This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle hard to thread.

…

This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle hard to thread. No matter how I present it, I’ll offend some thoughtful, decent people.

The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.

The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.

This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.

The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it.

As for those who equate Trump and Joe Biden, that’s false equivalency. Biden has done nothing remotely close to the egregious, anti-American acts of Trump. We can debate the success and mindset of our current president, as we have about most presidents in our lifetimes, but Biden was never a threat to our democracy. Trump is. He is unique among all American presidents for his efforts to keep power at any cost.

  • PugJesus@kbin.social
    3521·
    9 months ago

    Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter. The people equating the two will loudly proclaim to be leftists while simultaneously saying that Trump wasn’t actually trying to interrupt the certification of Joe Biden, and that Trump actually was trying to STOP the ‘unruly protest’. No amount of arguing can get through to people who have no interests other than smug contrarianism.

    • TehWorld@lemmy.world
      68·
      9 months ago

      It does matter. Minds have to be changed one at a time. A constant drip is better than nothing.

    • Patapon Enjoyer@lemmy.world
      321·
      9 months ago

      I have yet to meet a leftist who doesn’t think Trump is a piece of shit fash nepo baby rapist whose death will be celebrated. And I’m terminally online.

    • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
      281·
      9 months ago

      Learn to tell the difference between leftists and right wing trolls. Anyone can call themselves a leftist. There is no leadership in the leftist movements that have come within a thousand miles of equating Trump and Biden. Biden is an old school right wing corporate Democrat, not fascist Trumpian garbage.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
        145·
        9 months ago

        Hence “loudly proclaim to be leftists”. But many of them aren’t trolls, at least not in the sense of not meaning what they’re saying.

          • Sybil@lemmy.world
            47·
            9 months ago

            Mussolini would disagree, as well as any of the anarchist or communists he stabbed in the back.

        • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
          3·
          9 months ago

          Are you saying that Biden is fascist, or that he isn’t a right wing corporatist? If Biden is fascist, what is Trump? Neoliberalism is on the far left (or centrist) side of right wing corporatism, and fascism is the far right side.

          Neoliberalism thinks power comes from meritocracy, and Fascism thinks it comes from moral superiority. The first is rooted in the merchant class, and the other with the divine right of kings. That’s why fascists turn on Jews so often, because they associate Jews with wealth and Christians with royalty or ecclesiastical power.

          • Sybil@lemmy.world
            13·
            9 months ago

            Mussolini made no such distinction. mechanized military states meet all the hallmarks of fascism: primacy of the state, and alignment of institutions with the interest of the state.

            • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
              1·
              9 months ago

              Neoliberalism is better described as alignment of the state with the interests of institutions. It’s almost worse, except that the interests of different institutions aren’t all aligned.

              • Sybil@lemmy.world
                13·
                9 months ago

                the state still has primacy, and the corporations are both chartered by the state and are subject to capricious prosecution for a myriad of laws if they threaten the power of the state.

                • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
                  1·
                  9 months ago

                  US corporations don’t seem particularly threatened by the state. Look how much trouble the all powerful state has had prosecuting just one obviously guilty as hell oligarch with a tiny fraction of the wealth controlled by the big corporations.

    • RainfallSonata@lemmy.world
      214·
      9 months ago

      Anyone who claims to be leftist and doesn’t think trump committed insurrection is trolling you. Believing Biden is just as bad is another matter entirely.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
        92·
        9 months ago

        https://kbin.social/m/politicalmemes@lemmy.world/t/927705/Please-for-the-love-of-God-VOTE#entry-comment-5928401

        You see this kind of comment intermittently from certain kinds of self-proclaimed leftists, where they parrot Trumpian claims about how he was actually trying to STOP the insurrection and is Totally Innocent and therefore it’s Not A Big Deal if he wins again. Anything to feel better about helping him win against the filthy neolib Biden.

        Believing Biden is just as bad is another matter entirely.

        … is it? Because last I checked, there was a big difference between “Tried to overthrow a democratic process” and “Did not try to do so”.

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
        141·
        9 months ago

        I think people have a hard time encountering criticism of Biden without reading into it some sort of comparative statement that is not usually intended. I have personally encountered this many times. I can even go out of my way to say things like “of course Trump is much worse” in various levels of detail and yet, without fail, someone will come along and say that by not offering unquestioning support to Biden I’m a secret Trump supporter trying to undermine Biden or some other wild accusation. I believe this type of interaction is most responsible for perpetuating the idea that people believe the two men are similar. By contrast I rarely see that opinion offered directly.

        • Digitalprimate@lemmy.worldEnglish
          111·
          9 months ago

          Not so much as a secret Trump supporter as helping to muddy the waters. There are many, many valid criticisms to make of Biden (and even more things to validly praise, oddly enough never covered in the press…)

          I think the problem people have with criticism, valid or otherwise, is that this is no time to raise any doubt whatsoever about who should be president next. Yes, that’s a propagandist’s position. It’s also the only morally and practically correct one given the existential challenge we face.

            • Wrench@lemmy.world
              8·
              9 months ago

              2016 was not long ago. “Valid dissent” is what successfully disenfranchised enough voters to give us Trump, which we will spend a lifetime recovering from.

              You people have a very short memory.

              • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
                24·
                9 months ago

                Like I said: No dissent in an election cycle.

                And the neat part is that election cycles don’t ever stop.

                So we have zero dissent.

                Yay democracy.

                Also: What you mean “you people?” That sounds like you’re being needlessly divisive, trying to paint progressives as disloyal.

                I bet you’re one of those IRA agents infiltrating message boards.

                • Wrench@lemmy.world
                  4·
                  9 months ago

                  And you sound like someone who would be complicit with electing Hitler pre-WW2 because his political rivals weren’t perfect matches to your ideals.

                  Wake the fuck up. You get “divisive” replies from people like me because we’re tired of your intellectually dishonest “what, I can’t voice dissent?” when democracy is actually in major jeopardy this very moment. This isn’t some hypothetical.

                  You whine about people shutting down your bullshit because we’re fed up with it. But the other side is literally facism that would likely evolve into actual imprisonment for “voicing dissent”.

                  And that’s not hyperbole. Dictatorships around the world currently do that. Trumps own lawyers argued that the sitting president cannot be guilty of any crimes, that they can literally assassinate rivals.

                  Again, that is not hyperbole. That is fact.