The Gaslighting That Is Going On

Wednesday, December 3, 2025

So, the GOP held the 7th district Tennessee special election, preserving its narrow margin in the House.  The reporting is fascinating.  Fox, “With some votes still being counted, Van Epps was headed towards a nine-point victory.”  Mediaite, “Van Epps, a former Army helicopter pilot, secured Tennessee’s 7th District with barely 54% of the vote, defeating Behn in a district Trump carried by 22 points just last year. ”  One report – a decent victory, the other it was a very near thing.  Which was it?

Nine points is closer than the GOP would like in Tennessee, and it is greatly narrowed from the prior election, but it is hardly close.  It should also be noted that Nashville, part of which is in this district, is turning blue in a hurry as so much of California heads in its direction.  My conclusion is that the GOP is headed for an uphill battle in ’26, but then that is par for the course in mid-terms.  Time to get to work.

What is bothersome is the media spin.  If you read a variety of sources you get everything from sober assessment to “moral victory” for the Dems.  Now, in fairness, Mediaite does go on to report tweets and commentary from both sides, but their headline and lede seems designed purposefully to be derisive and poke fun at the president.  This was the case with other outlets as well.

The same thing is going on with the “affordability” crisis.  Yes, life is notably more expensive than it was a few years ago.  That’s undeniable.  But those price increases are older, dating back to the Biden administration.  Prices have been reasonably stable since Trump came back to the White House.  But the media spins it as if 1) prices should have dropped when Trump came in (nonsense, that’s “deflation” and nobody wants it) and 2) Much of the subsidies that the Biden Regency spit out like watermelon seeds, and that drove the inflation, are drying up – making us “feel” the higher prices more.  This is all just how a spending spree inflationary cycles work.

But the Democrats, and their increasingly clearly allies in the media, want to hang this around Trump’s neck.  And so, we hear the word “affordability” over and over and over again when we should be hearing about “coping with Biden era inflation.”  And so with a few simple words choices and phraseology, the media can claim to be reporting the facts while all the time shaping public perception.

This is how bubbles are created where everyone is armed with facts, but live in two different worlds.  We have to figure out a better way.