Batya Ungar-Sargon is deputy opinion editor at Newsweek and author of 'Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy' Last ...
Batya Ungar-Sargon is deputy opinion editor at Newsweek and author of 'Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy'
Last week was a big one for liberal elites admitting things most Americans already know are true, but were suppressed by the mainstream media and especially Big Tech.
The New York Times – the ideological gatekeeper of the increasingly out-of-touch progressive left – reported that a laptop abandoned in a Delaware repair shop was actually Hunter Biden's.
The Times also realized another thing most Americans already know that only a small portion of Americans think COVID still poses a 'great risk' to their health.
And the Times admitted that lockdowns, masking, vaccines and boosters have not caused 'large differences in case rates' of COVID-19.
It was refreshing to see these truths printed outright in a mainstream liberal publication.
After all, as recently as January, saying that masks were useless was enough to get you kicked off of YouTube. So was challenging the vaccine mandate or protesting lockdowns.
Of course, publishing a bombshell report about a presidential candidate's troubled son, who profited off overseas business deals could get your outlet suppressed on Twitter, Facebook and trashed in the media.
Conservatives have long decried this as a bias against them from socially liberal Silicon Valley, but it's actually much worse than that.
It's a bias in favor of those in power—in favor of elites. It's a bias against the middle and working classes.
Each of these examples reveals this bias in a different way. Let's start with COVID.
A largely white-collar, knowledge industry email class was easily able to start working from home—homes that saw historic bumps in value.
Conservatives have long decried this as a bias against them from socially liberal Silicon Valley. But it's actually much worse than that. It's a bias in favor of those in power—in favor of elites. (Left) Image recovered from Hunter Biden's laptop (Right) Cover of New York Post showcasing Hunter Biden laptop story, which was suppressed by Big Tech
But rather than recognize the economic privilege of getting to stay inside making banana bread and buying Peloton bikes, the pajama class dressed this privilege up as virtue, which correlated strongly with their lingering terror around getting COVID.
It was a terror that working-class Americans—Amazon delivery drivers and grocery store stockers and truckers and police officers—could not afford; they had to continue to work throughout the worst of the pandemic, delivering food and safety to members of the liberal elite ensconced in their homes denouncing anyone who opposed the draconian lockdown measures of blue states as a 'grandma killer.'
Lockdowns reduced millions of small business owners to poverty and swelled the stocks of big box megastores' stocks, as the elites brayed for more; their boredom shopping sprees gave Amazon record profits, while middle class business owners with their savings gone and their businesses dead committed suicide.
And throughout, liberal elites somehow convinced themselves that they were the good guys, the ones who cared about the collective—as opposed to those evil individualists who refused to see their life savings go up in smoke without complaint.
The COVID divide was never about blue vs. red.
It was about elites vs. the middle and working classes.
And Big Tech took a side.
It's this class divide that was exposed in the latest release of a Morning Consult tracking poll cited in the Times last week.
When it came to views of COVID, the survey found that Americans who identify as liberal, slightly liberal, and moderate, were more similar in their views to Americans who identify as conservative, slightly conservative and very conservative than they were to those who identified as very liberal.
Nearly 50 percent of those identifying as 'very liberal' still believe COVID presents a 'great risk' to their health—compared to just 22 percent of liberals, 18 percent of slightly liberals and 27 percent of moderates.
But here's the thing: 'Very liberal' is not a political ideology. It's a socio-economic category.
Again, this is about class.
Twitter and Facebook overtly suppressed information that might have swayed voters toward Donald Trump. (Above, left to right) President-elect Joe Biden, his wife Jill Biden, son Hunter Biden and members of the Biden family, stand on stage Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020
A recent Pew Research Center study found that just 6 percent of Americans are on the progressive left, and it's the whitest of all the sub-groups of the Democratic coalition; nearly seven in 10 Americans on the progressive left are white, while just 6 percent of black Democrats and 7 percent Hispanic Democrats identify as such.
Progressives are also much more likely to have a four-year college degree than other Americans, and they are the most cautious when it comes to COVID.
And it's these over-educated, overly cautious progressives whose side Big Tech has taken when it comes to COVID—at the expense of the middle and working class, at the expense of poor black and Hispanic children, and at the expense of the truth.
Something similar was afoot in the censoring of Hunter Biden's laptop.
The laptop contained compromising photos and information about then-candidate Joe Biden's son Hunter, including emails detailing how Hunter traded on his family name and his father's political leverage to do business overseas.
The New York Post reported on the contents of the laptop in October 2020, a month before the election—and for their troubles had their Twitter account suspended for the next six weeks.
Twitter and Facebook overtly suppressed information that might have swayed voters toward Donald Trump.
Of course, a major part of this was politics; Silicon Valley's billionaire class gave exorbitantly to Joe Biden to oust Donald Trump, and its giving was not limited to cash donations.
But this, too, was also about class.
Because from the start of the pandemic, Trump had taken the side of keeping the economy running, dueling with liberal governors intent on prolonged lockdowns.
And for many Americans worried about the economy—those whose jobs didn't afford them the opportunity to work from home and see the values of their houses skyrocket—that was a decisive factor in their vote.
It was especially decisive for Hispanic voters.
'The economy and its intersection with COVID became voters' top priority,' Equis Research found in an analysis of Hispanic voters in 2020.
This intersection pushed many Hispanic voters to vote for Trump, who they gave high marks for the economic stimulus package, the rapid development of vaccines, his push to reopen the economy and his emphasis on living without fear of COVID.
When you consider that Hispanics are the second-largest group of workers in the labor force and over-represented in jobs like construction, agriculture and hospitality—jobs you can't do from your Upper East Side apartment—this makes a lot of sense.
Meanwhile, the Democrats' voter base is increasingly made up of the wealthy; Democrats represented 65 percent of taxpayers with a household income of $500,000 or more in 2020, according to IRS data, while 74 percent of taxpayers with incomes of less than $100,000 now vote Republican.
Trump's motives need not have been noble for it to be a fact that he was viewed by many working-class Americans of all races as a tribune who represented their interests when it came to COVID.
And it was their interests that were erased by Big Tech.
Then to cap it all off last week, in the spirit of liberals admitting things everyone else already knows, The New York Times editorial argued that America has a free speech problem.
Trump's motives need not have been noble for it to be a fact that he was viewed by many working-class Americans of all races as a tribune who represented their interests when it came to COVID. (Above) Trump, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 26, 2022, in Orlando, Fla
'For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned,' wrote the Times editorial board, citing new data which found that 84 percent of Americans are afraid to voice their opinions for fear of retaliation.
In response, journalists at even more elite publications denied the findings and called for the editorial board to resign. (Is anyone surprised that other studies have found the only group in America that doesn't feel silenced are people farthest to the left?)
Many denied that cancel culture exists, or that anyone faces repercussions for their opinions, despite the ironic fact that the Times itself fired two journalists for falling afoul of just the sort Twitter mob that drives people with unpopular opinions to lose their jobs.
And finally, the inevitable: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez summarized the op-ed as 'protecting bigots from feeling embarrassed in public.'
It's the calling card of over-educated elites the world over, of whom AOC is the patron saint: Anything that infringes on the economic agenda of rich liberals is bigotry.
But a shift is afoot.
There's one thing you can tell for sure from a New York Times editorial admitting to the existence of a trend it has fulsomely participated in: The ruling class has had its fill of seeing the Democrats plunging in polls ahead of a midterm election—as a result of exactly the kind of class battles dressed up as moral ones outlined above.
Hey Big Tech – now it's your turn.
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