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.
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.
Found one of them
Everyone knows your only feeling can be whatever a stranger makes up
What do you mean by that?
I can't want us to stop supporting Israel because I'm required to be a myopic idiot unaware of what will happen if I don't vote for Biden. That's just facts.
I'm saying that a lot of people are disgusted by what the American response has been and the natural reaction is going to be disengaging. Why are you blaming them instead of the actual parties responsible?
That's not being pragmatic or whatever you think you are, it's just being lazy and unprincipled.
What outcome do you think will occur if people don't vote or vote third party or for trump?
It's probably going to fucking suck either way. I blame the party for its shitty actions, not the voters for not voting for them.
I would suggest trying to understand why people are so upset by the administrations complete non-response to what should be an easy lift- a fucking ceasefire. It's our bombs and missiles being used to do this, and we're sending them there as fast as we can. The administration could stop that at any time but chooses not to.
I get that it's frustrating that there's this obvious and unsalvageable debacle looming and it's only January in an election year, but find someone else to blame.
As long as you vote for Biden, we are friends and I've no issue with what you wrote. Sounds like you won't though, which is insane and will make the thing you claim to care about vastly worse.
You're basically saying "hey don't blame me for putting in motion a horrible thing, blame the guy who you can never talk to and who doesn't represent you and is objectively better than the path I plan to put us on". Are you a russian troll or what? I cannot wrap my head around this level of myopia.
I already can't piss in any public bathroom in my home state. I get that things could get worse but they already seem extremely bad and I've already been a mixture of concerned and enraged by the lack of action so far.
Why is the support of Israel a foregone conclusion regardless what horrors they inflict? Is this all about not wanting to lose the quasi-fascist 'anti-trump' ex-republicans that you think were why Biden won?
You are trans, and you're here telling me without directly admitting it, that you're going to vote against democrats!? Why don't you hack your left foot off with a chainsaw? It would be quicker.
I'm just pointing out why people are probably just going to not bother voting. I'll probably be there and write in myself because at least I know how to hold myself accountable.
When Trump wins and you're put into a camp, at least you'll know your myopic principles weren't compromised
The real reason why people will let trump win is that they are mentally and physically lazy or want to feel superior without considering consequences
At this point I am certainly not counting on voting keeping people out of camps, we can't even get the 'harm reduction' candidate to stop sending bombs and missiles to get dropped on Gaza!
The number one killer of gay and trans Palestinians is the occupation we are supporting.
I guess I'm just caught up on all the people whose futures we're complicit in erasing.
Do you have family who don't live in the US? have you considered how it looks to people who do when you expect them to disregard something like this because of some farce of an election? we already had the supreme court pick a president against the popular vote, just pack the court and re-elect Biden if you're actually that bought into his good intentions.
What you claim to be concerned about will be worse if you continue on your path.
Why doesn't that seem to matter?
You say that things will be "worse" but I certainly never had to explain to a democrat why genocide is bad under Trump.
If this was happening under Trump you all would be falling all over yourselves to act righteous because the other team was doing it. That's just being a partisan hack.
I can assure you, nobody is paying me to post. the xi-bucks are a myth
And now it's proven. Lol myth my ass
I unironically wish it was true, my posts are excellent and I should be getting paid for them.
this is russophobic and gross and you should apologize.
I've heard everything now
I'm just here to say that any country that uses its civilians to protect its army can't complain about genocide, especially when the opposing army is giving them a chance to move away from the battlefield in advance.
The occupying army are the ones making this a warzone, and are the ones killing the civilians. The path they are offered is a death at the hands of bombs, or to be ethnically cleansed and left at the mercy of whatever refugee camps can be cobbled together. It's inhuman.
You are blaming the people resisting an occupying force for their own genocide at its hands.
Hamas chose this to be a war zone by firing rockets from there and building tunnels there and holding hostages there.
IDF didn't choose Gaza to be the battlefield, Hamas chose it.
If Hamas can't stand the heat, maybe they should step out of the kitchen.
genocidal statement ^
It's their home, they live there are are being ethnically cleansed as collective punishment for resisting occupation.
Ironically it seems like it's occupation forces who can't handle the heat considering their only recourse is lashing out at defenseless civilians.
They are being ordered to evacuate a war zone that Hamas chose. Hamas chose to use them as human shields. Israel is trying to get them out of the warzone.
Would you prefer they were not "ethnically cleansed" to shelters in the south? Would you prefer they die when the IDF attacks Hamas infrastructure and militants in the active warzones in the strip?
Or is it just that you would prefer that Israel doesn't attack Hamas and leave them ruling Gaza and preparing for their next attack?
What was genocidal about my comment? Implying that Hamas is responsible for this war? Or is it that I'm implying that Hamas can end it any minute?
here is the genocidal part, you're advocating for collective punishment, stating that because Hamas is resisting the occupation, the occupation indiscriminately killing civilians to the point of ethnically cleansing them is "heat" in the "kitchen" 🤢
You put ethnic cleansing in scare quotes for a reason I have to assume, would you care to elaborate because from the context it tells me you don't believe that is a serious component of genocide?
You misunderstood me. Saying that Hamas should get out of the kitchen means that Hamas should not build their military infrastructure in civilian areas, prevent the population from evacuating, and then cry when there are inevitable civilian losses when Israel attacks Hamas. I did not mean to imply that attacking civilians is ok, it is not. I meant that attacking Hamas is the only current option left for Israel, and that if civilians are there, there will be civilian deaths.
About the quotes, I meant that evacuating a war zone is not ethnic cleansing. This is also the current situation in southern Israel, because of Hamas rockets and because some places attacked by Hamas were not yet rebuilt. This is also the current situation in southern Lebanon and northern Israel. You don't seem to be complaining about the ethnic cleansing of jews in the north of Israel, and rightly so, because evacuating a war zone is a very responsible thing to do. It only becomes ethnic cleansing in hindsight, when the war ends, if they are not allowed to return.
Also, why is ethnic cleansing part of genocide? These are two different crimes. They could come together, but can't ethnic cleansing be committed without committing genocide?