In a desperate attempt to play damage control, and try to clarify that demographics outside of typical Republicans are on the radical and conspiratorial fringe, NewsBusters actually had to brag about people of color, and of a young age, are in favor of wanting their state to secede, as well as believing that the Democratic Party committed voter fraud in this past election.
In a December 5 article, Ken Shepherd huffed about how MSNBC host Chris Matthews had the nerve to broadside 25% of Republican voters who want their state to secede from the union, according to a poll done by Public Policy Polling (PPP) yesterday.
Taking issue with the hosts’ focus on that specific number, Shepherd attempts to change the subject:
But a look at the cross tabs in the poll shows that 27 percent of Hispanics, 29 percent of voters aged 18-29, and even 12 percent of African-Americans favor secession.
Shepherd then seems to suggest that Matthews opportunistically ignored these other demographics, because they voted heavily in favor of the President during re-election, stating “At no point in his segment on the poll, however, did any of these facts come up.” He also questioned the integrity of the host, and his production staff, claiming it “says a lot about their journalistic much less intellectual curiosity” because they didn’t look deeper into the numbers.
Ironically, the same could be said for the journalistic curiosity of Shepherd, who doesn’t bother to point out that there is zero evidence of voter fraud (which we will address in a moment)… and additionally how un-American it is for any citizen of this country to not want to be a part of it. Granted, it’s anybody’s right to not want to live in this country, but it’s the literal example of being anti-American when you want to secede, something conservatives have accused this President (and democrats, in general) of being for years now.
Then again, as Shepherd stated earlier in his piece, why let a pesky thing like facts get in the way of (in his perspective) a “liberal media bias” narrative, right?
He continues, moving onto the percentage of people who think voter fraud won it for Democrats:
Young voters, PPP found, were also most likely among all the age demos to believe that Democrats committed voter fraud, with 38 percent of voters aged 18-29 saying that compared to 27, 27, and 34 percents for the 30-45, 46-65, and over-65 age brackets respectively.
Again, no attempt on Shepherd’s part to quickly point out “voter fraud didn’t occur“… But, you know, those pesky facts. What can you do?
Nonetheless, he keeps whining:
Of course keeping track of all this nuanced data would spoil the fun of a segment with liberal Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank and liberal commentator Ron Reagan which was aimed at mocking the rank-and-file GOP voter.
Um, yeah… There is plenty to mock here, Ken. 25% of Republicans want to secede. That may not be newsworthy to you and your ilk, and you’d much rather everyone overlook it, but it’s pretty significant news for people in the real world.
By the way, it should be noted that this percentage of Republicans who support secession (compared to minorities and young people) is probably seen as a bigger deal because it involves an entire national mainstream party, not just a demographic, which Shepherd insists on using to distract from the more politically relevant statistic. While every polling outlet isn’t going to be perfectly accurate (PPP was the most accurate during 2012 election), when a poll finds a specific party riding the coat tails of a fringe select few of Americans, that’s “a big f*cking deal“, as Joe Biden infamously said.
So, while Shepherd decides to play dumb, and pretend like one-quarter of a national party’s voters wanting to secede from the union should be overshadowed by other insignificant statistics, does anybody think he would feel the same way if one-quarter of Democratic voters wanted to secede? As someone who has (willingly) made it a job to monitor right-wing websites, and argue with their readers (not as willingly), I guarantee if even 5% (one-twentieth) of Democrats wanting to secede from the United States, not only the Republican Party, but Fox News, Brent Bozell, Rush Limbaugh and the entire right-wing media would absolutely go off the hinges accusing the entire party and every Democrat in the country as a traitor. However, when republicans want to secede, they’re just patriotic. Plain and simple.
The hypocrisy of the right-wing and its fringe have taken over so much of the mainstream that the likes of NewsBusters have to do their best to flip the script and make it seem like the core voters who re-elected President Obama are the bigger story. Even though a good chunk of conservatives believe in seceding, the other chunk hate it when you point it out.
Don’t forget that the head of the MRC, Brent Bozell, has now started threatening the Republican party to not allow raising taxes on the rich, otherwise they will stop receiving funding from his organization.
I think the factions of the Republican Party, and the conservative movement it once treasured, are starting to embarrass each other so much that they can’t afford to co-exist anymore.
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