Opinion

Right-wing reaction to Chinese balloon incident is dangerous


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On the heels of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday evening, his controversial decision to shoot down the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon over the Atlantic Ocean will be front and center. China’s condemnation was swift, along with that of certain GOP members who were looking to blame Biden for mishandling the incident. Straight Arrow News contributor David Pakman argues right-wing politicians are employing a dangerous narrative that’s only serving to embarrass the Republican Party.

Let’s talk about President Joe Biden popping the Chinese surveillance balloon.

So I have nothing new to offer you in terms of the facts of what took place. What we now know is that a Chinese surveillance balloon of some kind came in on a trajectory over Alaska, came through Canada over the United States. The Biden administration was notified of it, and subsequently ordered it blown up – I guess is the term I’m going to use – popped the balloon – off of the coast of South Carolina.

I am most interested here about the meta-narrative about the story – what is the story about the telling of the story that has been told.

Very quickly, the narrative from the Right, once we learned of the balloon, was: “Joe Biden is too weak, Joe Biden is too much of a beta to do anything about the balloon, and Trump certainly would have blown the balloon out of the sky by now.”

Very dangerous rhetoric in fact, partially because blowing up the balloon, shooting it out of the sky over land, could put human life at risk. And so the decision was made by Joe Biden to okay shooting the balloon out of the sky, popping the balloon, but it should be done when the balloon is over water. And that is exactly what happened.

Once that took place those very same right-wingers who were saying Biden would never have the balls to do it, right – okay, some of them talking in a New York accent, I don’t know why – they switch to: “Big deal, he blew it out of the sky, he took a while to do it and any president would have done that.”

Well, he took a while to do it, because he didn’t want the balloon crashing down on people and potentially hurting people. So that actually makes a lot of sense why he did that. And secondly, it turns out that a similar balloon, maybe the same one or one like it, overflew the United States three times while Donald Trump was president…