Summary
Overview
Constantine Kissin delivers a passionate monologue about media manipulation and political dishonesty, using examples from Trump's Charlottesville comments to his own recent Question Time appearance. He argues that politicians and media outlets deliberately take statements out of context to smear opponents, and contends that alternative media platforms like Trigonometry are breaking the legacy media's monopoly on public discourse. The piece culminates in a defiant challenge to critics to engage with arguments rather than resorting to cancellation attempts.
The Charlottesville Media Hoax
Constantine opens with a striking claim about one of the most infamous moments of Trump's presidency. He argues that Trump's "very fine people on both sides" comment was deliberately taken out of context by media outlets, when Trump had actually explicitly condemned neo-Nazis in the same press conference. This sets up his broader thesis about systematic media manipulation and establishes a pattern he sees repeated in contemporary political discourse.
- On August 12, 2017, a neo-Nazi drove into protesters in Charlottesville, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 35 others
- Trump said there were "very fine people on both sides" which caused outrage
- Trump actually said "I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally" but media cut this out
- Millions of people still believe the decontextualized version of Trump's comments
" I was horrified and outraged by the fact that instead of trying to bring calm Trump chose to further inflame a highly volatile situation but not nearly as horrified and outraged as I was when I later discovered that this was all an elaborate orchestrated media hoax. "
Modern Examples of Political Deception
Constantine provides recent UK examples of similar decontextualization tactics. He describes how the Labour Party clipped Matt Goodwin's comments to falsely claim he criticized Manchester, and recounts his own experience on Question Time where Douglas Alexander attempted to paint him as bigoted by misrepresenting his comments about English identity. These examples demonstrate that such manipulation isn't limited to American politics or media but has become standard practice in British political discourse.
- Labour Party clipped Matt Goodwin's comments out of context to claim he criticized Manchester when he was criticizing the Conservative Party conference
- Douglas Alexander on Question Time suggested Constantine is a bigot by claiming he said Rishi Sunak isn't English because he's a brown Hindu
- The tactics are spreading from politics to public debate more broadly
" These dirty tricks are sadly part of the ugly game of politics. More troublingly, they are now increasingly spreading to the arena of public debate more broadly. "
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