Topic: Media Research Center
We saw how the Media Research Center's DeSantis Defense Brigade assembled yet again to defend Ron DeSantis from criticism following a racially motivated massacre in Florida, particularly his rewrite of education standards on black history (whch, of course, got much attention from the Defense Brigade). Alex Christy was the defender in an Aug. 29 post:
In the aftermath of the racist shooting in Jacksonville, Florida, that left three dead, the Monday editions of CNN Tonight and MSNBC’s The 11th Hour both claimed to know who was, at least partially, at fault: Gov. Ron DeSantis.
On CNN, host Laura Coates recalled Sunday’s demonstrations marking the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington and its aftermath by introducing a clip of President Biden proclaiming, “We can't let hate prevail. And it's on the rise. It's not diminished... And we have to speak out that there's a whole group of extreme people trying to erase history.”
Nobody’s erasing history, but Coates rolled right along by introducing Prof. Michael Eric Dyson and asking him, “I've been thinking about you a lot when it comes to moments like this and I ask you to take a step back with me for a moment. How do you see the confluence of all of these events?”
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How is DeSantis “fueling and feeding” hatred towards black people? Dyson never said, presumably he meant the same false depiction of Florida’s history standards that was shown in the Biden clip.
When DeSantis tried to act macho and insult the shooter, Christy defended that too:
In the aftermath of the racially-motivated shooting in Jacksonville the media has disgustingly attempted to tie Gov. Ron DeSantis to the shooting that left three black people dead, but Tuesday’s Andrea Mitchell Reports took matters to a whole new level as Mitchell and correspondent Trymaine Lee attacked him for calling the shooter a “scumbag.”
Mitchell recalled “yesterday, Governor DeSantis, in Florida, facing audible boos at a Jacksonville vigil for the three victims. At the vigil, DeSantis called the gunman a scumbag and Jeffrey Rumlin, a Jacksonville pastor who spoke after DeSantis, was very direct in his response. He said ‘at the end of the day, respectfully, governor, he was not a scumbag, he was a racist.’”
She then asked Lee “what’s your response to that?” to which he replied by condemning DeSantis for not smearing the entire country as a hotbed of white supremacy, “You know, for so many folks, the issue with that language is it places the onus on one individual and the actions of one individual as opposed to a nationwide sickness of white supremacy in the country and the violence it fuels.”
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If Lee truly believes the “true issue” is that the country is that everyone who disagrees with him is a white supremacist that says more about him than it does DeSantis.
Curtis Houck grumbled about all this as well:
The Associated Press and reporters Steve Peoples and Brendan Farrington took their place in a hypothetical Scumbag Hall of Fame on Tuesday as they blamed 2024 GOP presidential candidate and Governor Ron DeSantis (FL) for Saturday’s racist murders by a white young-adult male in Jacksonville.
Naturally, Peoples and Farrington offered no evidence except to suggest a causation between the far-left NAACP’s travel warning to black people (all but encouraging them to avoid the Sunshine State), DeSantis’s fight against the wokeism, sexual indoctrination, and support for the Second Amendment, and the Jacksonville attack.
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The cowards then ran to far-left pastor Jeffrey Rumlin of predominantly African-American Dayspring Church to argue “DeSantis has created and pushed a narrative of division and hate that is anti-Black” and the governor was thus implicitly okay with the murders because he “call[ed] the shooter ‘a major-league scumbag’” instead of “racist”.
Houck complained that it was pointed out that Republicans generally don't feel the need to cater to black voters:
Following asides on DeSantis’s fellow competitors in Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, Peoples and Farrington claimed without evidence that “Republicans have little political incentive to appeal to voters of color — in the primary phase of the presidential campaign, at least.”
Refusing to note things like the almost-holy-to-liberals 1619 Project and buzzwords about white privilege are filled with lies and meant to make children hate themselves, they huffed how a Pew poll showed Republicans aren’t keen on fixating on race and refuse to believe race relations are porous with little having changed from our country’s ugly past.
Clay Waters then came up to bat in yet another Aug. 29 post:
On Monday nights, the PBS NewsHour brings on NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith and political prognosticator Amy Walter. Walter was out for this Monday’s edition, so PBS turned to Errin Haines, editor at large of The 19th news nonprofit, was invited onto of the tax-funded PBS NewsHour to spread disgusting smears of prominent Republican presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.
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[Host Anna] Nawaz naturally brought up the booing DeSantis got from black Floridians at a vigil in Jacksonville, Florida, after a racially motivated white man killed three black people.
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In disgusting fashion, Haines held DeSantis “at least partly responsible” for the racist murders for his stands against woke propaganda in state education.
Waters attacked Nawaz again for more criticism of DeSantis in an Aug. 31 post:
On Tuesday's PBS NewsHour show, host Amna Nawaz was still fixated on promoting the views of liberals who try to blame Governor Ron DeSantis for a racist shooting spree in Jacksonville, Florida as the PBS host interviewed the mayor of the city, Donna Deegan, an elected Democrat.
After spending time discussing Hurricane Idalia's threat to Florida, Nawaz turned her attention to the hate crime in which four black Florida residents were murdered. She began by reflexively bringing up the issue of gun control:
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After Mayor Deegan responded by complaining about divisive rhetoric, but then also gave Governor DeSantis credit for attending the funeral for the shooting victims, Nawaz followed up by bringing up the issue of whether Confederate statues should be taken down in Jacksonville.
Waters used a Sept. 2 post to bash the New York Times for reporting on the controversy:
Wednesday’s edition of the New York Times featured “After Jacksonville, Tensions Flare Between DeSantis and Black Floridians,” by reporters Nicholas Nehamas (who previously mocked DeSantis’s debating skills) and Maya King. It’s the latest Times racial smear of Florida’s conservative governor and Republican presidential candidate, who they're suggesting was "an example of racism in policymaking."
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After rehashing the media-inspired brouhaha over a single line about slavery in a course on African-American studies, the reporters delved deeper to make a sinister connection.
As a young man, Mr. DeSantis taught American history at a private boarding school in Georgia. There, The New York Times previously reported, some students said he offered lessons on the Civil War that seemed slanted, factually wrong and sometimes presented in ways that sounded like attempts to justify slavery.
On the campaign trail, Mr. DeSantis has leaned on his record leading Florida, particularly his “war on woke,” which seeks to eliminate liberal viewpoints on race and gender from many parts of public life….
Yes, because public life was absolutely starved of “liberal viewpoints on race and gender.”
Christy returned for a Sept. 2 post lashing out at more criticism of DeSantis' race relations:
Not only did Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart tell the Friday edition of PBS NewsHour that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has nobody to blame, but himself for being booed in the aftermath of the Jacksonville shooting, but that DeSantis’s policies sent a signal to those who believe “Black people are inferior and therefore are worthy of extermination.”
At the end of a larger conversation about guns and gun control, Capehart put forth an addendum, “We can't talk about Jacksonville without talking about the political environment around Black people and particularly around Black history in Florida.”
Capehart also insisted that, “There is a reason Governor DeSantis was booed when he did the right thing by going to the community, but the community booed him for a reason, his so-called anti-woke legislation, what's happening with the teaching of Black history in Florida public schools.”
Alternatively, maybe the reason is because Capehart and his fellow media talking heads and activists keep deliberately spreading misinformation about what exactly it is Florida’s new history standards say.
Remember, framing those standards in a way to show that DeSantis can do no wrong was a key function of the Defense Brigade.
