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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.
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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.
Ok, let me preface this by OF COURSE Biden is by far the lesser evil compared to Trump, OF COURSE single issue voting is some Republican style bullshit and OF COURSE Trump would be even more supportive of a fascist government committing genocide, being a fascist war crime fanboy himself.
That being said, people who are outraged by Biden’s continued support of and thus enabling of genocide DO have a point. He’s supposed to represent the interests of every American who’s not a fascist, not those of a fascist apartheid regime currently committing the worst genocide since the Balkan wars in the 90s.
Just because the other guy is a much greater evil doesn’t mean that you can’t hold your own guy accountable for supporting evil. With Trump the only alternative, voting for him is a given, but giving him a free pass shouldn’t be.
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.
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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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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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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Uh, what we are talking about is people who are already saying they won’t vote for Biden. I run into this a lot. It’s terrifying to know a significant part of the electorate are so myopic they would install Trump forever to “make a point”.
It truly doesn’t matter if they have a point, if the only end result is not voting or throwing their vote away on a third party. If Trump wins, they will be a big part of how.
“voting is the only way to create change” is the mentality that got us here.
You know why George Floyd’s murderer was the only one who got the sentence he deserved? Because the people demanded it by threatening capital.
So what are you suggesting?
These guys all want violent revolution, right up until it’s their time to pick up a rifle.
I think what the morons want is trump. I’m really worried about how common this braindead opinion is. They’re actually going to vote against Biden because of Israel. We’re fucked.
If you’re that worried that reaction to our government enabling a genocide is risking the election or whatever, maybe blame the people doing the enabling rather than the people disgusted by them.
I would rather not vote than vote for someone whose first response to a genocide is rushing as many American military assets and weapons as possible to enable it.
You do realize that not everyone in your country has fully assimilated to your extremely chauvinist worldview right?
What’s chauvinist about not wanting to make a bad situation worse?
It’s the orientation that enabling a genocide is somehow excusable when it’s “your guy”, combined with the implicit understanding that something to do with foreign policy (itself a chauvinist term) shouldn’t affect how people vote when bad things at home are at stake. Like it’s sports or something.
I’m sensitive to this because I just don’t have the luxury of disregarding what happens to brown and brown-adjacent people as a result of US “foreign policy”. The bad situation we’re in is directly the result of decisions made (and being refused to get made) by our harm reduction president and his administration.
