The Journalism Mafia Wins: or Don’t Fight With Those Who Buy Ink by the Barrel

Looks like the Hunter Biden story is not going to have much of an impact. Most voters are kind of resigned to politicians getting rich by making contacts and doing favors. Rounding error difference between what Biden did and what Bill Clinton did by giving speeches for millions. My initial gut instinct was that this wouldn’t be a big enough story and I could’ve trusted my gut. 

The National Review editors all gave the story a 3 on a scale of 1-10 as far as political impact. Part of that is due, of course, to the mainstream media not touching the story.  They say Trump could kill a guy on Fifth Avenue and not lose his supporters; similarly Biden could sell state secrets for millions and it wouldn’t bother his reporters.

The whole fraught relationship of Republicans to the media goes like this: Reporters are the mafia guys who do nothing in the neighborhood but collect some “protection” money. You give them their due, some attention, a story now and then, don’t get out of line in your politics, and they’ll slant your coverage only a little. Keeps them honest more of the time. 

But, as usual, people get greedy. The “arrangements” get more pricey. Eventually the Republican voters (if not officeholders other than maybe Newt Gingrich) decided they’d had enough of the racket. They got themselves a fighter who wouldn’t pay any protection money. And it worked enough to get him the presidency, no small thing, although with help from a media that was blindsided. 

But what happens when you get uppity and refuse to pay protection money? You get killed. Or you go to the police and the bad guys get put in jail. Of these two scenarios the second was never going to happen. There’s no check on bad journalism and in fact it’s rewarded. 

So back in ’16 the Trump win was a pyrrhic victory, a thumb in the nose of the do-nothing bully on the corner. And now we Republicans get to pay the piper.  If Trump loses, the Republican officeholders will crawl on their knees to their mafia dons, ask forgiveness, and pay a much steeper price for the trouble they caused.