- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Just because Republicans choose unreality doesn’t mean the media should ignore the facts of January 6.
On January 6, 2021, I watched CNN as thousands of Donald Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol. As someone well-versed in watching tragedy on television, I was struck by just how indisputable the facts were at the time: violent, red-hat-clad MAGA rioters, followed by Republicans in Congress, tried to stop democracy in its tracks. Trump had told his followers that the protest in Washington, DC, “will be wild,” and in the assault that followed his speech, some rioters smeared feces on the walls of the Capitol. Hundreds of them have since been convicted on charges ranging from assault on federal officers to seditious conspiracy. These are stubborn facts, the kind that do not care about your feelings. These facts include the inalienable truth that Trump is the first president in American history to reject the peaceful transfer of power.
It never occurred to me that these facts could somehow be perverted by partisanship. But three years later, we are seeing just that, as Republicans cling to the lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” by Joe Biden and are poised to make Trump their 2024 nominee. And perhaps even more dangerous than the GOP ditching reality is the news media’s inability to cover Trumpism as the threat to democracy that it very much is.
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But the problem is, when all you have is conventional political framing, everything looks like politics as usual. One candidate makes a claim; the other disputes it. Two sides are divided, etc. This framing only works if both parties operate within the frameworks of a shared reality. But Trumpism doesn’t allow for the reality the rest of us inhabit. Trump’s supporters believe their leader’s reality and not, say, the reality the rest of us see with our eyes. As Trump once told a crowd: “Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”
Journalists may be well-intentioned in trying to be “objective,” or they’re simply afraid of being labeled partisan. Either way, coverage of January 6 that gives equal weight to both sides—one based in reality, one not—is helping pave the road for authoritarianism.
All well and good, but these idiot kids are actually refusing to vote for him over this single issue. I agree that It’s fine to be bothered how he’s handling things- even if they’re a bit misunderstood on how things actually work- I mean, sure…it’s bothering.
But this is the biggest “I’m cutting off my nose to spite my face” America will EVER see.
Single issue lmao. “Yeah Hitler did genocide but that’s just a single issue”
OK dude.
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You’re sure showing them by directly endorsing their Genocide policies.
Right, how could someone not want to vote for someone because they support genocide? How ludicrous.
I’ll still vote for Biden because I’ll already be in the booth, but sitting back and acting like this is our only option is nonsense.
Voting alone does not create change. Labor Movement, Women’s Suffrage, Civil Rights, all were accomplished by active resistance and here you are spouting nonsense about how we should all just participate in the system that’s circling the drain instead of disrupting it.
The longer you all take to come around the worse it will get, no matter which major party is in the Oval Office.
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Centrists would rather lecture than listen.
I literally said I’d vote for him.
Your inability to actually discuss the argument instead of just simping for your genocidal Uncle Joe is pathetic.
People wonder how average Germans allowed the Nazi party to go so far. We are talking about literal fucking genocide and you come in here and says “but it’s the best version of genocide we got” while throwing up your hands and immediately insulting anyone who complains.
It’s no wonder things keep going so far when we continue lowering the bar and there’s still simps willing to lecture people while their Party helps commit mass murder.
I love how readily you dehumanized the people getting killed over there so you could easily suck the Dems. Typical liberal.
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no one calls me a kid any more, and this single issue is the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Okay kid. I’m sure your vote for Trump is appreciated.
i’m probably gonna be voting for cornel west, actually.
Like I said, I’m sure your vote for Trump is greatly appreciated.
I’m voting against Trump, actually
Tell me you don’t understand first past the post voting without saying you don’t understand first past the post voting
I do. I also know the candidates I’m considering are running against Trump, so a vote for them is a vote against Trump.
So you’re voting 3rd party?
Tell me you don’t understand power, or how to enact change without saying “Why do we keep trying to shame people into voting for us, and yet we still keep going rightward”
Seriously. Your logic is the same as the union leaders that accept shitty deals from companies with the view of “If we don’t fight them here, they will be nicer to us in the future.”
You’ll have as much fun with that, up to supporting FUCKING GENOCIDE, as the labor union leaders did with the slow decline of the power of unions.
There is a reason that the right gets more rightwing, and the left gets more right wing, and it can be simplified into the statement “The right fears their base, while the left has contempt for theirs.”
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If we want to win, we need to appeal to people who disagree with your support for genocide, no matter how much you hate them.
So your solution is to make it easier for Trump to win? You know that would make things even worse?
If only there was a democratic process to choose the Democratic nomination for president… Man, that would be such a great idea. I wonder why no one thought of it?
THE SOLUTION WOULD BE TO HAVE A FUCKING PRIMARY, and not, you know un-democratically ban other candidates for the nomination in 10% of the states, so far.
You’re the ones with a genocidal candidate you want everyone else to vote for. It’s your job to find a solution to get people to vote for him, if you don’t want to have a contest to decide who people would vote for as the democratic nomination.
The only thing that is making it easier for Trump to win is Biden’s unwavering support for the genocide centrists have evidently always wanted.
Do you realize that the war won’t stop with the orangeoutan right?
You misspelled ‘genocide’ as ‘war’
For the love of fuck, how many times do I have to tell you genocide supporters that I don’t support Trump?
Lol, I never said that you were, second, why do you think that I support war?
Then there was no reason to bring him up.
I didn’t say you support war. I said you support genocide. Your insistence on downplaying it by calling it “war” pretty much cements it.
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Nobody hates you, we’re just sick of idealists in a time when we need pragmatists.
If you actually believed that, and weren’t an idealist centrism and genocide yourself, you would pragmatically demand a primary to choose a candidate who could win and not try and demand unearned votes through shaming.
You’re as pragmatic as a college kid carrying around a dog-eared copy of ‘Atlas Shrugged’
Well said.
I’m sick of genocide
Do you think any person elected to the presidency wouldn’t continue supporting Israel? To cut off funding and weapons to Israel would be absolute political suicide in this country. Don’t care if it’s Biden, Trump, Desantis, doesn’t matter. Israel will continue to get $Billions and weapons. It’s just the way it is.
cornel west and jill stein would.
But neither of them will win. So they’re both irrelevant.
where did you get your crystal ball?
I admire your optimism, but I think the black socialist professor and intersectional activist might find it difficult to sway enough votes on either side. It’s a shame you don’t have a better voting system where you can rank your preferred candidates - would avoid much of these stupid games.
And neither of them have the slightest hope of winning
well not with that attitude
Those pesky idealists… being opposed to checks notes literal fucking genocide.
I’m voting for Biden and you don’t care. You just want unquestioning support for the genocide you support.
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The people who can find a way to excuse, minimize or ignore Biden’s military and political support for genocide could probably find a way to excuse, minimize or ignore just about anything. There is no bottom, only partisanship and convenience.
Sure, but if you’re planning on sticking around in America, or care about its influence worldwide, shouldn’t you at least try to steer it towards the least worst option?
The only people who have influence around here are the wealthy and corporations. I don’t think two choices between two old genocidal men is the best example of saving democracy, as you can tell people still suffered and died under the “harm reduction” guy.
So just do nothing then. That’ll show em both!
Well get to pushing Biden left. I’m sure it will work out this time.
Fuckin gottem
You right, its best to let trump win and let the whole world lurch wildly to the right like last time
Biden and Dem messaging is doing a great job at handing Trump victory. The only things liberals seem to do is yell for voter out reach.
You are once again corrent, doing nothing then complaining about it is clearly the best option
the least worst option is cornel west.
youth have always voted in low numbers, fuck em and their shitpost memes.
I strongly suspect that these one issue kids have no idea of what is going on in the Mideast
Israel was attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah. The over the top response by Netanyahu is much like you would get from the orange wanna-be dictator. Israel is under threat by Iran too. The arms sent were a show of force least any other hostile countries decide to pile on. Biden has been forceful with Israel behind the scenes, placing conditions on the use of the arms and pushing Israel to back off. He can’t do so publicly because it would let the hostile countries sense a weakness. Kids are triggered by emotions and fail to dig for news contrary to their biases because it doesn’t reinforce their need for an anger dopamine rush - much like MAGAs.
It is so much easier to sit on ones ass rather than to do the hard work of being intelligently informed and to create change
“I look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief they have known something of what has been passing in the world around them” - Harry Truman
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There is nothing nuanced about the indiscriminate slaughter of 1% of the Gazan population. So far. Trying to create nuance around genocide, is genocide denial. Nothing more.
To you “Never Again” meant “Never Again, unless…”
Also, I can’t believe you’d use a Harry Truman quote. Dude was so fucking stupid, even he knew how unprepared for the job he was. He was literally elected Senator because the local Democratic power broker couldn’t find anyone else willing to be his man in the Senate.
Also, not a fucking kid. I’m 40 fucking years old, and I see the same stupid Democratic party leaders making the same fucking mistake and being shocked when the same thing happens. Fucking boomers, who are unwilling to give up power until it is pried from their stupid, lead-tainted, selfish fucking dead hands.
Neat fanfic. He hasn’t done any of this at all.
Exactly. Their “genocide” is a knee-jerk sensationalist reaction to the typical extremist news they’re used to reading. It’s almost always a lot more nuanced than it appears.
As I like to say, life exists within the grey area that lies between the boundaries of black-and-white ideologies.
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Centrists will abandon literally any position except their support for genocide.
Actually, its part if a Palestinian campaign to destroy Israel. Israel did offer a two state solution multiple times. Its the Palestinians that reject the right of Israel to exist, not the other way around.
Sacrificing their own population to gain support doesn’t make them right.
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1947 called, it says you’re misinformed, or worse.
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The Israeli institution formally accepted the UN resolution that gave part of the land to the Jewish state and part of it to the Palestinians.
And yes, it happened in 1947, before Israel was formally declared.
And yes, the Palestinians rejected it and declared a war on Israel, stating that they “will push all the Jews to the sea”.
BTW, what is bantustan?