The ABC’s America

At the ABC, the thugs bashing, burning and looting US cities are ‘mostly peaceful’ protesters, curiosity being in such short supply at the national broadcaster’s Washington bureau that no one has bothered to devote more than a passing glance at the plentiful online footage of, to cite but one incident, Republicans being jostled, abused and threatened as they left the last night of the GOP convention. All that happened just down the road from the ABC’s DC office, but of the mayhem barely a word. Ah well, what can you expect for a paltry billion-plus dollars a year in taxpayer support.

Roger Kimball has been watching as the Democrats’ notion of politics by other means unfolds in flames and anarchy on American streets, and while he cannot place a bet on the outcome of November’s election, wagering on political contests being banned within the US, Australian punters might take his form guide to SportsBet, where Donald Trump is the 2-to-1 underdog behind Joe Biden at $1.87. Two weeks ago, Trump was at $2.30, so the shortening odds suggest that Kimball’s confidence in a GOP victory is being endorsed by the bettors’ buck. Kimball writes:

… In a way, Trump’s observation that ‘Americans build their future, we don’t tear down our past’ epitomized the essential difference between Trump’s vision and that of the Democrats. As I say, political prediction is a mug’s game, and I won’t venture one now. I will say, however, that this election will be, and will be seen to be, between two sharply different ideas of America.

One sees America as the sinful impediment to human flourishing whose only hope, as Joe Biden (echoing Barack Obama) put it, lies in being ‘fundamentally transformed’. The other holds up the country as a land of hope and opportunity, ‘the last best hope of earth’ (Lincoln one final time). My sense is that an overwhelming majority of people prefer the latter to the former, especially as the Democrats have been courteous enough to demonstrate what ‘fundamental transformation’ is likely to look like on the streets of Portland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kenosha, DC, St Louis and elsewhere across the country.

The Democrats own the anarchy they have unleashed and abetted. People almost never embrace anarchy. Ergo, Donald Trump is likely to win…

And from the ABC, when it did finally get around to mentioning the riots, albeit only in passing, we get this:

These affronts are minor, compared to the systemic inequality that black Americans continue to face daily.

Black Americans cannot leave a gathering, as per the video atop this post, without being spat upon and abused in the most foul terms? Black Americans cannot dine al fresco without being set upon solely on the basis of their skin colour, as in the clip below?

If Donald Trump triumphs on Nov 3, expect the ABC’s specialists in re-writing copy from the Washington Post and New York Times to be astonished. Their US correspondents should get out and about more often. They might actually meet real Americans.

— roger franklin