Veteran Reporter Says It's Liberalism vs. Conservatism
By John Grimaldi
Kimberley Strassel is a veteran journalist and member of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board who writes the weekly column, Potomac Watch. The Wall Street Journal printed its first edition in 1889; today it has a worldwide circulation of about three million readers. It was founded by Charles Dow and Edward Jones and to this day, it is still published daily by the Dow Jones Companies and noted for its award-winning news coverage.
Recently, Kimberley Strassel joined Rebecca Weber, CEO of the Association of Mature American Citizens, on AMAC’s Better For America podcast, for a discussion of the current state of American politics. As she put it, we are currently “having an up close and personal experience with liberalism, with an administration that is pushing forward ideas that are more progressive and aggressive than anything that we have probably seen since when Jimmy Carter was in office, if not before.”
Strassel went on to remind us that the nation got “really sick of that experiment” when along came Ronald Reagan, “a great communicator who [united] the conservative movement and fundamentally changed the structure of politics in the country for a generation or more.” She called it the “Reagan Revolution” and said that President Reagan not only united the party, but he invited others to join in. “That's what's really at stake here. It's not just the next two years, but will conservatives capitalize on the great discontent that is washing across the country and use it to build a new movement?”
Meanwhile, the GOP now has control of the House of Representatives and has the ability to investigate and expose the damage for which the Biden administration is responsible. “That would include taking a deep dive in the FBI, looking a little bit more at what happened starting all the way back with the Russia collusion hoax. But also, we've had whistleblowers coming forward, talking to Congress about continued political bias happening at the very top of the agency. I think Americans deserve answers on Afghanistan and that horrible withdrawal that weakened the country. I think they deserve answers in terms of the CDC and various other public health organizations that very much got it wrong in a lot of ways on COVID, mostly so that we know how to make sure that we get it right if there is another pandemic.”
Strassel also pointed out that as a journalist, she is supposed “to be skeptical of government ... to counter government spin, government officials. But look at what happened during the Russia collusion narrative. They [reporters] were essentially taking dictation from the same government officials who had engaged in wrongdoing, some of whom had been fired. But just telling their side, their story, not actually asking any questions. That's very problematic because the fourth estate is meant to keep the government on its toes, expose ill-doings, and work on behalf of the people by telling the truth.” As we have seen in the media, this is not something that is being done by journalists or news outlets. We have in fact seen quite the opposite.
However, Strassel shared the good news: “for every [news] outlet that I think has gone down that road, there have been others that have popped up. They might not have as big a megaphone, but they are committed to continuing to tell the truth, to respect their readers, [and] to understand that their job isn't just to give a narrative. And what I always argue is if you don't like that kind of partisan journalism, there's a very easy answer to it. It's the same thing that we do as consumers every day. Turn it off, don't buy it, don't listen to it, and send the message that that kind of journalism isn't acceptable.”
