Almost a week after explosive and authentic emails asking very real questions about the integrity of Joe Biden broke, the BBC is yet to report on the issue once. That is reason 764 for why it should be defunded. Instead I turn to its real coverage from overpaid correspondents such as Nick Bryant who went filming in Western Pennsylvania, the rust belt.
He started off going to meet a lady who had covered her house in Trump flags, who had a US flag made up of red and blue pistols. Nick wanted to remind you in a subliminal way that all Trump supporters are ignorant, gun-toting rednecks with no taste or style. Job done. Nick then went to interview an impartial observer, a historian, who, being impartial, dissed claims made by Trump. And then he went to find one of those voters in these old industrial towns who had switched to Trump in 2016.
These folks were mean to be working class folks and typically have switched before. You will remember that what were termed Reagan Democrats helped the great man sweep the Rust Belt in 1980 and 1984. And these Reagan Democrats mostly stayed on board for Bush in 1988. And many of them have voted in GOP in State and local contests at one time or another.
So Nick pitched up on the veranda of a house belonging to Chuck Howenstein who was described as “a former Trump supporter”. Chuck explained in an articulate way why Biden would and should win. Now you may smell a rat here in that Chuck had a BlackLivesMatter placard as well as a Biden placard in his yard. He is perhaps not your atypical floating voter. Too right.
If you do a google search (HERE) you will see
a) That this man’s voting behaviour has been covered in numerous newspapers and on CNN since 2019 which suggests that flying Nick at vast expense to his front porch is not exactly working hard to bring us something new.
b) He is in fact a lifelong Democrat who is married to a lifelong Dem but who voted for Trump at the last minute in the 2016 election. He is not a rust belt worker but a former business owner. And, as such, he is not in the slightest way representative of the Reagan Democrats/rust belt working class voters for Trump whose 2016 switch saw Pennsylvania go GOP. This is one of the few folks in Western Pennsylvania to have voted for Carter, Mondale and Dukakis in the elections of 1980, 84 and 88. He is thoroughly atypical.
I am not sure as a license fee payer what angers me most. Is it the expense of Bryant as he sources his vox pops from the internet like a cub reporter too idle to actually head into the field? Or is it that this report was so deceptive and misleading?
Either way, it is another reason why with an 80 seat majority the Tories should #defundtheBBC before it behaves in the same way in the next UK General Election.