'And a Man Hears What He Wants to Hear and Disregards the Rest..."*

(* With apologies to Paul Simon.) There is no nice way to say this. The media pushes propaganda - left-wing propaganda - and my leftist friends devour it. Here is just one example. In the race for the governorship of Florida, Rep. Ron DeSantis (R) will be running against Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum (D). Gillum is a leftist, and is supported by Bernie Sanders.

Following the recent primary election, DeSantis was on the Laura Ingraham show on Fox. DeSantis: "I'm trying to make Florida even better; he (Gillum) wants to make Florida Venezuela." But, according to the Los Angeles Times (8/30/18 edition), "DeSantis warned Floridians not to 'monkey this up' by choosing Gillum, drawing protest from Democrats who accused him of using a racially charged phrase." Said the head of Florida's Democratic Party: "It's disgusting that Ron DeSantis is launching his general election campaign with racist dog whistles."

The Huffington Post had this online headline: "Ron DeSantis Tells Florida Not to 'Monkey This Up' By Electing Andrew Gillum." The left-wing site Vox ran with this online headline: "Ron DeSantis says Andrew Gillum winning Florida would 'monkey this up.'" Never one to be outdone, CNN's online headline read: "Florida's GOP gubernatorial nominee says a vote for his black opponent would 'monkey this up.'" CNN wanted to be sure that their readers knew Mr. Gillum is a black man, in case they were unaware of that fact.

Except, for those who may be interested, this is the full comment by DeSantis: "The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state." Maybe there was more to the entire interview, but I do not see anything here about Mr. Gillum being black. But why should that matter to a media that wants to paint every Republican as being a racist (and sexist and islamophobic and homophobic and so on).

When my brother and I were kids, and we were fighting or just fooling around or just making too much noise for our Dad, he would tell us to "stop monkeying around." My father, a white man, made the comment to his two white sons. It was an expression. There was also a Yiddish expression used by our parents if we were acting up too much - they called us vilde chaya (wild animals).

The media is only too happy to depict all Republicans as being racist. And for my friends on the left who already believe it, this kind of distorted story serves only to confirm their beliefs.