This Is Why American Democracy Is on the Brink
Image Credit: Teri Carter
When an Assassination Attempt on the Speaker of the House Barely Makes the News, Something’s Very Wrong
by umair haque
It was even more shocking and disturbing, in a way, than what happened the night before. Yesterday, there was an assassination attempt on the Speaker of the House. Her husband was attacked by a far-right extremist wielding a hammer, and underwent brain surgery. And today? American media failed to cover it properly.
If you opened the Washington Post or New York Times, the stories were below the fold. If you were just scanning the top stories, you wouldn’t even know that there’d been an assassination attempt on a major political figure, on the eve of a crucial election.
I put that in italics because even given America’s abject state, that is a gross, scandalous failure. It beggars belief that media wouldn’t cover a story like this properly, because of course, it should be the biggest one. So. Let’s note the deafening silence here first, and then discuss it a little bit, the meaning and implications of such a failure.
I’m going to put the central question very simply.
Why wasn’t the top headline in every newspaper and media outlet in America “Assassination attempt on Speaker of the House?” How could it really be anything else? And why is it that even when the story was covered, in the meagre ways it was, that wasn’t the headline at all — but stuff like “Pelosi’s Husband Attacked” was?
That isn’t the truth. The truth isn’t that Pelosi’s husband was “attacked.” This wasn’t a random mugging, or a street fight, or someone’s dog nipping at his heels. It was a) a politically motivated fanatic b) radicalized by the GOP c) its Big Lies in particular, from the election was stolen to Covid is a hoax and all the rest of them d) looking for the Speaker of the House, not her husband e) likely in order to kill her.
That is an assassination attempt. Not an “attack.” The way this story is being covered is dismal — and it tells us, too, why America still struggles with fascism even at this juncture, its democracy under threat.
After all, if the media won’t write the headline, “Assassination attempt on Speaker of the House” — and won’t put it at the top of the coverage, either — then, really, how can democracy survive? If violence of this kind — political, extreme, fanatical, targeted — is minimized, how can democracy survive?
This failure isn’t just about “the media,” which takes a lot of flak these days. It’s about the consequences, really. It’s about a general atmosphere of complacency. It can’t happen here. How does that attitude come to be?
If I was to ignore a certain subject, day after day, then my silence would also speak volumes. American media’s like that. There are certain words, phrases, angles, truths, it chooses to avoid, over and over again. And that sets cues. Cues which let fascism flourish.
Even in “third world countries,” this would have been the top story. Imagine if a left-wing fanatic had broken into some GOP leader’s house, and tried to kill them, beating their spouse with a hammer. Don’t you think that story would get top billing? So what’s going on here, exactly? Why does American media fail like this?
This is what happens when you won’t tell simple truths. There are three consequences. One, Big Lies flourish. Two, fanatics like fascists can set the terms. And three, society slowly loses it bearings, its norms, its sense of normalcy. And all that has happened in America. Let’s take those points one by one.
Remember when you and I used to warn that a coup attempt was coming? And then it happened. And even after it did, media called it a “riot.” It was left to the Jan 6th to establish the fact that it was a coup attempt, the culmination of a sophisticated plan. American media still won’t use those words, largely, though. So what “was” Jan 6th? Well, now it’s up for debate.
Because in America, institutions don’t establish truths the way that they should — and that leaves reality perpetually up for “debate,” even when facts are, well, facts. It’s all the more possible to say Jan 6th was a “riot” or an “outburst” or what have you — not a coup attempt, which is the fact of the matter, because media is trying to please “both sides.” And in doing so, truth dies a swift and sure death.
But truth is a fundamental value of democracy. Without it, the entire project begins to fall apart. Words cease to have meanings. As Orwell warned us, history gets rewritten. Events that happened are forgotten. The memory hole swallows up lessons to be learned, and the vicious cycle of regress takes hold. Truth matters, my friends.
And truth, sadly, exists. The American media believes that it’s job isn’t to establish truths. Its job is merely to hew a fine balance between what one side says, and the other shouts. It hopes that middle ground is “the truth.” But it isn’t. We all know that. Just because the idiots and lunatics and fanatics among us insist that the earth is flat and your blood makes you pure it doesn’t make it true. Truth is empirical, verifiable, real. Not just in physics, but in social affairs, too.
And when we don’t defend the truth, what happens? Big Lies flourish.