MisinfoNetwork: CNN’s Partisan Political Extremism Documentary Backfires

In one breath, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan asserted that violence in America today is “mostly” the product of “right-wing extremism.” In the next, he relished a chummy chat with Taylor Lorenz, a New York Times and Washington Post alum who has repeatedly gone to bat for cold-blooded killer Luigi Mangione.

And at no point in the latest installment of his MisinfoNation series did O’Sullivan stop to reflect on why he was inclined to condemn extremism on the right, but paper over — and even indulge — it on the left.

“While America’s roots are soaked in bloodshed, violence in the country today is mostly from right-wing extremism. From Oklahoma City, to Charlottesville, to January 6th. There is simply no equivalent on the left,” declared O’Sullivan, who, in an attempt at doing the bare minimum, at least observed that “when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered, not everyone was outraged.”

O’Sullivan went on to introduce Lorenz, whom he described as “an independent journalist who spoke up for people who felt the murder had justification.”

“I think it’s hilarious to see these millionaire media pundits on TV clutching their pearls about someone stanning a murderer when this is the United States of America. As if we don’t lionize criminals, as if don’t have, you know,  we don’t stan murderers of all sorts. I mean, we give them Netflix shows,” she told O’Sullivan, who asked her to comment on the women gathering outside of a New York City courthouse in support of Mangione.

“So, you’re going to see women, especially, that feel like, ‘Oh my god, right? Like, here’s this man who’s revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who’s young, who’s smart,” she answered.

“He’s a person that seems this-, like this morally good man — which is hard to find,” added a laughing Lorenz.

O’Sullivan laughed along, only stopping to joke about his dating woes and compare champions of Thompson’s murder to the plurality of the country that elected Donald Trump last fall.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t like to be compared to a Trump supporter,” he observed, adding insult to injury.

So, to recap: Most violence — surely an editor should have urged O’Sullivan to acknowledge he was talking about political violence — is attributable to right-wing extremism. And the audience is meant to accept this as gospel because O’Sullivan listed three examples, one of which is from 1995. Never mind that he could have rattled off examples of left-wing violence like the congressional baseball shooting, 2020 riots, Kavanaugh assassination attempt, Trump assassination attempts — oops, there’s five, none of which occurred thirty years ago.

Then, he only alluded to violent tendencies on the left before introducing Lorenz for a friendly interview that saw her introduced as someone who “spoke up” for the poor souls who celebrated a murderer, signal his understanding, if not his agreement with her kind words for Mangione, and gratuitously insult Trump voters by comparing them to crazy-eyed Mangione fangirls like Lorenz.

What the hell was CNN thinking?

There is almost no limit to the opprobrium that could be heaped on the network and individuals behind such shoddy, partisan work and the bias it underscores.

But the more important point to be made is that they are doing immense damage to their supposed cause. Political extremism is a serious problem threatening the lives of some small number of Americans in the short term and the constitutional architecture that protects us all over the long term.

Moreover, no reasonable mind could deny the threat that right-wing extremism, specifically, poses. It was only four years ago that a mob stormed the Capitol on behalf of Trump — who is now back in the White House and testing the limits of presidential power and targeting his enemies.

The Democratic Party has its own problems, though. Trump faced serious attempts on his life twice last year. Anti-Semitism is rampant in its far-left reaches. And five years ago, it produced excuse after excuse for the “fiery, but mostly peaceful” (thanks for that one, CNN) riots that saw the communities they professed to care the most about ravaged.

But the media’s factually and morally error-riddled media’s presentation of the topic as not a bipartisan problem in need of a patriotic solution, but a political weapon to be wielded against half the country will only succeed in convincing at least half the country to dismiss it.

Watch above via CNN.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.