News analysts and Democratic Party campaign strategists are beside themselves that they were so wrong about this election. One Democratic political operator said that the entire party elite, including him, were so confident that they “totally missed it, and so did much of the news media.”
The news media missed it because they are an extension of the Democratic Party. A study by the Media Research Council indicates that some 96 percent of the media elite vote Democratic. There is a built in bias in that demographic. When does a reporter or a poll sponsored by big media or election predictions by the media—cross the line into advocacy for a candidate or an ideology? And how can one be deceived by it?
These are pertinent questions in the wake of the election because they are fresh to discuss. They are also foundational in our current times to the warning Jesus gave in Matthew 24:4, “Take heed that no man deceive you.” If we, as Christians, are susceptible to the media’s bias, we are also predisposed to being deceived.
The media are everywhere and touches us in many ways even if we did not have television or cell phones. The media are entrenched in our society to the point that most everyone we come into contact with is an extension of the media and its message in some way, shape or form. This recent election is a case study on deception and the perils of it.
From the onset, the media characterized Donald Trump as a bigot, racist and xenophobe. Although they are removed now, several media outlets put a disclaimer at the bottom of stories about Trump that emphatically said that Trump was a bigot and a racist. The media went right along with the narrative that if you believed in anything Trump said, you were a bigot and a racist.
This message has been so ingrained in society that even after the election, people would ask how you could vote for a bigot and a racist like Trump.
Then one media analyst suggested that the election was a “white-lash” because racist whites voted for Trump. In reality, on percentage points, less whites voted for Trump than for the last GOP nominee, Mitt Romney. Trump actually carried more non-white votes than previous Republican presidential candidates.
The polls were another example. Most all the polls had Clinton winning from the start. The narrative was to convince everyone that Trump did not have a chance. The polls favored Clinton because the sampling was skewed up to 12 points in her favor before even the first question was asked.
The point I am trying to make here is that when everything and everyone, even family members and close friends, are pointing at you and saying there is no hope, and that you are a bigot, a deplorable, an unredeemable person—it takes a strong belief in a standard of truth to stand against this kind of pressure.
If you are deceived, you will give in to it. We have to be an Ephesians 6 kind of people these days, and we must stand on the Word of God—the only standard of truth I know.
Have a blessed and powerful day!
Bill Wilson
www.dailyjot.com