Apart from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and MSNBC, CNN is the most openly partisan media outlet in the U.S. with a profile that makes it nearly indistinguishable from the Democratic Party. A recent example of this was given to us by the network’s chief analyst, Gloria Borger. Her conclusion is that the reason President Donald Trump wants to build a wall is because he desires a physical monument as his legacy – his own personal Mount Rushmore.

Mind Reading

As evidence, she cites a statement that Trump made during his campaign:

“What I do best in life, I build. … I want it to be so beautiful because maybe someday they’ll call it ‘The Trump Wall.’ Maybe. If they call this ‘The Trump Wall,’ it has to be beautiful.”

So, never mind all that talk about border security. Borger can read his mind, and inside the hollow space between his ears, she sees an imp, a narcissist who wants to build a wall for the single purpose of satisfying his own megalomanic ego and create a monument in celebration to his self-perceived greatness.

Herein we see the major difference between the far-left media and the corresponding pundits on the right. When President Barack Obama was in office, many conservatives had a negative view of him, but most right-wing commentators acknowledged that Obama was an eloquent speaker and did not doubt that he believed in his own ideas.

Conservatives and libertarians vehemently disagreed with his values, which they regarded as fundamentally un-American, but no-one on the mainstream right thought that Obamacare was only intended as a monument to his legacy. 

By contrast, CNN cannot even imagine the possibility that Trump is genuinely concerned about security and the threat to America’s future that illegal immigration poses.

Ideological Blindness

That lack of self-awareness is mirrored in another article, in which they posit six scenarios that could end the government shutdown. They cover the possibility of Trump giving in, but not House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). To CNN, this is not even within the realm of possibilities. An outside observer sees this not as journalism but political advocacy.

Finally, when the network lambasts the president as fascist for labeling them as “fake news,” the only option they do not consider is the possibility that he is right. In their world, they can read minds and never be wrong.

It does not bother them that their worldview involves the notion that half of the American people are deplorables that do not deserve to be treated with any form of respect or be represented in the news or politics.

The Path to Real News

In the long run, the only way CNN and other partisan media can regain any semblance of journalistic integrity is to practice the diversity that they preach: Bring conservatives into the boardrooms and as partners and coworkers to provide an alternative viewpoint that prevents them from becoming trapped in their ideological bubble.

Consider the strange case of the Covington Catholics, for instance. If there had been some conservatives working in the mainstream media, they would have given a pushback and rejected the simple narrative that the schoolboys were bigoted bullies. The networks might then have been forced to engage in real journalism.

If Borger had consulted a conservative colleague, that person would have told her that you can’t read peoples minds, but that the president’s actions speak of a person who cares about the security and future of America – and that is the reason so many Americans voted for him.