news cycle with hysterical, 24/7 stories about this moral outrage. The invasion was deliberately covered in an overwhelming and coordinated flood of “outrage” stories that would knock inflation/crime/illegal immigration/gas prices, etc., out of the news cycle.

The second goal was to create an actual moral panic. The template would be the same one used to cause so much destruction around the murder of George Floyd and the coronavirus. Remember, it wasn’t enough to want to see justice for George Floyd. You must literally kneel before the terrorists in Black Lives Matter and approve of their riots. It wasn’t enough to get vaccinated. You had to approve of fascist mandates and the abusive masking of two-year-olds. And so, it wasn’t enough to hope Russian President Vladimir Putin was humiliated in Ukraine. You must HATE Putin, HATE all Russians and DEMAND America be on the “right side of history” to destroy Russia and Russians!

Within moments of the invasion, every sector of the organized left (Democrats, neocons, corporate media, entertainment, Big Business, and Big Tech) had mobilized to engineer this moral panic. This is “good versus evil,” they screamed! This is about preserving democracy! Where is your Ukrainian flag?!?! Where is your hatred for Putin, you Putin lover! How dare you read Tolstoy!

We also saw — and this was the most crucial part of the plot — Biden lifted on the shoulders of this moral panic as our warrior and champion. The narrative immediately turned away from record inflation and surging violent crime to Amazing Joe Biden Organizes World Against Evil Putin!

In summation… The two-art plot was to 1) manipulate the public into a moral panic where we cared about Ukraine and only Ukraine, and 2) present Biden as the competent, strong, moral wartime leader and champion of that crusade. The result was supposed to be a presidential reboot, which is the only thing that could save Biden’s presidency and the Democrat party’s backsides in the upcoming midterms.

Now, for a while, this nonsense looked like it might sucker some of us, but then it quickly fell apart. In fact, it fell apart so badly; allow me to repeat that Biden is upside down on his handling of Ukraine. So the question is, why did it fall apart?

Well, for one thing, no amount of manipulative news coverage can blunt the shock of rising prices, most especially gas and food. Inflation is brutalizing people. Inflation is serious and demoralizing.

Secondly, Biden blaming record gas prices on Putin and telling us to go out and buy $50,000 electric cars were as tone deaf as any president has ever been tone deaf.

Finally, while most of New Media wants to see Putin humiliated and bloodied (this includes me), New Media has also led the way in offering some welcome perspective on Ukraine. Mainly, that America has no business involving itself in a war that could start World War III. Then there’s the fact we just lost a 20-year war to barbarian goat herders, so what do we think we’re going to accomplish against the Russians? Most of all, Ukraine is not our problem. We have no national interests over there, so why are we spending billions on Ukraine while our veterans go homeless? Why are we spending billions to protect Ukraine’s borders while our border is left wide open?

The counternarrative from New Media, this vital perspective the corporate media wanted to gloss over with their hysterical echo chamber, helped a lot of people snap out of the gaslighting campaign. New Media also told millions they were not alone when they thought, Why the hell should I care about Ukraine? Simply put, the media’s ability to make people feel isolated no longer works.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

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