Remember when politicians lived in fear of offending “soccer moms” or any other constituency? That ended with “bitter clingers.” We are now in an abusive relationship with our federal government.

If you search the Obama White House archives for “misinform” (which includes “misinformed” and “misinformation”), you will find 247 instances of the former president or his spokespeople using that word during his eight years in the White House (acknowledging that there may be some duplication of documents). That annualizes to slightly more than once every other week for eight straight years.

Perusing these results leads to an unambiguous conclusion: The term represented eight straight years of blaming you. The messaging was consistent: Your understanding of the matter—whatever it was—was flawed. The Obama White House never erred. Oh no. You presented some defect, some flaw in your understanding. You’d been watching Fox or listening to Rush Limbaugh, so you’d gotten it wrong. It was not them.

It was you.

The exact same search in the Trump White House archive produces exactly 25 results for his one 4-year year term, or 6.25 times per year, for an annualized rate of a bit more than once every other month.

In the case of the Trump White House, there’s also an unambiguous conclusion about how the White House used the word: It wasn’t you that got anything wrong. If the Trump White House felt the need to issue blame at all, it was directed at other Democrats in power: the media, not you, the citizen.

Image by freepik (edited).

There’s something crucial about the ugliness of the Obama White House’s knee-jerk impulse to blame you, the citizen that simply cannot be sped by, overlooked: it’s the stuff of dictators, tyrants, and despots. And as you think about that, keep in mind that this is the same White House that committed the egregious “Lie of the Year,” advising us that, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” The Obama White House always had as its first impulse (as does the Biden White House) not to acknowledge you for simply noticing what it had actually done. Instead, it was—and is—to insult you or try to gaslight you into not seeing what was patently obvious.

As we look at a list of Democrat Media Complex^TM lies, contemplate the almost superhuman restraint it took for the Trump White House not to indulge “misinformation” game. Trump would’ve been absolutely within his rights to lob blame bombs right back at that rabid pack of Democrat dogs every single day, but he didn’t, and he didn’t instruct his team to do it.

Just think of the list of flat-out lies that Democrats told about the Trump Administration. Here’s just a taste, with thanks to Sharyl Attkisson for jogging my memory.

1.    A small but blindingly bright marquee example was “Koi-gate,” which even NPR had to admit was a garbage take by CNN and a fair mob of others. President Trump and (the now late) Prime Minister Abe each dumped a box of fish food in a koi pond in Japan, but the media focused only on Trump and spun what he did as a “world stage” blunder. On the face of it, it’s a petty attack in the grand scheme of things, but even light scrutiny reveals it as notably egregious, as the live video was broadcast worldwide. Don’t just speed by that fact. Democrats lied about something seen live all over planet Earth that could easily be verified or disproved via CSPAN. Think about the mindset of these numerous people lying about something seen live globally, then reliably archived. It simply boggles the imagination. Truly. It’s staggering when you really think about it.

2.    Then there was the alleged collusion between Wikileaks and Don Jr. Once again, “The Most Trusted Name in News,” CNN, carried the ball. Oops. Even The Washington Post had to report they got wrong their dates and pretty much everything else.

3.    The New York Times and many, many other outlets reported that Trump cruelly caged illegal immigrant children. From this emerged one of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)’s most iconic and heavily memed photographs. Oops. The inhumanity ascribed to Trump was actually from the Obama era. And while we’re on the subject, one of Time Magazine’s most memed covers came from yet another illegal immigrant child story gone, shall we say, fabululistly wrong.

4.    The so-called “Steele Dossier” was a real biggie. It was treated as etched-in-stone tablets, sent down by the hand of Gawd, or Gaia, or somebody… Oops. Even Rolling Stone had to conclude, finally, that it was always a garbage document, which produced untold hours of garbage cable “news” commentary the Trump White House would’ve been completely within their rights to label—loudly and often—“misinformation.”

5.    And finally, Paul Manafort allegedly “sharing” polling information with the Russians? Yeah, that never happened. One of the worst purveyors of the Trump-Russia-Russia-Russia narrative, Ken Vogel of The New York Times, had to walk that one back.

It can’t be overstated how crucial that difference is: when Trump complains about mis/dis/bad information, it’s about how it issues forth from those in positions of power, not how you “misunderstand” the material directed at you.

When Democrats complain, it’s almost always about us, the people who simply don’t understand them. Remember the days of “asking for every vote”? That was when politicians tried very hard not to offend anyone. Seems like a long time ago, another country.

This shift is stark. It’s not quite 20 years old and is patently despicable. And this White House, the Biden White House, along with its flying monkeys on television and in print, is picking up the club Obama first wielded on the campaign trail, way back in 2007-2008, when we were first accused of being “bitter clingers.” The bedrock principle of not offending “soccer moms” or any other constituency went flying out the window.

Don’t absorb the blows, but don’t do a drive-by either. Just know it. And reject it in every way possible, with your vote, with your donations, and with your retail patronage. If some rando on the street whacked you upside the head simply for noticing him, you wouldn’t give him five bucks, would you? Of course not. So, pay attention to your choices.

Don’t reward your abusers.

h/t to Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse for being among the first to frame this matter as “abusive.”

M. Walter is a pseudonym.