We’re all so used to double standards from the media that we barely notice them.  But right now, the unfairness is so acute that we must take a step back and remember something hideous that happened only this year. President Trump is being roundly criticized by most of the media for failing to criticize one side over the other in the Charlottesville riots, even before the exact sequence of events is understood, such as who initiated the violence. The verdict in this case must precede the evidence.

So let’s take a short trip down memory lane and recall how the media treated the attempted assassination of House Republicans by a Bernie Sanders supporter. James Hidgkinson, who evidently put a lot of thought and planning into his massacre. He had a prolific history of outspokenness in support of Sanders and was known to be fanatical.  No one on the left raised a peep about him. Following the massacre, Sen. Sanders took to the Senate floor and said:

"I have just been informed that the alleged shooter at the Republican baseball practice is someone who apparently volunteered on my presidential campaign," Sanders said. "I am sickened by this despicable act. Let me be as clear as I can be: Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms. Real change can only come about through nonviolent action, and anything else runs against our most deeply held American values."

Gee, just like President Trump, he condemned violence, but avoided any rebuke to his supporters by name.  The media lapped it up, and most added that it wasn’t fair to tar Bernie and his followers with any responsibility.  There are, after all, prominent progressive who incite the assassination of President Trump, without noticeable rebuke by name from the leader of the Democrats’ left, and the party’s most popular politician.  

There was more media effort to discredit the critics of Sanders than to draw the lines connecting progressive rhetoric to violence.

Compare and contrast the media reaction.