The mainstream media's false equivalence between the progressives in Congress and the trumpets has the effect of legitimizing right-wing efforts to overthrow democracy in the US.

Even with the older Republicans, who did not aim to overthrow democracy, this false equivalence was misleading. Because the second fallacious step was to find the place midway between the two views, and call that the "center" — even though the overwhelming majority of Americans rejected that as too right-wing.