Author, columnist, speaker

When the Gaslighting Begins to Fail

By Robert Knight

The only good thing to come out of COVID-19 is the public’s awakening to the fact that government officials will lie to us and the media will help them do it.

We might have suspected it, but it had never been so blatantly obvious, at least since the Vietnam War or the vanishing WMDs in Iraq.

And if they lied to us six ways from Sunday about a pandemic and reasons to invade other countries, it’s a sure bet they’ve been lying to us about many other things.

Gaslighting the public is the media’s favorite sport.

A case in point is their patently absurd attempt to pin the cover up of former President Joe Biden’s mental collapse on unnamed White House sources. Anybody, that is, but the White House reporters who saw it up close every day for years.

Ample footage exists of various network personalities insisting that Mr. Biden was sharp even though millions of Americans knew otherwise even before his disastrous meltdown in the 2024 presidential debate.

Jake Tapper, the CNN anchor who had pointedly dismissed the notion that Mr. Biden was mentally challenged, is shamelessly shilling his new book exposing the coverup.

As usual, the satirical Babylon Bee nails it: “Jake Tapper Uncovers Startling Evidence That Biden’s Decline Was Covered Up By Jake Tapper.”

“‘These allegations regarding Jake Tapper are disturbing,’ said Jake Tapper. ‘The idea that someone would use their power as a journalist to lie and withhold essential information from the American public is beyond the pale. This Jake Tapper guy, whoever he is, should be ashamed of himself,’" the Bee reported.

Several more such self-serving books reportedly are in the pipeline.

The media aren’t the only ones gaslighting the public. Dozens of federal district judges are telling Americans that they no longer have a republic but are living under a 667-member judicial oligarchy. Anyone who says otherwise is not respecting “the rule of law.”

Even when holding court thousands of miles from Washington, some judges are issuing opinions overruling the president of the United States on foreign policy, border security and other matters reserved by the Constitution to the chief executive.

In fact, of the more than 220 lawsuits filed in federal courts against the Trump administration during the first three months of his second term, 60 have involved immigration policy. Judges blocked Mr. Trump’s order to remove birthright citizenship, to defund sanctuary cities, to deport noncitizen gang members, and to remove temporary protected status from thousands of illegal immigrants.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has secured the border. Illegal alien encounters with the Border Patrol have dropped 99 percent from the Biden years. No new law was needed.

As soon as Mr. Trump was inaugurated, the lawsuits and rulings in Democrat-friendly courtrooms came thick and fast. There were 20 lawsuits in January, about 70 in February, another 70 in March, and more than 50 in April, according to ABC News.

The left-leaning network calls it an “unprecedented legal blitz.”

The Trump administration has not been fazed and has won quite a few reversals. They include the policy barring transgenders from military service, something that the fictional Section 8-seeking Cpl. Klinger would appreciate.

Speaking of reversals, the media were crowing that Mr. Trump’s reduction of tariffs was a “huge reversal” and a terrible embarrassment for the administration. They could not bring themselves to acknowledge that it might well have been part of Mr. Trump’s shock and awe style of dealmaking.

I’m not predicting where the stock market will go next, but as of this past week, it had recovered smartly and was heading up. Even if you’re not watching the ticker, you can tell by the glum faces on Democrats who were hoping to shed crocodile tears over “Trump’s recession.”

As for the media, it’s hard to gaslight people about impending economic doom when jobs are being created, companies are announcing billion-dollar investments in American manufacturing, gas and egg prices are coming down, and the market is roaring.

It’s also getting hard to gaslight the public about the need to turn morality upside down, such as pretending that males are really females and vice versa. People used to be afraid to challenge it lest they be accused of bigotry or even hate.

Inspired by swimming champion Riley Gaines and fencer Stephanie Turner, who took a knee rather than compete with a male opponent, teen girls are courageously confronting woke school boards and ignoring the disapproving media.

As common sense comes back into play, the trans charade is coming apart.

Now that X and other media have broken the legacy media monopoly, we seem to be experiencing a sort of reverse Sixties phenomenon. During that wild decade, everything came into question, even the permanent things.

Today, more and more people are questioning the faux values that had been institutionalized by soft-headed Baby Boomers. The anti-establishment Left had morphed into The Man, and a weird, sex-crazed, authoritarian one at that.

When you’re lying to people about essential things, such as the value of faith, family, and freedom, gaslighting will work only so long.

It will take some time to undo the damage, but I’d venture that, God willing, we’re on the right track.  
 
Illustration by Alexander Hunter /The Washington Times