Joe Biden, MSNBC And 2024: Is Liberal Propaganda Distorting Our Perception?

MSNBC viewers are told that Biden is the greatest president since FDR. Why don’t the American public agree?

By Jeff Cohen, Salon

One of the conceits of MSNBC-watching liberals is that while Fox News serves up a steady stream of propaganda, they are getting the straight news from MSNBC.

One of the hallmarks of propaganda is selective outrage. Fox News generally defends the superwealthy (the “job creators”) and their tax cuts, but is outraged by one particular billionaire: Democratic donor George Soros. At MSNBC, there is outrage over rich right-wing donors and Russian oligarchs, but not so much over powerful U.S. oligarchs, especially if they lean Democratic.

Another hallmark of propaganda is selective facts. Fox News cherry-picks video clips and factoids to portray President Biden as a weakling who is captive of his party’s left wing or the Chinese Communist Party, or both. He’s not. On MSNBC, he’s portrayed as a transformative agent of change, and sometimes as the second coming of FDR. He’s not that either.

To credulous news consumers who reside snugly in the bubble of corporate liberal media (from the New York Times and the Washington Post to MSNBC and CNN to public broadcasting), the Biden administration has racked up powerful, even historic, legislative achievements. Which makes it hard for many liberal news consumers to fathom why the general public seems unaware of Biden’s great accomplishments, with his approval rating at 39 percent in the latest CNN poll.