Apparently, the Green New Deal Runs on Gaslight

As Mark Twain probably never actually said: “A man who doesn’t read the newspaper is uninformed. A man who does read the newspaper is misinformed.” And as Ronald Reagan definitely did say: “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant. It’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” In 2019, there are seemingly more journalists out there than ever. Hell, these days there are more journalists than there are journalism jobs. Most of these self-appointed arbiters of truth are liberal, so they know a lot of things that simply aren’t so. And if they had their way, you would be egregiously misinformed.

Merely shading the truth isn’t enough for journos anymore. Now, in order to get the same thrill, they need to escalate things and flat-out lie to us. They need to gaslight us. They need to tell us that the evidence of our own senses is false.

For example: Last week Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, NY congresswoman and de facto leader of the Democratic Party, released a list of childhood wishes very serious environmental plan she calls the Green New Deal. The rollout of this amazing plan included a FAQ. Here’s a portion of that FAQ:

The GND FAQ also made other modest guarantees, like banning airplanes and farting cows. In short order, Republicans and other earth-dwellers noted that these provisions are unrealistic, at best. So AOC and her staffers immediately denied ever saying such things. First they blamed Republicans:

Watch what happens when Tucker Carlson steps out of the conservative bubble and brings on an @AOC policy adviser who debunks all the conservative media lies straight to his face (spoiler: it doesn’t go great for Tucker) pic.twitter.com/joDNXBBB7G

— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) February 9, 2019

When that didn’t work and everybody kept laughing at her, AOC pulled the FAQ from her site (it’s still archived here) and claimed that it was an “unfinished draft.” Which is weird, because it was published on Feb. 5, two days before the NGD rollout. Here we are a week later, and they’ve yet to replace the “unfinished” FAQ. That’s because there isn’t one. That was it. That was what they wanted people to see, right up until the moment they didn’t want people to see it anymore.

This sure is embarrassing for AOC. Fortunately, she’s got the press to protect her:

Trump description of the Green New Deal is false. No one has proposed eliminating cars or plane rights or cows. Here’s a smart explainer by @rizzoTK of what is — and isn’t — in the policy https://t.co/rJDmbvPLtU

— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) February 12, 2019

“No one” has proposed… the stuff that AOC specifically, publicly proposed.

Tired: Blowing up your campaign because you clicked on a phishing email
Wired: Blowing up your campaign because you accidentally published the wrong draft of a FAQ

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) February 12, 2019

“Accidentally.” “Wrong draft.” “Journalist Dave Weigel.” Words have no meaning. Shrug emoji!

Or, if they can’t just wish the truth away, they place the blame where they always place the blame:

When a Republican screws up, that’s the story. When a Democrat screws up, the Republicans’ reaction is the story.

This kind of thing keeps happening, and the press keeps lying to us about it to protect the Democrats. That’s why I don’t feel bad for them when people mock them. With novelty t-shirts, for example.

Jon Levine, The Wrap:

Department store giant Bloomingdale’s apologized on Monday after a customer flagged a “fake news” t-shirt in one of its stores.

“Thank you for bringing this to our attention and we apologize for any offense we may have caused,” the company said in a statement posted to Twitter. “We take this feedback very seriously and are working quickly to remove this t-shirt. Again, thank you for taking the time to alert us.”

Here’s the offending item of clothing. The aggrieved party is a journalist, of course.

Hey @Bloomingdales, this isn’t funny or fashionable. It further delegitimizes hard working journalists who bring REAL news to their communties. pic.twitter.com/NedoHMAZfs

— Allison Kaden (@akadennews) February 10, 2019

I used to believe the news was real. Then I saw somebody wearing a t-shirt with “FAKE NEWS” written on it, and I realized the news is actually fake. But now… now I don’t know what to believe.

Note to journos everywhere: If you don’t want people to call you fake news, stop faking the news. If you want us to start trusting you, stop lying to us.