-Devidas Deshpande-
This is incredible!
That was the reaction of everyone swearing by the liberalism, especially in media, as they watched Donald Trump marching ahead of Hillary Clinton to become the 45th President of the United States of America. It mattered little whether one was in US or elsewhere in the world. The only variation was in the intensity of the reactions; its character hardly changed.
Shock superseded awe; distrust pervaded acknowledgement. How can something happen that had no stamp of approval from us? The big question hung on each one's face. The fear of impending doom and utter disappointment reflected on their face. Isn’t it that a déjà vu for us in Bharat? Isn't the entire script sounds familiar?
More than two years ago, when nation voted in favour of Narendra Modi, none betrayed any sense of going through such a huge failure in gauging the mood of people at that time. It was the turn of the media in US to be beaten in its own trade this time around. When liberal media indulged in hate campaign against Modi, the 'nationalists' mobilised around him. In US, with every victory projection in survey after survey, the conservatives gathered behind Trump. The Marx-fed and Chomsky-blinded media leaders have their ears so away from ground.
The media in Bharat and in US, and almost all other countries 'feeding' on these two sources, ran a vitriolic campaign for over a decade against Modi. Trump was a bit lucky in this respect. He had to go through the fire test only for a year or so. In both the cases, media sided with 'liberals' to stop them in their ways. It shed all its pretensions and commitment to impartiality and natural justice. It displayed the disdain for them in every possible way. Yet, both these leaders emerged victorious earning popular support.
The liberals did not stop scorning at these two leaders even when both of them gained popular traction and occupied the top constitutional post of their respective countries. For example, Pankaj Mishra wrote a piece recently in the New York Time to draw parallel between Trump and Modi only to say that “Before Trump’s election in America exposed the failures of democracy, they had been revealed in Modi’s India”.
The Left campers have a hard time digesting the fact that the cozy intellectualism took an unprecedented beating against these two men. They had proclaimed these two personalities as being new-age pariahs, worthy of being hounded of the civility for their ‘evident’ slant against some sections of the society.
Yet, the people have thrown their yoke of their ideologies and chosen the path that they thought was best for them. Possibility is that within a year or two, the nationalistic forces in almost every country will be in seat. These are the same forces whom the Leftists have always preferred to dub as ‘Right-Wingers’.
This latest defeat of the ‘mainstream’ media will not be last. The proof can be found in a report last year in Deutsche Welle, the state organ of German Government, where so-called Right Wing is expected to make its increased presence felt. Titled “Lying press”: Germany’s misleading media”, the article said, ‘Media outlets in Germany “are controlled from the top,” and therefore spread “embellished and inaccurate reporting.”
“We are far from having freedom of opinion,” the article quoted Norbert Bolz, a communications researcher at the Technical University of Berlin who added, “It is precisely the same people who years ago fought for transparency, freedom of the press and freedom of speech who are now the powers that decide what subjects are taboo.”
This holds true not only for the media, but in universities also this disease is widespread. JNU and Jadhavpur Universities are not our problem alone. A survey commissioned by the William F. Buckley Jr. Program at Yale last year and published in Wall Street Journal found that “college campuses have largely been transformed into zones of intolerance, where speech and expression is tightly regulated by Left-wing academics who push propaganda and progressive indoctrination upon impressionable young minds.”
Liberals across the spectrum ridiculed Trump & his supporters
during entire campaign. The same
liberals are protesting violently against his victory and thus undermining the popular mandate. This manifestation of intolerance but it is presented as a justified anger.
The Communists and their ilk, who killed millions in USSR, China and elsewhere think they have a monopoly over intellectualism and
progressivism. They have a headache whenever someone says that “My country comes first and all else later”. They wear the grab of liberalism but their intolerance manifests whenever things go out of their favour.
In an article in the New York Times this year, Nicholas Kristof wrote about “liberal intolerance”, “We progressives believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table – er, so long as they are not Conservatives.” He also explained his experience: I’ve been thinking about this because on Facebook recently I wondered aloud whether universities stigmatise conservatives and undermine intellectual diversity. The scornful reaction from my fellow liberals proved the point.
The triumph of Trump and Modi was stunning. They won not just against their opponents, they reduced to naught not just their political adversaries, they conquered a huge apparatus of academicians, intellectuals and traditional media that consisted of journalists-turned-dealers, big banners of newspapers and ever-inquisitive TV channels. The ‘peer pressure’ to be politically correct carried away even the journalists who stood the test of the integrity and bipartisanship.
For an analyst or a scribe, misreading a situation is not a crime. It can be only a blunder at most. One may fail to grasp the reality and misjudge it while reporting. However, prejudging the individuals out of the hatred of ‘adverse’ ideology, justifying it in the name of democratic activism and refusing to respect the majority intellect – nay, ridiculing and despising it – was something that these ‘soldiers of pen’ did!
How is the scenario different in our country? Aren’t we witnessing information rationing by the Leftist liberals who are cocooned in their own ideological sphere.
The things have come to such a pass that world over, people are electing the popular leaders that the liberal (and secular in Bharat) press loves to hate. Trump told his followers many times during poll campaign to ‘stop reading the newspapers and watching Channels, there are all lies. Read internet instead.” Likewise, South African President Jacob Zuma has said in several speeches that “the only motive the press has for its existence is to make money.” While delivering a lecture to the journalism students, he once said that though journalists pretend to work in the public interest, “they were never elected.”
As the Trump’s leads were announced on TV and net, the WhatsApp groups were choked with frantic messaging. A journalists’ group of which I am a member, ran long thread of comments and replies. “If Trump wins as the trends indicate, the defeat is not just of Clinton but of self righteous media which demonised Trump. Many of us (specially those in the studios) feel that they know the pulse of the public. In reality, it's questioned most of the time; sometimes it may hit the bulls eye by fluke,” said one member.
Left liberals in US thought their worldview was the only worldview. That is where they erred badly. When Obama was elected, left liberals said it was the “wisdom of majority” and when Trump started getting support, they said it was the “support of unruly mob”. This showed their hypocrisy but media hardly picked it up.
The liberals, that is the branded
seculars in Bharat, used Trump’s
fallacies and vices to browbeat their bête noire, the Hinduists that is, to whom they thought they had lost ground in 2014. The Americans thought otherwise. Bharatiya people had done so two years ago itself.
(The writer is Senior Journalist)
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