This Week in the Guardian #9

Every week (or, rather, most weeks, since the coronavirus torpedoed our schedule), we like to highlight three or four stories that go full-Guardian, but don’t require an entire article of refutation.

We encourage reader-participation here, so if you come across something you feel should be included in the next edition either post a link below, or send us an e-mail.

Joes Biden: Social Revolutionary

Whatever the cause of the Black Lives Matter protests, however many of the street-level voices are sincere, there’s no denying anymore they are at least being leveraged politically – if not fully coordinated.

The latest sign of that is the fast-forward reform of Joe Biden into a liberal hero. In this piece we’re told Biden is “seizing the moment” with a “radical reform agenda”.

Elsewhere, Simon Tisdall suggests Biden could be the man to lead the “post Covid revolution”, which is alarming, because most people who’ve been paying attention wouldn’t trust Joe to lead a conga line (although, at least if he’s at the front he can’t inappropriately fondle anyone).

There’s a real pro-Biden surge right now. Whether that’s on the back of the moves to remove Trump “by any means necessary”, or a genuine push for the election is too early to say. The real discussion is who’s going to be his Vice President nominee.

Kamala Harris is being re-shaped into a “progressive voice” and the right choice for VP, despite her dreadful record as a prosecutor and total failure of her campaign. Other names being suggested are Elizabeth Warren…and even Michelle Obama. It’s definitely going to be a woman, and likely a “woman of colour”. The campaign will be incredibly tiresome.

Whoever is named VP, should Biden win (or be installed), will almost certainly be President, because Creepy Uncle Joe is a barely there.

It’s quite rare a Presidential candidate has fewer functioning brain cells than photos of them making little girls uncomfortable.

“John Bolton confirms Trump’s wickedness – but still he deserves Americans’ scorn“

Jonathan Freedland is angry at John Bolton. Not for being a war-criminal neocon psycho, or threatening the families of UN officials or even for his terrible mustache.

No, it’s because he didn’t overthrow the elected president.

That’s really it. This article is nothing but Freedland quoting anecdotes from Bolton’s latest book, believing them without question, and criticising Bolton for not taking part in the impeachment.

Not one word is spent discussing whether or not Bolton is a reliable source. Or whether he should be standing trial at the Hague. Or whether or not he might actually be a lunatic. Instead, the supposedly “liberal” paper gleefully reports his words as gospel, and wishes he’d “acted sooner”.

Apparently, the problem with Bolton is not the democracies he overturned in the Middle East or Latin America, but the one he didn’t overturn at home.

Do what you’re told, but roll your eyes

Special mention to Zoe Williams, who doesn’t necessarily believe all the government rules are strictly necessary, but darn it she’s going to follow them anyway. She’s just going to sardonically raise her eyebrows as she does so.

She gets points for this special kind of concern trolling, seeming to sort of give space to the idea the mask rule might not be reasonable, whilst also happening to mention that “respectable opinion is coalescing” around the fact that masks work, that the WHO recommends it and that the argument individual “virus particles” are too small to be kept out by a mask is “pedantic”.

A brilliant job of pretending to offer some kind of contrary opinion, whilst actually rigidly enforcing the orthodoxy. Classic Guardian.

Bonus: The election will be rigged (more obviously than usual)

They have yet another story defending mail-in ballots, predicting “chaos” and “confusion” over the new voting systems and claiming that Trump will inevitably cry foul if he loses in November.

That’s the third story along those lines in as many weeks. It’s pretty clear they’re setting up pre-emptive defenses of what is surely to be a highly doubtful – if not flat out falsified – election result.

* * *

All told, a busy week for The Guardian. And we didn’t even cover the the Covid19 sniffer dogs, or the fact anyone who suspects the McCanns might not be totally inoccent is a lunatic troll who just wants attention.

Did we miss anything? Tell us about it in the comments below, and keep an eye out for articles that should go in the next issue.

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