In the wee hours of Friday morning, the Chinese state-run media outlet Xinhua News agency tweeted an attack on President Trump, accusing him of using the term “Chinese Virus” to distract from his “lies and incompetence.”
The tweet read, “It’s a distraction tactic. Yes, it’s RACIST … but he’s doing it so people are talking about THAT instead of his LIES and INCOMPETENCE.”
It's a distraction tactic. It's racist… pic.twitter.com/2R1nBMbfps
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) March 20, 2020
Steven Crowder responded with a biting tweet that not only indicted the Chinese government but also the mainstream media in the United states, which has been incessantly harping on the supposed racism of labeling the coronavirus that originated in China the “Chinese virus.” Crowder fired back, “Ohhhhhhhhh. So THAT’S where the American media got their talking points from.”
Ohhhhhhhhh. So THAT'S where the American media got their talking points from. https://t.co/VcLZtoi4HL
— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) March 20, 2020
As Crowder pointed out, the mainstream media has parroted the attack on Trump’s verbiage consistently in recent days; on Friday The Washington Post headlined an article, “Trump Has No Qualms About Calling The Coronavirus The ‘Chinese Virus.’ That’s A Dangerous Attitude, Experts Say.” The Nation titled an article, “The Media Is Helping Spread Trump’s Coronavirus Racism,” which stated:
Faced with mounting pressure over the spread of the coronavirus and his administration’s sluggish response to the global pandemic, Donald Trump has gone running for his one true drug. That drug is “racism,” and he’s ingesting it with a chaser called “xenophobia.” Trump is now blatantly blaming the coronavirus on China. Instead of calling it by its scientific name, Covid-19, Trump is now using a geographic nickname (there’s no need to repeat it) and saying that the disease “comes from China.”
On Wednesday, The New York Times published an article titled, “Trump Defends Using ‘Chinese Virus’ Label, Ignoring Growing Criticism.” The Times opined, “The term has angered Chinese officials and a wide range of critics, and China experts say labeling the virus that way will only ratchet up tensions between the two countries, while resulting in the kind of xenophobia that American leaders should discourage.”
The Times reluctantly noted, “ … a senior State Department official said on Wednesday that President Xi Jinping of China in early January repeatedly referred to the coronavirus as the ‘Wuhan’ illness, and that many Chinese citizens still do.”
Also on Wednesday, CNN ran an op-ed titled, “Trump’s malicious use of ‘Chinese virus’” in which ardent feminist Jill Filipovic vented:
When Donald Trump wants to rally his base and distract from his many screw-ups, he falls back on one thing: xenophobic racism. It looks like members of his administration have picked up this dirty trick … This President isn’t acting out of ignorance; he’s acting out of malice … n the midst of the crisis, we need … a whole lot less of the presidential fecklessness and Trump Team racism that puts us all at greater risk.
As John Daniel Davidson wrote at The Federalist on Thursday:
“Why do you keeping calling it the Chinese virus?” asked a seemingly indignant and bewildered Cecilia Vega of ABC News during Trump’s press briefing yesterday, citing “dozens of incidents of bias against Chinese Americans in this country.” Isn’t this racist? Trump’s answer was straightforward and bone-crushingly obvious: “Because it comes from China. It’s not racist at all, it comes from China. That’s why. It comes from China. I want it to be accurate.”