Rants by Mac: Watch and Listen

On Thursday, something happened that every American should see – and hear.

At a news conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, California’s U.S. Senator, Alex Padilla, attempted to ask a question that he felt had been left unanswered in Congressional hearings. He got a surprising response. Before he could fully ask his question, Federal agents forcibly removed him from the room, tackled him to the ground, and handcuffed him in the hallway.

It was real — and it happened to a sitting United States Senator, a graduate of MIT, the son of Mexican immigrants, and a public servant representing the largest state in the nation. The treatment Padilla was subjected to reveals an alarming trend in American politics. But depending upon where you saw it, interpretations could differ.

Shortly after the incident, Secretary Noem appeared on Fox News, claiming that Padilla “never identified himself,” and suggested that agents’ actions were justified. I watched Fox News air a version of the video footage, conveniently without audio. Without sound, Noem’s version was supported by Fox personnel, who empathized with Noem’s dilemma.

House Speaker Mike Johnson quickly got his opinion on air, and Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Green weighed in, both Representatives calling for the Senate to censure Padilla. Censure? Really?

Major news outlets, including MSNBC, CNN, CBS, and others aired the video, with audio intact. The first words out of Padilla’s mouth as agents laid hands on him were: “Sir! Sir! Hands off! I am Senator Alex Padilla; I have a question for the Secretary.” Obviously, he identified himself.

That raises questions:

–         Did the Homeland Secretary genuinely not recognize California’s senior senator? She has appeared before him in multiple congressional hearings. Yet, she has failed other tests, such as when she was asked to define habeas corpus in one of those hearings (“a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country,” was her guess at an answer – That is incorrect!!).

–         Did she, and Fox News, believe that muting the video would somehow muffle the truth? The video did reveal her staff shouting that no video was allowed while Padilla was prone on the floor.

–         And why did Fox News, a network that commands the loyalty of millions, choose to broadcast a selectively edited version, effectively letting Noem off the hook while praising her for staying safe from the U.S. senator?

But there is a more troubling question: Why do so many Americans trust only one source of news, reject all others as “fake,” and fail to question even the most obviously skewed narratives?

This wasn’t just a gross act of disrespect toward a U.S. senator. It was a stress test for our media ecosystem. Millions of Americans get their news exclusively from a single outlet, and if that outlet panders to its audience by distorting or censoring data, the casualty is an informed public. When real news gets filtered through ideological loyalty, journalistic integrity suffers and power escapes accountability.

I have a simple ask. Please change the channel occasionally. I don’t ask that you watch CNN every day or convert to the CBS evening news every night. But once in a while watch the same story from another angle. Listen to a voice you don’t agree with.

I read the New York Times, I watch Fox, I check CNN a little, and as a RINO (I embrace that label now), I watch MSNBC, which features myriad conservative and Republican voices, although admittedly not MAGA.

You won’t agree with some conclusions, but you’ll see other views and you may gain insight that’s unavailable at your one site. Isn’t that what we should be doing? To fully understand what’s happening in our country we need to step outside the filter bubbles we’ve built for ourselves.

Fox News chose to eliminate the audio, so you probably didn’t hear Padilla identify himself. But he did – a senator stood up, exercised his duty to ask problematic questions, and got thrown out of the room, and handcuffed for it.

That should terrify us.

Authoritarianism doesn’t show up all at once. It arrives one moment at a time. It comes when we allow leaders to silence dissent, and when media help them do it. It comes when truth can be altered through editing.

Next time, it might not be a senator in cuffs. It might be a whistleblower… your neighbor… a family member… you or me.

Senator Padilla was handcuffed, not because he posed a threat of violence, but because he posed a threat to a narrative. And in a democracy, that’s supposed to be a good thing.

If we let this moment pass without outrage, without introspection, and without change, we’re not just watching the erosion of democratic norms — we’re complicit in it.

Curt MacRae, a resident of Coldwater, MI, publishes regular opinion columns

To be notified by email when a column is published, or to offer feedback email rantsbymac@gmail.com