When prominent conservatives get accused of bad behavior like sexual harassment, the reporters and witnesses as well as the accusers are labeled liars by conservatives, and they are assumed to all be acting with political motives. But when the accused is a liberal or a minority, guilt is instantly assumed. Cases in point: when Breitbart issued a forged video of an Alabama agricultural official admitting to feelings of anger toward White farmers because of how they had treated her father, a Black farmer, conservatives leaped to point to how Blacks were the real racists, as evidenced by the video. The real video, played by the media, showed a person who had indeed struggled with feelings of bitterness but overcame them to provide good service, as attested by several White Alabama farmers.
When Roy Moore was accused of egregious acts with minors, denials came quickly but just as quickly accusations of political and media bias and lying. What these conservatives do not understand is how the press works; reporters don’t grab an accusation and run with it, they check it out. And it is this checking, these procedures, that uneducated people of any political persuasion don’t know about. They think reporters/journalists operate the way they do when they hear rumors down at the barber shop or hair dressers – they just run with it. The idea that procedures would dictate that reporters ask for corroboration from, for instance, people who know or knew the accuser and could recall being told of the event by the accuser at the time it happened.
But this highlights a bigger problem with less educated people, their lack of understanding. They watch Walker, Texas Ranger episodes where villains are obvious, with their unshaven faces and black hats or ludicrous “ghetto” get-ups and the good guys talk in dulcet tones in “proper” English unless they are a “character” whose argot accompanies a heart of gold. In the end, the crime is easily solved, the bad guys go to jail to teach them a lesson, and all is well. This is the America conservatives want to go back to, a television world that never existed in reality. This is the country conservatives “want back.” One without complexities and procedures, without checks and balances.