This has been the fundamental mechanism through which political media operates my entire life. The right makes a bunch of noise about a fake scandal, the mainstream media "covers the controversy," & normie voters get the vague impression that Dems are constantly involved in scandal.
This awful saga is a good glimpse into how MAGA gets propaganda laundered into mainstream discourse by making just enough noise to get news outlets to treat their outrage as a "controversy," which then requires even-handed treatement of both sides' stances: newrepublic.com/article/2168...