There is no “both sides” to Donald Trump’s threat to democracy
There is no “both sides” to Donald Trump’s threat to democracy
Just because Republicans choose unreality doesn’t mean the media should ignore the facts of January 6.
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.
...
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.
Try telling this to the “gEnOciDE jOe” clowns, because they are the ones that need to understand this- not the trumpers. Trumpers are too far gone. They won’t listen to reason.
But these ‘single issue’ kids that are grassrooting the ideology that not voting is better than a vote for “genocide” are going to fuck around and find out the hard way when they get Trump installed as a permanent fixture in the White House.
Hunter S. Thompson reflected on the problems with Objective Journalism throughout his career: summarized well in a section of his obituary for Nixon.
Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism — which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful.
Why sober, thoughtful conversation like this is not happening is beyond insane to me. Like I just do not know how to deal with a reality that treats this as normal.
Well said, I agree with every word.
The downfall of American democracy, like all democracies is lack of protection for its principles. If democracy becomes so radical about the principle of freedom of expression that there is no utterance that isn''t worthy debating, no matter how debased it is while at the same time anything and everything is up for debate and nothing enshrined in principle democracy becomes its own worst enemy. Freedom of expression becomes the tool with which it destroys itself.
The crux however lies in the fact that if institutions exist that protect democracy from itself, like the Austrian "Verfassungsschutz" , that watch the radical ends of the political spectrum and hamper their political efforts, sometimes trying and convicting individuals as members of a criminal organisation they could easily be accused as stifling democracy.
Ultimately the democratic principle rests upon its subjects willingness to practise it and to participate in it. If enough people are unhappy or uneducated enough to believe in the statements of demagogues and radicals its downfall cannot be stopped by institutionalized violence, political will, or anything else. Democracy cannot defend itself against its own worst enemy: People that for some reason or other have given up on that idea. Democracy therefore will always come with its own 5th column.
What makes a working democracy is that everyone is actively participating in the dicourse and does what they can to stop the 5th column from rising to the top. A working democracy depends on a working educational system that produces strong critical minds. It relies on making sure everyone gets their share and that each and every subject has a stake in a system. Then the 5th Column is small enough to not really damage democracy and there is no instituion necessary to protect it.
These days however the world is far beyond that tipping point. There are enough people unhappy enough with democracy that collective supression no longer works. And its troublesome to watch. I am terrified that someone like Donald Trump could even get to the point where he is the presidential candidate for a major party, let alone serve a term as president of the United States.
Usually these sentiments are met with endless barrages of whataboutism... Literally no one, no matter what they have done with their emails or how many lobal conflicts they started in their term could be a worse president then someone whose aim is to just aimlessly wield power like a European monarch whose mind is impaired by the hereditary conditions that come with generations of incest.
To demonstrate the inability of conventional media to cover an extremist like Trump, this article points out that the New York Times once ran an article titled “Hitler Tamed By Prison”. The article, published in 1924, starts off with a disturbing parallel to recent events:
Adolph Hitler, once the demi-god of the reactionary extremists, was released on parole from imprisonment at Fortress Landsberg, Bavaria, today and immediately left in an auto for Munich.
Damn right! It's about time a publication in (the outskirts of) the main stream points this out!
The establishment media and the Dem politicians insisting on pretending that the GOP is a legitimate party of regular conservatives rather than a fascist movement is how it was allowed to get this far in the first place!
But facism gets such great short turn proffits before we blow ourselves and the rest of nature to shit. /s
It's not a both sides thing. In my opinion, everyone needs to stop thinking this is a knowledge or coverage problem. It's not a media influence problem.
It's a fuck you problem. And the worse they are, the more appalling their actions, the bigger the fuck you. You can't argue your way out of this.
People need to deal with the fact that roughly half of all voters in this country don't give a fuck about you, and every time you get upset about a new rule broken, a new law violated, or a new constitutional principle ignored, the fun is in the fact that you get upset about it.
That's the fun. You're mad. They like to make you mad. Because this isn't about political discourse.
They're way more mad, they're way more organized, they're way more revolutionary, and they are way more armed. You can be as smart and knowledgeable as you want. They will put you up against a very smart and knowledgeable wall and put a very smart and knowledgeable bullet into your very smart and knowledgeable head.
You ever wonder how, during revolutions of the past, the people that were overthrown always seemed to have been surprised? This is how. Arrogance and a belief in a system that the others aren't playing by or within. Revolution exceeds the system. Leftists think they have a monopoly on revolution, but they don't.
You don't have to agree with it. Your agreement or disagreement Does. Not. Matter. It's watching worms on a hook trying to explain how soil works. Who cares?
Calling out the false "both sides" thing (h/t to The Professional Left, by the way!) is something that should be common currency in the "liberal media".
Thanks to the silliness of false "objectivity" and, let's be honest, corporatism, it is hardly ever discussed. But thank goodness Vanity Fair did here...however, they still called these treasonous insurrectionists (really: terrorists) "rioters", FFS.
It's useful to consider both sides of a political controversy when both sides actually fall within the realm of respecting and sustaining the democracy and social contract keeping people bought into it.
When the choices are between 'you get some human rights' and 'you get no bodily autonomy', one of these doesn't fall within the bounds of reasonable discourse, where 'reasonable discourse' isn't lighting the basis for democracy and individual rights on fire.
The exercise of gamely considering 'both sides' like it's genuinely for the good of democracy when one side is actively hostile to democracy is... gaslighting, hostile to said democracy and to the social contract.
But there are two sides.... There's the citizens, who believe in the process and support the peaceful transfer of power, and there's treasonous scum.
See? Two sides.
One should be voting later this year, the other should be found, prosecuted, and thrown in jail... Or at least have their rights to participate in a democratic election taken away. I'd prefer the former, but I'd settle for the latter.
There's zero reason that anyone should continue to believe the election was stolen. The 2020 election was one of the most scrutinized and examined elections in recent history. I don't know of another election with this much scrutiny. The fact is, "both sides" examined ballots and found the results were accurate; or at least didn't have enough inaccuracies to change the outcome. Fact is, the current president was elected. He is president. To deny that, is to deny not only the election, but the multitude of recounts after the fact, both by Trump supporters and by the systems in place to perform such counts and recounts.
Biden can be "not your president" if you disagree with the decision. You didn't vote for him, I get that you're unhappy with the outcome. You're free to say whatever you want about the president, short of threats of violence or physical harm (in which case, secret service may want a word with you). The fact remains he is the president of the United States of America, voted into office by the people of the USA. Saying he "stole" the election by defrauding the election system, at this point, is just delusional.
This misses the point completely, claiming they believe their own reality is ignoring just how deliberately dysfunctional all our reality is, and has been for centuries. Them being manipulated in to blaming minorities for it is the exact same distraction as liberals being manipulated in to blaming republican voters for it (Do they suck? Yes. Do they help uphold the system? Absolutely. Are they responsible for it? No, they are crabs in a bucket, just like the rest of us, they're just happy to step on more people). To be clear - I am not comparing minorities to republican voters, I'm comparing the level and effectiveness of these distractions from those who are actually responsible for the shit we're in, and who will do anything and everything to make sure we don't turn on them, but only ever on each other - the people they've made sure are constantly stressed trying to survive, who are poorly educated (and this isn't about the quality of the school or the years spent in it, it's about the whitewashed version of history and lack of critical thinking skills we're all taught among other things), exposed to constant propaganda and systemic division. The fact that so many people fall for the hateful bigotry this promotes against their own best interests just goes to show how well the system works for those it actually serves.
And that isn't even Trump, he isn't even in the same league as those actually pulling the strings, and who will stop at nothing to safeguard their power and money (including letting a destructive mask-off clown run amuck for a few years, you now, as a treat, and to manufacture consent for the much worse shit that's yet to come).
If you really want to stop fascism you have to understand what it is (capitalism in decay) and that the both sides they let you choose from serve the same master and only ever represent their side. The actual sides in "both sides" are working class vs owning class, oppressed vs oppressors, the system vs those it exploits to exist.
Don't play along with their game, free yourself from the binary they've made you believe is free choice, and fight the system, the sham they call "democracy" included.
Completely agree, america always has been rather right-wing, compared to Europe (counting after WWII, of course), and it has been shifting badly to the right and right wing extremists and even terrorists are the real problem right now, but...
There are a lot of "not really THAT important yet really fringy left" issues being pushed by many on the left side of the isle that really don't get as much bang for the buck, whilst being very divisive. This divisiveness has then been very successfully used by the right wing to demonize the left side and sow division.
As an example, I can't count the number of people I know that back in the day voted for trump because they were angry about the identity politics, the pronouns, the bathroom issues. Some of these issues are important, like the bathroom issue, but not nearly as important as, say, saving the supreme court, universal healthcare, police reform, etc. you know, bigger fish. Pronouns are much, much lower on that ladder even, it should be a non subject for politicians.
Meanwhile, all I heard was Democrats talking about these divisive none or low priority issues, and the right, very successfully, took advantage of that, and keeps taking advantage to this day.
Stop talking about these fringe issues. Like half a year ago or so I recall reading about some Democrat talking about the rights of trans prisoners, that they should have the right on government funded sex changes. Really? That's the hill we'll die on? I know it's something that at some point should be talked about, but in this climate it's stupid to even bring that up. We got bigger fish to fry.
Let's for now start ONLY talking about the big issues, leave the rest for later, please?