I'm just really having a look at that "trust in science" graph. How awesome that women's reproductive health decisions are now going to be made by the people represented by that red line. What a hellscape.
For once, on the Roe issue, I agree with this take - or at least Tim's take. But on the other hand, this isn't the end. If Ds are not dumb politically (I have to admit I hope for once on this they aren't), they would be pushing every piece of legislation they can dream up that provides for support for children, support for working moms, support for pregnant moms and families, more mandated parental leave, federally funded pre-school, prenatal care... Just keep making the GOP filibuster. Then nail them to a wall that they don't actually care about children or dealing with the fallout of abortion being illegal. That's what I want to see.
I do think this should just the opening salvo - make them have to go on the record over and over and over. And then run their videotape of commenting on it over and over and over. Make it clear that this has always been the party of who gives a shit about some other person's child. As a reminder, 75% of people who have abortions are low income and 60% are already parents. Facts matter.
I've spent half of my life in rural America and half in working class urban America one thing both have in common, modernization has damaged them. So those with ability and determination have left leaving those who are unable to cope behind. So in both you see an increase in drugs, violence and broken families. On both sides these are powerless people in desperate situations. The sad thing is both parties use them as pawns without ever helping them beyond the level of a bandaid on a gaping wound.
Odd thing is: a theme I've seen coming out of Trumpworld is that modernization has stalled and we need more technological change, faster. There's an element of "We love tech elites (and their money), as long as they're with us on cultural issues."
"President Biden on Tuesday blamed Russia’s war in Ukraine, corporate greed, the pandemic and the policies of “ultra-MAGA Republicans” for causing record-high inflation, and insisted that Democrats’ big spending didn’t spur the highest price increases in 40 years."
I think for this to stick, the new DHS Ministry of Truth will need to silence all non-partisan economists.
But can we have another applaud for Biden, the guy elected to bring the country together, demonstrating that he will win the prize for the most partisan and divisive of all Presidents in modern times? He makes Hillary's "irredeemable deplorables" quote seem loving by comparison.
I have since a kid been a sports fan. And so too at seventy-two. But...but...I have not ever replayed a sporting event over and over and over and...as I have this call of the Kentucky Derby. "Rich Strike!!!!"
A win and a call for the ages.
PS Close your eyes. Imagine an old wood cabinet, tube radio. Listen to the call. It is as if Rich Strike, with mere feet to go, is teleported into the race from another universe. The stars are still shaking.
So, round up a bunch of swampy establishment hacks who's money flow depends on the swamp to collect quotes that Trump is a threat to democracy and then claim that this is a worthy journalistic endeavor? For every one of these swamp rats I can cite a dozen credible participants in the political-media chattering class that would point out that THEY are part of a cabal that threatens American democracy, and more importantly, American existence.
I get it. You are here writing and reading this stuff because you are a dedicated bluecheck or otherwise you are reliant on the old establishment ways, yourself, to pad the old bank account. But paaalllleeeaaasssee... let's not cheapen the discussion by ignoring the important differences in policy direction by repeating these stupid political campaign memes. To any serious and critical thinking person this Trump "threat to Democracy" claim is just silly and banal. Really, Chewbacca man and his band of hairy brothers are the threat we should be all wee weed up about? Really?
First, it seems that there is no real connection to the actual definition of "democracy"... what it means in this country. It seems that the arguments floated about Trump's actions that have at least a modicum of relevancy are generally in the national-interest camp. More specifically they are the globalist worldview vs the nationalist worldview. Why not just honestly admit that and have a conversation about the pros and cons instead of just flapping Trump-attack DNCNN talking points?
The Jan-6 events have already expended all their political capital to the anti-Trump side and today, with the release of 2000 Mules, are doing more harm than good. You keep scratching your head that Trump continues to build in popularity and 2022 and 2024 looking like a much worse 2016... and yet you keep doing the same things.
Today there isn't a single positive major indicator of American system health that Biden can claim as an accomplishment. Inflation has skyrocketed. Rates are set to climb to near Carter era. Small business has been destroyed. The investment markets are in free fall. The border is a mess. Crime has been exploding. Attacks on Constitutional rights have accelerated. And with all of this to discuss, we keep being spoon fed Jan-6 "Insurrection" and "threat to democracy" narratives.
Again, are we serious about journalism here on Substack, or is this just another political channel of the political gamer hive were we get our daily propaganda feed? I can just get this stuff from Facebook and WaPo.
The Jan-6 events followed a prior 4+ year period where large arenas were filled with millions of peaceful but enthusiastic MAGA supporters. Those numbers have increased today because the REAL divide today is one of class and more voters are figuring that out thanks to the terrible political performance of the Democrats in charge. Journalists that are anti-Trump are just feeding the Trump beast by failing to acknowledge the facts and truth on the ground and continuing to play the old depleted "Trump is a threat to Democracy" card.
Trump is the only president, who along with his GOP collaborators, tried to implement the illegal and unconstitutional Eastman plan for overturning the free and fair election to install Trump, dictator style, for a second term. Eastman told his fellow conspirators that his plan was illegal, but success of the coup would mean there would be no legal consequences. "Voters must recognize that where politicians stand on democracy is more important than tax rates, inflation, gas prices or any other policy issue. Lawmakers who see the threat that growing illiberal forces pose to the nation must secure its democratic institutions." No Patriot can support Trump or any Trump-adjacent candidate.
Shorter version: "Everyone who finds fault with Trump is a swamp creature."
Trumpers should be happy that people like Esper acted as a check on Trump's lunatic impulses, so they can claim that those people's rational actions are all down to Trump's genius. "He didn't get us into war (with Iran or Venezuela or Mexico or U.S. citizens at home) ..." -- because people around him prevented it. "He wouldn't have surrendered to the Taliban ..." -- except that he objectively did, but people around him prevented it from being done as fast as he wanted, so Biden gets all the blame for fulfilling Trump's capitulation agreement.
Trump is very much on record expressing admiration for tyrants and envying their unlimited power. He in fact tried everything he could to remain in power despite losing an election -- after claiming that an election loss for himself could not be a legitimate result -- and it was the sane people in the GOP who prevented that from happening, so all the Trump cultists can say "HE DIDN'T STAGE A COUP! That's a MYTH!!!" -- while simultaneously insisting that he was fully justified in trying.
"anti-Trump are just feeding the Trump beast " -- There is indeed a "Trump beast," and it has always responded to any "anti-Trump" comments with ferocious indignation, starting in the 2015-16 primaries. That beast has always taken the view that criticism of Trump demonstrates the perfidy of the critic.
But it's pretty funny when people claim to care deeply about "facts and truth" in the course of defending Donald Trump and excoriating his critics.
This confirms my theory that there are people living in their upside-down world so committed to their political mythology that they have lost connections with objective truth.
I will check back after the 2022 election to see if there is any change in perspective. You know what they say about doing the same things over and over again expecting a different result?
I was a lifelong Republican until I saw most of the GOP insisting that Trump is the opposite of what he regularly presents himself to be -- saying that he's honest, compassionate, a self-sacrificing patriot, a fierce opponent of corruption, a genius who instinctively understands all policy issues better than all before him, etc. etc.
I watched one Republican after another flip from admitting that 1/6 was terrible and DJT bore responsibility, to saying it's all a myth and a hoax and DJT did nothing wrong, and the election was stolen, though they can't provide evidence.
I watched Republicans deny that Trump had any part in surrendering to the Taliban, even though he signed the surrender deal himself, and he claimed full credit for the withdrawal as late as June 2021 and said it should happen faster.
I saw Republicans claim, absurdly, that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still president -- but they can't tell us how he would have prevented it -- and then some super-Trumpers took the view that Putin is justified in attacking Ukraine, that Russia is the real victim, and that Trump was right in wanting to crash NATO.
Republicans said that a Supreme Court leak was "the real insurrection" -- until we saw reports with several sources on the right providing inside information. Now Republicans claim that the protestors in front of S.C. justices' homes are violent but the 1/6 rioters (who injured over 100 cops) were "peaceful."
So yeah, tell me about "upside down" worlds.'
The reason I'm not a Trumpite is that I care more about being honest than about protecting a side.
It must feel better to get all that out! I know I tend to feel better when I do that. But later I tend wish I had been a little less strident and more thoughtful. Oh well -- rant in haste, repent at leisure!
I just looked it up and Pew polling said that among Democrats 80% think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Only 35 % think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. So looking at that, a Democratic politician would be right in suggesting it should be legal in all cases because if they got all of the Democrats and just 10% of the Republicans, they would sweep any election. Is my math wrong?
Charlie - you are being disingenuous when you state the bill allows abortion for all nine months without adding that the only exception is if the mother's life is in danger. Here is the language in the bill. Right there number 9. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3755/text
(8) A prohibition on abortion at any point or points in time prior to fetal viability, including a prohibition or restriction on a particular abortion procedure.
(9) A prohibition on abortion after fetal viability when, in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health.
This just goes to show that whatever is actually done and said doesn't matter any more, what matters is only what is SAID to be done and said.
And what was allowed to be said was: Democrats are trying to force everyone to help loose women have abortions all the way up to birth, and then probably afterwards too when they kill the babies for adenochrome or whatever imaginary blood ritual magic juice it is.
There is a lot of performative language in the bill. The preamble reads in many places like a plagiarized Unitarian Universalist sermon... " Reproductive justice seeks to address restrictions on reproductive health, including abortion, that perpetuate systems of oppression, lack of bodily autonomy, white supremacy, and anti-Black racism" and so forth.
All arguably true but as James Carville would point out with face in palm, not the way any normal human being ever actually talks.
True. In fact, one hopes that legislation most particularly is NOT written the way most people talk. Legislation should be clear, precise, specific, and carefully thought out. In other words, the opposite of normal human discourse.
I'm reading a book about 1941 Europe during WWII. The French Patinists sound exactly like the Republicans. Put their own people in concentration camps, fine. They forced French workers to work in Germany. They supported Hitler and Franko and believed the that the country should be run by Catholic rules. DeGaule was to them worse than Hitler. Roosevelt was a monster. The country should be ruled by the rich and the rest should be happy, contented and uneducated peasants. Sounds exactly like what the Republicsns are selling these days.
The biggest impediments to progress on voting were the fantasy that most Republicans supported voting rights and that Democrats would overturn the filibuster. One way to avoid a similarly prolonged ineffectual and contorted conversation on reproductive rights is to establish facts now by starting with a vote.
Giving Manchin the reins to create and advance his bill “guaranteed” to pass with bipartisan support was only effective because the vote to even debate it failed. Many were bitter and disgusted, but we were able to move on.
It’s also always good to let people grouse and rail that Democrats suck at politics and are feckless and ineffective. Enduring and crucial part of the American narrative. Peculiar.
As a person myself more progressive than not, I'm afraid a candid view of the case is that the most ineffective putzes of all are those of us on the progressive left who prefer self-congratulatory posturing to actually winning elections. The right wing crazies actually have access to power and enough voters to prevail. Who are we? A bunch of hectoring ideologues trying to persuade patrons of Outback Steakhouse to turn vegan.
As you suggest, "what do you mean, 'was'"? Great series today--I'm going to go save Amanda's listing of disenchanted Trump public servants and their indictments. The Derby was epic.
The focus on the SCOTUS house protests are really revealing about our media landscape. In 2021, when angry crowds were encircling the homes of local public health officials and local school board members, the mainstream press did cover it. I read a number of articles in various places about how threatened these public servants felt. I read with worry that many of them would be resigning or even moving. Threats were made against them and their children. It was concerning. But it was covered in the context of there being a lot going on in a difficult period, in a fractious populace where opinions - informed or not - were hardened and polarized. But there was so much to cover - inflation, covid, vaccines, Afghanistan, jobs reports, schools and offices establishing a new normal, and on and on. It's a big, complicated world.
I don't have a TV, but I gather that what Fox and other right wing outlets are doing is effectively pushing every other story from that big, complicated world out of the way to play videos of protests on a loop and talk about how awful and threatening it all is. I don't disagree - I would feel quite threatened, but so did those normie school board members and local health officials.
It brings up the old "nut-picking" idea, where instead of cherry picking something, you build your coverage around a focus on (what you can portray as) the craziest stuff from the other side. The media I consume, in general, doesn't do this. I'm a partisan Democrat who subscribes to The Bulwark, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, and The Atlantic, among others. I want a broad spectrum of ideas in my news diet, with information about my community, my nation, and my world.
Right wing viewers don't appear to want that. I don't know what to do about that. But it does feel like it's destroying us.
I'm just really having a look at that "trust in science" graph. How awesome that women's reproductive health decisions are now going to be made by the people represented by that red line. What a hellscape.
For once, on the Roe issue, I agree with this take - or at least Tim's take. But on the other hand, this isn't the end. If Ds are not dumb politically (I have to admit I hope for once on this they aren't), they would be pushing every piece of legislation they can dream up that provides for support for children, support for working moms, support for pregnant moms and families, more mandated parental leave, federally funded pre-school, prenatal care... Just keep making the GOP filibuster. Then nail them to a wall that they don't actually care about children or dealing with the fallout of abortion being illegal. That's what I want to see.
I do think this should just the opening salvo - make them have to go on the record over and over and over. And then run their videotape of commenting on it over and over and over. Make it clear that this has always been the party of who gives a shit about some other person's child. As a reminder, 75% of people who have abortions are low income and 60% are already parents. Facts matter.
I've spent half of my life in rural America and half in working class urban America one thing both have in common, modernization has damaged them. So those with ability and determination have left leaving those who are unable to cope behind. So in both you see an increase in drugs, violence and broken families. On both sides these are powerless people in desperate situations. The sad thing is both parties use them as pawns without ever helping them beyond the level of a bandaid on a gaping wound.
Odd thing is: a theme I've seen coming out of Trumpworld is that modernization has stalled and we need more technological change, faster. There's an element of "We love tech elites (and their money), as long as they're with us on cultural issues."
"Democratic senators vote on abortion legislation that is both unpopular—it would legalize abortions through all nine months of pregnancy, "
Shockingly, that's simply not true. In a recent Pew poll, 80 % Democrats and 39% Republicans support that legislation.
Meanwhile on Planet X:
"President Biden on Tuesday blamed Russia’s war in Ukraine, corporate greed, the pandemic and the policies of “ultra-MAGA Republicans” for causing record-high inflation, and insisted that Democrats’ big spending didn’t spur the highest price increases in 40 years."
I think for this to stick, the new DHS Ministry of Truth will need to silence all non-partisan economists.
But can we have another applaud for Biden, the guy elected to bring the country together, demonstrating that he will win the prize for the most partisan and divisive of all Presidents in modern times? He makes Hillary's "irredeemable deplorables" quote seem loving by comparison.
I have since a kid been a sports fan. And so too at seventy-two. But...but...I have not ever replayed a sporting event over and over and over and...as I have this call of the Kentucky Derby. "Rich Strike!!!!"
A win and a call for the ages.
PS Close your eyes. Imagine an old wood cabinet, tube radio. Listen to the call. It is as if Rich Strike, with mere feet to go, is teleported into the race from another universe. The stars are still shaking.
So, round up a bunch of swampy establishment hacks who's money flow depends on the swamp to collect quotes that Trump is a threat to democracy and then claim that this is a worthy journalistic endeavor? For every one of these swamp rats I can cite a dozen credible participants in the political-media chattering class that would point out that THEY are part of a cabal that threatens American democracy, and more importantly, American existence.
I get it. You are here writing and reading this stuff because you are a dedicated bluecheck or otherwise you are reliant on the old establishment ways, yourself, to pad the old bank account. But paaalllleeeaaasssee... let's not cheapen the discussion by ignoring the important differences in policy direction by repeating these stupid political campaign memes. To any serious and critical thinking person this Trump "threat to Democracy" claim is just silly and banal. Really, Chewbacca man and his band of hairy brothers are the threat we should be all wee weed up about? Really?
First, it seems that there is no real connection to the actual definition of "democracy"... what it means in this country. It seems that the arguments floated about Trump's actions that have at least a modicum of relevancy are generally in the national-interest camp. More specifically they are the globalist worldview vs the nationalist worldview. Why not just honestly admit that and have a conversation about the pros and cons instead of just flapping Trump-attack DNCNN talking points?
The Jan-6 events have already expended all their political capital to the anti-Trump side and today, with the release of 2000 Mules, are doing more harm than good. You keep scratching your head that Trump continues to build in popularity and 2022 and 2024 looking like a much worse 2016... and yet you keep doing the same things.
Today there isn't a single positive major indicator of American system health that Biden can claim as an accomplishment. Inflation has skyrocketed. Rates are set to climb to near Carter era. Small business has been destroyed. The investment markets are in free fall. The border is a mess. Crime has been exploding. Attacks on Constitutional rights have accelerated. And with all of this to discuss, we keep being spoon fed Jan-6 "Insurrection" and "threat to democracy" narratives.
Again, are we serious about journalism here on Substack, or is this just another political channel of the political gamer hive were we get our daily propaganda feed? I can just get this stuff from Facebook and WaPo.
The Jan-6 events followed a prior 4+ year period where large arenas were filled with millions of peaceful but enthusiastic MAGA supporters. Those numbers have increased today because the REAL divide today is one of class and more voters are figuring that out thanks to the terrible political performance of the Democrats in charge. Journalists that are anti-Trump are just feeding the Trump beast by failing to acknowledge the facts and truth on the ground and continuing to play the old depleted "Trump is a threat to Democracy" card.
Trump is the only president, who along with his GOP collaborators, tried to implement the illegal and unconstitutional Eastman plan for overturning the free and fair election to install Trump, dictator style, for a second term. Eastman told his fellow conspirators that his plan was illegal, but success of the coup would mean there would be no legal consequences. "Voters must recognize that where politicians stand on democracy is more important than tax rates, inflation, gas prices or any other policy issue. Lawmakers who see the threat that growing illiberal forces pose to the nation must secure its democratic institutions." No Patriot can support Trump or any Trump-adjacent candidate.
Shorter version: "Everyone who finds fault with Trump is a swamp creature."
Trumpers should be happy that people like Esper acted as a check on Trump's lunatic impulses, so they can claim that those people's rational actions are all down to Trump's genius. "He didn't get us into war (with Iran or Venezuela or Mexico or U.S. citizens at home) ..." -- because people around him prevented it. "He wouldn't have surrendered to the Taliban ..." -- except that he objectively did, but people around him prevented it from being done as fast as he wanted, so Biden gets all the blame for fulfilling Trump's capitulation agreement.
Trump is very much on record expressing admiration for tyrants and envying their unlimited power. He in fact tried everything he could to remain in power despite losing an election -- after claiming that an election loss for himself could not be a legitimate result -- and it was the sane people in the GOP who prevented that from happening, so all the Trump cultists can say "HE DIDN'T STAGE A COUP! That's a MYTH!!!" -- while simultaneously insisting that he was fully justified in trying.
"anti-Trump are just feeding the Trump beast " -- There is indeed a "Trump beast," and it has always responded to any "anti-Trump" comments with ferocious indignation, starting in the 2015-16 primaries. That beast has always taken the view that criticism of Trump demonstrates the perfidy of the critic.
But it's pretty funny when people claim to care deeply about "facts and truth" in the course of defending Donald Trump and excoriating his critics.
This confirms my theory that there are people living in their upside-down world so committed to their political mythology that they have lost connections with objective truth.
I will check back after the 2022 election to see if there is any change in perspective. You know what they say about doing the same things over and over again expecting a different result?
I was a lifelong Republican until I saw most of the GOP insisting that Trump is the opposite of what he regularly presents himself to be -- saying that he's honest, compassionate, a self-sacrificing patriot, a fierce opponent of corruption, a genius who instinctively understands all policy issues better than all before him, etc. etc.
I watched one Republican after another flip from admitting that 1/6 was terrible and DJT bore responsibility, to saying it's all a myth and a hoax and DJT did nothing wrong, and the election was stolen, though they can't provide evidence.
I watched Republicans deny that Trump had any part in surrendering to the Taliban, even though he signed the surrender deal himself, and he claimed full credit for the withdrawal as late as June 2021 and said it should happen faster.
I saw Republicans claim, absurdly, that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still president -- but they can't tell us how he would have prevented it -- and then some super-Trumpers took the view that Putin is justified in attacking Ukraine, that Russia is the real victim, and that Trump was right in wanting to crash NATO.
Republicans said that a Supreme Court leak was "the real insurrection" -- until we saw reports with several sources on the right providing inside information. Now Republicans claim that the protestors in front of S.C. justices' homes are violent but the 1/6 rioters (who injured over 100 cops) were "peaceful."
So yeah, tell me about "upside down" worlds.'
The reason I'm not a Trumpite is that I care more about being honest than about protecting a side.
It must feel better to get all that out! I know I tend to feel better when I do that. But later I tend wish I had been a little less strident and more thoughtful. Oh well -- rant in haste, repent at leisure!
The new DHS Ministry of Truth agrees with you.
I just looked it up and Pew polling said that among Democrats 80% think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Only 35 % think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. So looking at that, a Democratic politician would be right in suggesting it should be legal in all cases because if they got all of the Democrats and just 10% of the Republicans, they would sweep any election. Is my math wrong?
I wonder how long until some indie studio makes a "Bull Semen Tycoon" game
Charlie - you are being disingenuous when you state the bill allows abortion for all nine months without adding that the only exception is if the mother's life is in danger. Here is the language in the bill. Right there number 9. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3755/text
(8) A prohibition on abortion at any point or points in time prior to fetal viability, including a prohibition or restriction on a particular abortion procedure.
(9) A prohibition on abortion after fetal viability when, in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health.
Wait, Charlie and Tim didn't read the bill?
This just goes to show that whatever is actually done and said doesn't matter any more, what matters is only what is SAID to be done and said.
And what was allowed to be said was: Democrats are trying to force everyone to help loose women have abortions all the way up to birth, and then probably afterwards too when they kill the babies for adenochrome or whatever imaginary blood ritual magic juice it is.
There is a lot of performative language in the bill. The preamble reads in many places like a plagiarized Unitarian Universalist sermon... " Reproductive justice seeks to address restrictions on reproductive health, including abortion, that perpetuate systems of oppression, lack of bodily autonomy, white supremacy, and anti-Black racism" and so forth.
All arguably true but as James Carville would point out with face in palm, not the way any normal human being ever actually talks.
What bill is ever written the way normal people talk?
True. In fact, one hopes that legislation most particularly is NOT written the way most people talk. Legislation should be clear, precise, specific, and carefully thought out. In other words, the opposite of normal human discourse.
I'm reading a book about 1941 Europe during WWII. The French Patinists sound exactly like the Republicans. Put their own people in concentration camps, fine. They forced French workers to work in Germany. They supported Hitler and Franko and believed the that the country should be run by Catholic rules. DeGaule was to them worse than Hitler. Roosevelt was a monster. The country should be ruled by the rich and the rest should be happy, contented and uneducated peasants. Sounds exactly like what the Republicsns are selling these days.
The biggest impediments to progress on voting were the fantasy that most Republicans supported voting rights and that Democrats would overturn the filibuster. One way to avoid a similarly prolonged ineffectual and contorted conversation on reproductive rights is to establish facts now by starting with a vote.
Giving Manchin the reins to create and advance his bill “guaranteed” to pass with bipartisan support was only effective because the vote to even debate it failed. Many were bitter and disgusted, but we were able to move on.
It’s also always good to let people grouse and rail that Democrats suck at politics and are feckless and ineffective. Enduring and crucial part of the American narrative. Peculiar.
Schumer has always been an ineffective putz and the progressive left can't stand him.
Sincerely,
Member of the Progressive Left
As a person myself more progressive than not, I'm afraid a candid view of the case is that the most ineffective putzes of all are those of us on the progressive left who prefer self-congratulatory posturing to actually winning elections. The right wing crazies actually have access to power and enough voters to prevail. Who are we? A bunch of hectoring ideologues trying to persuade patrons of Outback Steakhouse to turn vegan.
As you suggest, "what do you mean, 'was'"? Great series today--I'm going to go save Amanda's listing of disenchanted Trump public servants and their indictments. The Derby was epic.
The focus on the SCOTUS house protests are really revealing about our media landscape. In 2021, when angry crowds were encircling the homes of local public health officials and local school board members, the mainstream press did cover it. I read a number of articles in various places about how threatened these public servants felt. I read with worry that many of them would be resigning or even moving. Threats were made against them and their children. It was concerning. But it was covered in the context of there being a lot going on in a difficult period, in a fractious populace where opinions - informed or not - were hardened and polarized. But there was so much to cover - inflation, covid, vaccines, Afghanistan, jobs reports, schools and offices establishing a new normal, and on and on. It's a big, complicated world.
I don't have a TV, but I gather that what Fox and other right wing outlets are doing is effectively pushing every other story from that big, complicated world out of the way to play videos of protests on a loop and talk about how awful and threatening it all is. I don't disagree - I would feel quite threatened, but so did those normie school board members and local health officials.
It brings up the old "nut-picking" idea, where instead of cherry picking something, you build your coverage around a focus on (what you can portray as) the craziest stuff from the other side. The media I consume, in general, doesn't do this. I'm a partisan Democrat who subscribes to The Bulwark, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, and The Atlantic, among others. I want a broad spectrum of ideas in my news diet, with information about my community, my nation, and my world.
Right wing viewers don't appear to want that. I don't know what to do about that. But it does feel like it's destroying us.
Tillerson, it was rex tillerson