Roger Kimball writes for American Greatness about a disturbing sign in American political discourse.
Bob Dole ran a pretty poor campaign against Bill Clinton in 1996. It was no surprise, then, that he lost. But let history acknowledge the former U.S. senator from Kansas asked the very best question in the entire election cycle. “Where’s the outrage?” he thundered at a GOP event at the end of October 1996. Back then, the chief issue was the Clinton Administration’s use and abuse of 900 FBI files on their political opponents. Imagine! An American president using the FBI as his secret police! Have you ever heard of anything so outrageous? In America, amidst Our Democracy™?
Then as now, however, the answer to Dole’s question is simple: Nowhere. There was, there is, no outrage. Then, as now, there are little flutters of enthusiast unhappiness among the rest of the faithful who greet news of outrageous behavior with applause and expressions of solidarity. “You go, champ!” they seem to say, before relapsing into a blinking, weakly smiling repose. (This is the cue for people like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney to adjust their hairdos and stride boldly on stage.)
But the media writ large? Then, as now, it’s crickets as far as the eye can see.
The biggest story of the day revolves around Elon Musk’s decision to open the window and reveal Twitter’s active role in stage managing the 2020 election on behalf of Joe Biden and very much to the detriment of Donald Trump. Over the past week, extensive Twitter threads posted by Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and others have revealed that the company was essentially part of a coordinated Democratic oppo-research and suppression operation and, moreover, one that was actively collaborating—or, to use the preferred term, “colluding”—with the FBI to destroy Donald Trump and assure Joe Biden’s election.
