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Notes -
So, let me see if I'm understanding this situation right:
Per a 2021 article by Axios, Harris was "appointed by Biden as border czar." Their wording: "Why it matters: The number of unaccompanied minors crossing the border has reached crisis levels. Harris, appointed by Biden as border czar, said she would be looking at the "root causes" that drive migration." Yet another 2021 article by Axios says this very same thing, saying that Harris was "put in charge of the border crisis" and calling her border czar.
So Axios in 2021 (and many other such media outlets) call Harris "border czar" when they think it might make Harris look good and bolster her importance. Axios then conveniently disavows this label and issues a correction to their own article only three years later, in 2024, once it's discovered that the situation at the southern border might not reflect well on Harris now that she is running against Trump. Note both the second article calling Harris border czar and the one saying she was never border czar were written by the very same journalist. One moment it's Huzzah, Harris is border czar and the next it's You guys, Harris was never border czar, the Republicans just made that up, and we have always been at war with Eastasia. Democrats have already produced internal memos telling their people how to fall in line on this issue.
My understanding of this whole situation is that this is one of the things that are technically true, but that these pedantic fact-checks are obviously partisan and misleading (and designed to lead you to a different conclusion than it actually warrants). Yes, the term "border czar" doesn't exist, and so technically Harris cannot have been border czar. But "czar" is an unofficial term that is generically used to describe people in positions of power like this, going back to the Bush era. Clearly the media thought it was an appropriate term in 2021, but not in 2024, and the fact that they're now going back and "recontextualising" their previous articles based on whether or not it's politically convenient is an extremely bad look.
It is correct that her role was not to literally manage everything regarding border policy, and she was not directly in charge of the border. She did, however, have a responsibility to try and stem the core cause of the border crisis, engage in diplomacy to do so, and to work with these countries to enforce borders, something that she also admits to in this tweet. If she really did what she was tasked to do, she should be able to confidently reply that she offered solutions to these problems that weren't taken up, not to claim that she holds zero responsibility on one of the few issues she was asked to assist with. As Biden himself states:
"In addition to that, there’s about five other major things she’s handling, but I’ve asked her, the VP, today — because she’s the most qualified person to do it — to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that help — are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border."
"[T]he Vice President has agreed — among the multiple other things that I have her leading — and I appreciate it — agreed to lead our diplomatic effort and work with those nations to accept re- — the returnees, and enhance migration enforcement at their borders — at their borders."
This entire thing just seems like one of these comically exaggerated Ministry-of-Truth-esque things that happen often in election cycles, the last one being the total 180 on Biden, where before the debate they were proclaiming that Biden was in the best shape ever and that all the alt-media outlets talking about his mental decline were just conspiracy theorists, then right after that shitshow of a debate that they couldn't BandAid over, all of a sudden the calls to resign started up and it turned out his party had been silent about his decline for years despite knowing about it.
I am not a fan of overusing "Orwellian" but this is as close a case as I've seen to all those comments about everyone receiving a simultaneous "download" of their new talking points.
"Border czar" is not and never was an official title - so when everyone says "Harris was never appointed border czar" - yes, technically that is true. (Technically, the Vice President has precisely one official duty, which is breaking ties in the Senate. Other than that, the VP has only whatever duties and authority the President assigns, and there have been VPs who basically faffed around for four years with nothing to do.) But clearly Harris was referred to as "border czar" and everyone understood what that meant, even if it was a strictly informal title.
Frustratingly, mentioning this to my Harris-supporting friends just gets sighs and eye-rolls, like "Why does this even matter?" And how good a job she did as "border czar" probably doesn't matter all that much - what matters (to me) is watching the entire media apparatus turn on a dime to reinforce DNC talking points and everyone thinks that's fine and that people trying to point out the discrepancy are just bad-faith Harris-haters.
Go to Google.com and type "attempted assassination of Donald" or "of Trum" and look at the predictions.
The entire Dem system is orwellian, there is no other word for it. It's not possible to overuse it.
You've just gotten used to it, because that's what you have to do to feel like a Sensible Moderate rather than one of those witches you sneer at.
Also, I did this just to indulge you (I assume "Trum" was a typo, or is that supposed to be some new meme I am not familiar with?), and the top results were the latest AP, CNN, ABC, and Fox News stories, followed by links from the FBI and Wikipedia. What new Dem Orwellian nefariousness am I supposed to be seeing, exactly?
Isn't he talking about autocomplete (hence "Trum" instead of "Trump")?
Okay. "Attempted Assassination of Donald" - autocompletes were "wiki," "first attempted assassination of US President," and references to various presidential assassinations. Is the Google wickedness here that it doesn't autocomplete to "Donald Trump" first? I suppose it's possible that Google engineers intentionally removed "Trump" from the predictions, but the reason for doing this eludes me - people would then be diverted from finding out about an attempted assassination of Donald Trump? Working with LLMs and other token predictors quite a lot, I find more prosaic technical explanations more likely than whatever opaque partisan SEO scheme this is supposed to imply.
When I try "Attempted Assassination of Trum", the first autocomplete is "Trump" (guess those Google engineers weren't vigilant enough!) and the second is "Truman."
ETA: While generally I don't feel obligated to prove anything to bad faith trolls accusing me of lying, I did find myself puzzled that I was getting different results than what other people claimed. I redid them and realized I'd missed the top results were earlier searches in my own search history (with a different icon). So when I used a private tab I got mostly the same Trump-less results as others did. (Still don't see Prince Alfred or Queen Victoria, though - @AshLael. Maybe regional differences?) Still not convinced someone deliberately went in and removed all Trump-related assassination queries, but I will be interested in trying again in a few days and seeing what happens.
Show a screenshot, I get the exact same result as everyone but you apparently
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