Reading some of the other comments here blaming Democrats, I believe it brings us back to the original problem: the media is blocking the Democrats from getting their constructive agenda on air and online. The MSM either ignores Democratic accomplishments, paints them in a negative light, or spins false narratives of how they benefit the Republicans. In addition, they almost never interview Dem party firebrands and invite Bernie Sanders and the critical left Justice Dems to provide comment on the party that they hate almost as much as the Repubs. Why not more CBC members or passionate defenders of the party platform? The answer is too obvious: the media cashes in by crushing the Democratic party and enabling fascism.
Jon Stewart recently confessed that in 206 he dismissed Trump as a buffoon and failed to comprehend the damage he could cause as president. The mainstream media was, and remains under the same delusion. The difference is that now Stewart has seen the light.
It began with claims of voter fraud. Now it is people should no longer vote. That is the republican agenda. They have decided against democracy and they pushed voter fraud to support their decision. The agenda is much deeper than just voter suppression to aid republican candidates. It is even deeper than white-culture survival. The agenda is to replace democracy with authoritarian rule.
It's clear that there are very powerful people planning, rooting, and hoping for the destruction of American democracy for their personal greed and insatiable appetite for power. The one entity that had been designed to protect our democracy by our founders, was the free press. That entity is failing miserably in not telling the real truth of what is happening. An ongoing coup is taking place right before our eyes. A majority of people in this country that include Democrats, Independents, and even Republicans want improvements to infrastructure, voting rights, women's rights, reversing climate change and other progressive agendas. However, it's all failing because of a minority that continues to lie and cheat to gain power and get its own way. More importantly the press continues to bend reality with the insistence that both sides do it, that both parties are equally to blame. Either the press are ignorant dolts, don't want to upset the applecart of access, or are a part of the organized coup. Regardless of their reason, it bodes very poorly for the future of a free democracy. The way I see it, America as we know it will not survive another major election. The clown show of Trump was too inept to pull it off but in the wake of his failed takeover, Republicans are using his lies to change laws that will allow minority rule for decades to come. If I were a younger man I would seriously be looking to settle elsewhere in this world.
“In some ways, the concerns among Democrats, constitutional scholars and democracy advocates about what the return of Trump could mean are simply one side of a coin, with Trump supporters representing the flip side.
A majority of Republicans still support Trump leading their party, according to polls. A CNN poll released in September found that 68 percent of Republicans and those who lean Republican say democracy is under attack, with about 7 in 10 of them believing that President Biden didn’t win the 2020 election. One side’s nightmare scenario — Trump running in 2024 and reclaiming the presidency — represents to the other side simply the democratic system working as it should.”
Unbelievable that these are graphs six and seven. Did Parker initially include this or did an editor put this in (or let it stand) for faux “balance”? It’s outrageous.
This article is the perfect example of what’s wrong with the media. Stories about Afghanistan or the BBB bills are written with more immediacy and peril. Yet something that is worthy of that kind of framing is instead bloodless and fairly dismissive, making it seem like it’s just the Dems and a handful of people who are making much ado about nothing. The accurate description “Big Lie” isn’t even mentioned while Trump’s behavior is “norm breaking.” And 1/6 is still called a “riot” instead of what it was, an attempted insurrection.
It underscores everything in Eric B’s post. I guess authoritarianism is just the flip side of democracy. Get ready for the fight of our lives in these coming months.
I don't normally take issue with your writing here Mr. Boehlert, but believe you are neglecting a lot of American history that contradicts we have been a thriving democracy for two and a half centuries. (Granted, almost everyone else does too.)
There was that spot of unpleasantness in the 1860's for example.
The Gilded Age is merely the most famous episode of periodic economic corruption/disruption in our history.
Women didn't get the vote until 1920; it took until the 1960's before we started to pay attention to Civil Rights for everyone and we still have a long way to go.
There was that long period where we engaged in Imperialism with the best (worst) of them - see Mark Twain writing about the Philippines and the Spanish American War.
Look how easily Japanese Americans were imprisoned in World War II, and the Cold War hysteria of McCarthyism.
There are plenty more examples where those came from. I agree the press is not paying nearly enough attention to what is happening now, but given how much else they (and we) conveniently have made ourselves oblivious to, is it really a surprise? Nobody wants to admit how close we have been living to the edge all along.
The admonition from the Harry Potter books about "constant vigilance" is one we would do well to keep in mind.
The question I always ask is why are Democrats asleep at the wheel rather than as proactive and aggressive as Republicans. Democrats seem more interested in interparty warfare and jockeying rather than fighting a common enemy. And, honestly, Dems are not even good at that sort of thing. A Republican faction will rise and, like a cancer, devour all others until it is the party. On the Dem side, a new faction will rise and sit there like a benign cyst along with all the others on the host body. Not dangerous enough to take over, but big enough to be an annoyance when it rubs against your shirt.
Republicans are attack dogs with no remorse. Democrats do not have that instinct at all and it is going to haunt us in the end.
This is one of your best, Eric. The irony is that the majority of Americans are liberal or liberal-leaning, but you would never know it by the media coverage. It’s an oligarch’s wet dream. Maybe now, even more so than in the early-to-mid aughts, what America needs is an updated version of Air America to offset the unashamedly rightwing media we’ve been dealing with for three decades, but more importantly, to offset the bothsiderism of the mainstream media, who are so terrified of being perceived as bias or losing access or besieged by rightwing editors, owners and advertisers, that they enable these psychopaths at the expense of American democracy. I mean, they said it themselves, it’s great for business.
I'm an RN immunizer and have just come from an assignment in a fairly impoverished community in Lake County, California. Lots of angry, "uneducated" men in big trucks everywhere in town, many Trumpists wearing shirts bearing those awful black Ameican flags mentioned here. Chilling and disgusting. It felt like a foreign country.
We're to the point in the semester of talking about what's called The Age of Federalism, and that's the title of a book I use as a jumping-off point. That book, by Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick (one of my PhD professors, I'm proud to say), begins by saying it is about "an extended encounter with firstness." I ask the class if they all can drive. Yes. Did anybody learn to drive a stick shift? Some, yes. Remember grinding the gears and the sound it made? Oh, yes. That's the story of that period. That, and the sincere belief that anyone who disagreed about anything was a traitor trying to destroy this great new experiment. You're Hamilton? Jefferson is a traitor. You're Jefferson? Hamilton is a traitor. You're Burr? Everybody thinks you're a traitor.
But, I like to add, we've now had the same two main political parties, with ideological changes, for more than 150 years. We think they're permanent. We've had the Constitution for 234 years, so we think it's permanent. They didn't think that way. And we shouldn't, because it's not.
Now to what I don't add, because I would never say this in a classroom (because it's not my job or place, despite what right-wing liars may think): The problem is that we do now have a legitimately treasonous organization claiming to be a political party, and it is a minority in Congress, but does not act that way.
Can everyone please chill out about republicans turning america into a fascist state and annihilating democrats??? Bret Stephens reminds us that there are far more important things in Hunter's emails... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/opinion/biden-ethics-son.html
I have always thought that the “American exceptionalism” belief was very dangerous. It made a lot of people complacent and supported the idea that we are somehow different, and that “it can’t happen here”. I frequently heard people in the media mindlessly make that arrogant claim instead of questioning it as any objective person should
Reading some of the other comments here blaming Democrats, I believe it brings us back to the original problem: the media is blocking the Democrats from getting their constructive agenda on air and online. The MSM either ignores Democratic accomplishments, paints them in a negative light, or spins false narratives of how they benefit the Republicans. In addition, they almost never interview Dem party firebrands and invite Bernie Sanders and the critical left Justice Dems to provide comment on the party that they hate almost as much as the Repubs. Why not more CBC members or passionate defenders of the party platform? The answer is too obvious: the media cashes in by crushing the Democratic party and enabling fascism.
Make no mistake. If you are a democrat, your republican countrymen consider you an enemy...
https://youtu.be/07cPTxLjbYI
It boils down to this--The media is in bed with the GOP.
Jon Stewart recently confessed that in 206 he dismissed Trump as a buffoon and failed to comprehend the damage he could cause as president. The mainstream media was, and remains under the same delusion. The difference is that now Stewart has seen the light.
It began with claims of voter fraud. Now it is people should no longer vote. That is the republican agenda. They have decided against democracy and they pushed voter fraud to support their decision. The agenda is much deeper than just voter suppression to aid republican candidates. It is even deeper than white-culture survival. The agenda is to replace democracy with authoritarian rule.
It's clear that there are very powerful people planning, rooting, and hoping for the destruction of American democracy for their personal greed and insatiable appetite for power. The one entity that had been designed to protect our democracy by our founders, was the free press. That entity is failing miserably in not telling the real truth of what is happening. An ongoing coup is taking place right before our eyes. A majority of people in this country that include Democrats, Independents, and even Republicans want improvements to infrastructure, voting rights, women's rights, reversing climate change and other progressive agendas. However, it's all failing because of a minority that continues to lie and cheat to gain power and get its own way. More importantly the press continues to bend reality with the insistence that both sides do it, that both parties are equally to blame. Either the press are ignorant dolts, don't want to upset the applecart of access, or are a part of the organized coup. Regardless of their reason, it bodes very poorly for the future of a free democracy. The way I see it, America as we know it will not survive another major election. The clown show of Trump was too inept to pull it off but in the wake of his failed takeover, Republicans are using his lies to change laws that will allow minority rule for decades to come. If I were a younger man I would seriously be looking to settle elsewhere in this world.
From that Wapo story linked above:
“In some ways, the concerns among Democrats, constitutional scholars and democracy advocates about what the return of Trump could mean are simply one side of a coin, with Trump supporters representing the flip side.
A majority of Republicans still support Trump leading their party, according to polls. A CNN poll released in September found that 68 percent of Republicans and those who lean Republican say democracy is under attack, with about 7 in 10 of them believing that President Biden didn’t win the 2020 election. One side’s nightmare scenario — Trump running in 2024 and reclaiming the presidency — represents to the other side simply the democratic system working as it should.”
Unbelievable that these are graphs six and seven. Did Parker initially include this or did an editor put this in (or let it stand) for faux “balance”? It’s outrageous.
This article is the perfect example of what’s wrong with the media. Stories about Afghanistan or the BBB bills are written with more immediacy and peril. Yet something that is worthy of that kind of framing is instead bloodless and fairly dismissive, making it seem like it’s just the Dems and a handful of people who are making much ado about nothing. The accurate description “Big Lie” isn’t even mentioned while Trump’s behavior is “norm breaking.” And 1/6 is still called a “riot” instead of what it was, an attempted insurrection.
It underscores everything in Eric B’s post. I guess authoritarianism is just the flip side of democracy. Get ready for the fight of our lives in these coming months.
I don’t think that the mainstream press will like being told what to write when the United States becomes an autocracy, so they better wake up.
I don't normally take issue with your writing here Mr. Boehlert, but believe you are neglecting a lot of American history that contradicts we have been a thriving democracy for two and a half centuries. (Granted, almost everyone else does too.)
There was that spot of unpleasantness in the 1860's for example.
The Gilded Age is merely the most famous episode of periodic economic corruption/disruption in our history.
Women didn't get the vote until 1920; it took until the 1960's before we started to pay attention to Civil Rights for everyone and we still have a long way to go.
There was that long period where we engaged in Imperialism with the best (worst) of them - see Mark Twain writing about the Philippines and the Spanish American War.
Look how easily Japanese Americans were imprisoned in World War II, and the Cold War hysteria of McCarthyism.
There are plenty more examples where those came from. I agree the press is not paying nearly enough attention to what is happening now, but given how much else they (and we) conveniently have made ourselves oblivious to, is it really a surprise? Nobody wants to admit how close we have been living to the edge all along.
The admonition from the Harry Potter books about "constant vigilance" is one we would do well to keep in mind.
The question I always ask is why are Democrats asleep at the wheel rather than as proactive and aggressive as Republicans. Democrats seem more interested in interparty warfare and jockeying rather than fighting a common enemy. And, honestly, Dems are not even good at that sort of thing. A Republican faction will rise and, like a cancer, devour all others until it is the party. On the Dem side, a new faction will rise and sit there like a benign cyst along with all the others on the host body. Not dangerous enough to take over, but big enough to be an annoyance when it rubs against your shirt.
Republicans are attack dogs with no remorse. Democrats do not have that instinct at all and it is going to haunt us in the end.
This is one of your best, Eric. The irony is that the majority of Americans are liberal or liberal-leaning, but you would never know it by the media coverage. It’s an oligarch’s wet dream. Maybe now, even more so than in the early-to-mid aughts, what America needs is an updated version of Air America to offset the unashamedly rightwing media we’ve been dealing with for three decades, but more importantly, to offset the bothsiderism of the mainstream media, who are so terrified of being perceived as bias or losing access or besieged by rightwing editors, owners and advertisers, that they enable these psychopaths at the expense of American democracy. I mean, they said it themselves, it’s great for business.
I'm an RN immunizer and have just come from an assignment in a fairly impoverished community in Lake County, California. Lots of angry, "uneducated" men in big trucks everywhere in town, many Trumpists wearing shirts bearing those awful black Ameican flags mentioned here. Chilling and disgusting. It felt like a foreign country.
Let me talk about my US history class last week.
We're to the point in the semester of talking about what's called The Age of Federalism, and that's the title of a book I use as a jumping-off point. That book, by Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick (one of my PhD professors, I'm proud to say), begins by saying it is about "an extended encounter with firstness." I ask the class if they all can drive. Yes. Did anybody learn to drive a stick shift? Some, yes. Remember grinding the gears and the sound it made? Oh, yes. That's the story of that period. That, and the sincere belief that anyone who disagreed about anything was a traitor trying to destroy this great new experiment. You're Hamilton? Jefferson is a traitor. You're Jefferson? Hamilton is a traitor. You're Burr? Everybody thinks you're a traitor.
But, I like to add, we've now had the same two main political parties, with ideological changes, for more than 150 years. We think they're permanent. We've had the Constitution for 234 years, so we think it's permanent. They didn't think that way. And we shouldn't, because it's not.
Now to what I don't add, because I would never say this in a classroom (because it's not my job or place, despite what right-wing liars may think): The problem is that we do now have a legitimately treasonous organization claiming to be a political party, and it is a minority in Congress, but does not act that way.
Can everyone please chill out about republicans turning america into a fascist state and annihilating democrats??? Bret Stephens reminds us that there are far more important things in Hunter's emails... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/opinion/biden-ethics-son.html
I have always thought that the “American exceptionalism” belief was very dangerous. It made a lot of people complacent and supported the idea that we are somehow different, and that “it can’t happen here”. I frequently heard people in the media mindlessly make that arrogant claim instead of questioning it as any objective person should
It's time to leave AT&T.
More info about how AT&T finances OANN at:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-oneamerica-att/?via=newsletter&source=BI-CS-All