One of the great tragedies of mass media is the left’s ability to influence the right’s choice as to whom ought to be seen as a spokesperson. In the 2016 election cycle, the left focused on Donald Trump to the exclusion of other people on the right; the right, fixated laserlike on reacting to the left’s focus, embraced Trump; Trump became a spokesperson for the right, even though his policies are a bizarre admixture of Buchananism, Keynesianism, and reactionary knee-jerkism. By the same token, the left chooses figures it wishes to highlight as “conservative,” smearing the conservative movement with them – and conservatives react to the left’s visceral hatred of those same figures by embracing them.
This week, we saw the media drop blanket coverage on Richard Spencer, an alt-right white nationalist leader, who went to Virginia to protest the possible removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee. He showed up with some of his friends, all of whom carried torches in the night, looking like something out of an old KKK photo shoot sans hoods. “What brings us together is that we are white, we are a people, we will not be replaced,” Spencer stated. He then showed up at a second rally at which people chanted “Russia is our friend.” Here’s The Washington Post:
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