U.S. Air National Guard members welcome Afghan evacuees in Kuwait

Often, the initial “news” coverage of a story is not the final word. Rather, events prove the original coverage wrong, and a strong counter-narrative develops and takes hold. For example, when the website to sign up for Affordable Care Act (ACA) healthcare coverage first went online in late 2013, it had technical problems for a short time. That’s not so unusual, given that the ACA and its website were (a) brand new, and (b) massive in scope. Nevertheless, the media, swayed by Republicans desperate to criticize President Barack Obama, went into a feeding frenzy, which not only covered all the problems with the new ACA website ad nauseam, but implied that the underlying ACA itself (and even Barack Obama’s presidency) therefore must be problematic, which was not the case. Thus, while the initial criticism was damaging to the ACA and President Obama, the website was soon fixed, millions of people signed up for healthcare coverage, and the popularity of this Obama cornerstone grew steadily and has remained high ever since.

Something similar now appears to be happening in Afghanistan. Many in the “news” media (in quotes because it’s more opinion than news) seem to be forgetting that it was Donald Trump who cozied up to the Taliban, first offering to invite them to the Camp David presidential retreat, then signing the agreement to let 5,000 of them out of prison and to pull U.S. troops out. Instead, the media, again fed by the same old dishonest Republican attacks, have been hammering President Joe Biden for the “calamity” and “disaster” of the Taliban taking over control of Afghanistan again, even though Biden had little or no room to prevent that outcome after the deal that Donald “The Art of the Deal” Trump struck. Moreover, it’s not just right wing media who are attacking President Biden. Here, for example, is CNN‘s Chief International Correspondent, Clarissa Ward, expressing feelings rather than investigating facts just a few days ago:

CNN’s @clarissaward in Kabul: “I'm sitting here for 12 hours in the airport, 8 hours on the airfield and I haven't seen a single US plane take off. How on Earth are you going to evacuate 50,000 people in the next two weeks? It just, it can’t happen.”

— Kate Sullivan (@KateSullivanDC) August 20, 2021

As can be seen after the jump, however, the pushback against these false narratives is beginning to take shape.

Thinking about Twitter

This blog was founded on the principles of Dr. George Lakoff, former Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley and the sometimes official, sometimes unofficial messaging and framing guru of the Democratic Party. Last November, we covered an intriguing question Lakoff raised in his blog: “Why are you a Democrat?” Therefore, we are especially interested in Lakoff’s recent piece, where he tells Democrats to stop sharing, repeating and talking about Donald Trump‘s tweets.