The Atlantic was once a respectable publication founded in 1857 and in the following decades featuring some of the most valued writers in America with names like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Harriet Beecher Stowe and others.
Who knew The Atlantic would re-make itself in the 21st century, now owned by Laurene Powell Jobs? Like many media outlets, they became negatively obsessed by Donald Trump. But now, it's even more committed, because Mrs. Jobs has a very powerful friend. Cue The New York Times:
Over the past 20 years, she has become one of Ms. Harris’s most essential confidantes, providing counsel and money, and helping to expand Ms. Harris’s public profile. Now, in this year’s presidential race, the wealthiest woman in Silicon Valley has emerged as a powerful player behind the scenes. She has quietly contributed millions of dollars to an organization backing Ms. Harris, according to three people briefed on the gifts.
She played a hidden but key role in helping usher Mr. Biden out of the race, which cleared the way for a Harris run.
And Ms. Powell Jobs, who is so close to the vice president that her staff refers to her simply as “L.P.J.,” is positioned to have extraordinary influence, or at least access, in a potential Harris administration.
This comes to mind not only with Jeffrey Goldberg's Trump-admires-Hitler's-generals piece, but this one authored by Anne Applebaum:
Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini
The former president has brought dehumanizing language into American presidential politics.
He has? This appears as the apparent talking point for all Democrat leaders is to compare Trump to Hitler. (Hello Hillary!)
The reality of a hit piece like this one is that it is nothing more than far left-wing propaganda with zero serious discussion of the issues of the day.
To begin, if author of this piece is concerned about “dehumanizing language” being brought “into American presidential politics” she has been curiously silent when Republicans with names like Reagan, Bush, Nixon and Goldwater were assailed regularly over the decades.
Here, for example, is Salon writing up “The racism at the heart of the Reagan presidency”.
Just this last week the Washington Examiner’s Christopher Tremoglie headlined:
Reductio ad Hitlerum: 60 years of Democrats falsely calling the Republican nominee a fascist
Tremoglie reports:
Let’s start with former Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) and his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in 1964. Over 50 years before Trump decided to run for president, celebrities, journalists, politicians, and other politicos warned that the GOP presidential nominee was an extreme fascist who would cause considerable harm to the country. Goldwater, who served as a pilot during World War II, was likened to Nazis and fascists for promoting conservatism during his presidential campaign.
For example, the then-Democratic governor of California, Edmund Gerland “Pat” Brown, remarked about Goldwater’s acceptance speech, claiming it “had the stench of fascism. All we needed to hear was Heil Hitler.” It should be noted that Goldwater served as a pilot in the military during WWII. Brown didn’t have any military service at all.
Tremoglie went on:
The despicable comments continued the following election in 1968. Then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and Democratic nominee for president, remarked about the election, “If the British had not fought in 1940, Hitler would have been in London, and if Democrats do not fight in 1968, Nixon will be in the White House.
In the 1992 presidential election, there was this headline in the Los Angeles Times:
Rep. Waters Labels Bush ‘a Racist,’ Endorses Clinton
The Washington Post reported this of Nixon:
When Nixon squeaked into office with a tiny margin, liberals and the left despaired. As the late liberal senator Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) recounted in his memoirs, the reaction in his household was simple: ‘Nixon is a fascist pig.’
Even former First Lady Barbara Bush was not immune from these type of attacks. At her death, The Atlantic -- yes, the self-same Atlantic professing horror at Trump’s language -- wrote up one Fresno State creative writing professor Randa Jarrar, proudly quoting her as saying:
'Barbara Bush was a generous and smart and amazing racist who, along with her husband, raised a war criminal,' she wrote. 'Fuck outta here with your nice words.'
On and on….and on and on…have gone these attacks by the Left on prominent Republicans, assailing the target of the moment as racist, fascist, Hitler and more.
Objections from The Atlantic? Zero. Not only no objections, but in essence cheering on the attacks when not participating in them. Which is to say, The Atlantic is not about journalism, but about Democrat Party propaganda liberally salted with attacks on Republicans as racist, fascist, sexist, homophobic and who knows what else.
