Because of the Left's dominance of the national media, punditry and academia, they often believe conservatives cannot or will not respond to the bias perpetrated against them.
Candidate and then President Donald Trump turned that on its head, refusing during his campaign and during his term to kowtow to inaccurate or one-sided information or outright lies reported as fact against him.
Such a moment occurred earlier this week in the daily White House coronavirus briefing when the president stepped aside and played a compilation video that laid bare early remarks made by United States medical experts playing down the potential of the COVID-19 virus.
The narrative being spun, after all, has been that Trump has been all wrong and the Left all right on how it warned of the virus. But since the president had been at least an even bet to win re-election based on the strong economy, now collapsed due to government-closed businesses and stay-at-home mandates, the Left is ginning up the virus as a political tool against him in the fall.
We don't condone the daily White House coronavirus briefing being used by the president in his support, but it is a fact the Left up to now has been attempting to use the briefings against him.
As might be expected, the presentation was more than just a little embarrassing for the gathered media and the politicians they support.
The video, among other clips, showed medical experts saying the country should be more concerned about the flu than the coronavirus, including one saying "coronavirus is not going to cause a major issue in the United States," and displayed the early actions Trump took to stop its spread.
USA Today, in a "fact check" rebuttal, admitted that what had been said had been said but hurried to paper over that admission by citing warnings by other media or instances where reporters admitted their previous reporting had been in error.
Fox News took the White House video one step further and compiled a timeline of early virus remarks made by journalists, medical experts, politicians and others on the Left.
That timeline included presumed Democratic nominee Joe Biden's top coronavirus spokesman praising China and encouraging travel to China during the outbreak, the World Health Organization's investigation that found "no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission" of the virus and Biden's accusing Trump of "hysteria and xenophobia - hysterical xenophobia" over his early travel ban to China.
The Fox News timeline was not, as might be expected by those on the Left, totally flattering to Trump. It included moments of his downplaying the virus and how his rhetoric on its seriousness changed.
For instance, on Jan. 22, asked if he was concerned about the virus, he said, "No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. ... It's going to be just fine."
Just a day later, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, today held up by the Left as an antidote to Trump in the daily briefings, had this to say: "There's no chance in the world that we could do that (shut it down) to Chicago or to New York or to San Francisco, but they're doing it [to Chinese cities]."
The following day, Jan. 24, the administration had a briefing on the virus for senators, but it was "sparsely attended" because it "was held the same day as a deadline for senators to submit their impeachment questions."
"The initial thought from the Dems, I think," a GOP Senate aide told Politico, "is that we were trying to distract from impeachment."
Two days later, Fauci said, "The American people should not be worried or frightened by this. It's a very, very low risk to the United States."
On Jan. 27, the Biden campaign praised China for being "transparent" and "candid" and said there was "no reason" for anyone to postpone essential travel to anywhere but the Wuhan area.
The president's implemented China travel ban brought this on Jan. 31 from an epidemiologist quoted by the New York Times: "more of an emotional or political reaction." The same day, far-left Vox tweeted, "Is this going to be a deadly pandemic? No." (The site deleted the tweet weeks later.) And the Canadian health minister said the risk of the virus is "low," that the "spread of the disease is contained."
All that is just through January. Similar comments went on into March.
The point is not to condemn the early words of medical experts - and even the media and politicians on the Left - but that their beliefs and understandings were the same as the information Trump was getting. To criticize him today for what nobody knew then is unfair and smacks of the bias against him since before he took office. Reasonable people can have differences of opinion over policy issues, but the battle we fight over a global pandemic is one Americans ought to make together.