The Democrat-Media Bipartisanship Fallacy

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Third, the sudden elevation of Mitch McConnell to the status of moral oracle for the Democrat Party is a bit odd because, first, McConnell is regularly identified as one of the most corrupt members of congress. The conservative Daily Caller lists McConnell and Paul Ryan as the two most corrupt members of Congress in 2018.  The conservative Washington Examiner ranks McConnell as one of the most corrupt members of Congress.  The conservative Redstate.com states that McConnell and his wife Elaine Chao are as corrupt as the Clintons.   According to the leftist Salon.com, McConnell and his wife run an “empire of corruption.”  So can we infer that McConnell’s judgements are not to be trusted or is bipartisan agreement only correct when it supports the leftist causes du jour?

Fourth, the Democrat-Media Colluders generally despise McConnell because, among other things, according to one of their other useful storylines, he stole a Supreme Court seat from them (replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Amy Coney Barrett) by following the Schumer rule for SCOTUS nominations (Yes, the Schumer rule).  Translation: The Democrats can propose the Schumer rule about replacing a Supreme Court Justice during an election year to further their agenda but the Republicans are not allowed to use it to further theirs. 

Despite these little credibility and integrity problems with the official establishment storyline, the operative principle seems to be that if the storyline is “bipartisan” then it must be true.  However, one thing that the Democrat-Media Colluders refuse to understand, or, perhaps, are not capable of understanding, is that Trump did not run against the Democrats in 2016 and 2020.  He ran against the bipartisan swamp.  That is, if the principles of rational argument are observed, and if one is to play the “bipartisan card” against Trump, one must first show that that corruption is not bipartisan.  Failing to do so means that the establishment argument about Trump and the Jan. 6 riot premised on the Bipartisanship Card is the fallacy of “begging the question” (a fallacious argument that assumes what it purports to prove). 

In order to rectify this fallacy, one would have to argue independently that the corruption is not bipartisan.  Since, however, it is entirely clear that it is bipartisan, the “bipartisanship card” is, by itself, without force.  That is, if the bipartisan majority, composed of members of both parties, is corrupt, then making bipartisanship an end in itself will only ensure corrupt outcomes.

There is a Biblical story[ii] in which the wise King Solomon was besieged by two women each claiming that a certain baby was theirs.  Each wished King Solomon to award the baby to them.  Since there was no way to determine who was the real mother, King Solomon announced that the baby would be cut in two, and half given to each woman.  At that point one of the women relented and said the baby should be given to the other woman.  That other woman, by contrast, agreed with Solomon’s solution.  Of course, King Solomon did not really want to cut the baby in two.  He wanted to know the truth about which woman is the real mother. Obviously, the real mother would rather give her baby to her rival rather than see it cut in two whereas the fake mother would rather see the baby killed than see it given to her rival.  The wise King awarded the baby to the first mother who agreed to give it to her rival rather than see it killed.

Some of us are like King Solomon.  We want the truth, not a fake “bipartisan” solution in which the truth is cut in half and each side gets a piece.  This does not mean that bipartisanship is not a value.  It means that it is not an end in itself but is only of utility if it is a means to help reach the truth, but that means that the Democrat-Media Colluders use of the Bipartisanship Card against Trump, by itself, “begs the question” and establishes nothing.