It’s your fucking duty. It’s why you got an ’estate’. You are a necessary facet of democracy but you need to do your part and act like it so you deserve the protections and benefits provided to you for doing so - like benefit of trust and access to politicians.
With few exceptions, you’re failing to be our eyes and ears and mouths and are instead mouthpieces for ownership and interests.
If it was just your job to make money take off the news armour (yeah you Fox) and stand naked in front of us as the liars you are.
Oof sorry. Got ranty there. It’s all getting to be too much.
Can you explain the “estate” thing like I’m a 5 year old non-American? (Only one of those is actually true, but I won’t say which one)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate
Just like within actual government there’s supposed to be balance of power between different branches or houses, there’s this idea that the role of the press is to hold governments accountable.
(More of an ELI12, but that’s the gist of the idea)
Sadly, I feel like the whole “separation of powers” thing is under attack in America and elsewhere as power continues to consolidate over time - even where it pertains to branches within government. Traditional media has long been lost in many cases, and even “alternative” media is so flooded with bad actors that it’s nearly impossible to get signal through the noise.
Not to get too dour, but if media is in this state now, I hate to think of where it will be once AI starts to gain a real foothold in our political discourse. I assume we’ll start to see the effects of this really become evident this years, with American federal elections ramping up.
The author Tim Wu makes a great argument about corporate power consolidation leading to fascism in his book The Curse of Bigness. He states that leading up to WWII, nations promoted the size of their respective national champions, which in turn led to pressure for an authoritative command economy to ensure their continued dominance. It’s a great read and dire warning for the world’s current state of affairs.
Interesting, I’ve never considered that factor. I’ll have to check it out!
France had 3 estates, The Nobles, The Clergy, and the Everyone Else. Another two got added by political theory people over time. Number 4 is the journalists. Number 5 is the alt journalists.
Is there a sixth? And please don’t say alt alt journalists, because that would be very disappointing.
Aliens, man
I thought it was dead people like the sense?
Indeed, and this estate makes its will known through representatives called “Estate Agents”
Are they even real?
Interesting, I had never heard of this! That explains that show “The Fifth Estate”. I’ll have to read up on this a bit, seems like useful knowledge.
We are still undergoing the French Revolution.
You know, I thought I could but on brief search it’s… complicated.
This is the best nugget from Wikipedia that sums up the general notion I’m trying to state that the media has been afforded a role in society - and that they aren’t acting as an independent class.
The modern term the fourth estate invokes medieval three-estate systems, and usually refers to some particular force outside that medieval power structure, most commonly the independent press or the mass media.[3][4]
This commertor summarised it well
“France had 3 estates, The Nobles, The Clergy, and the Everyone Else. Another two got added by political theory people over time. Number 4 is the journalists. Number 5 is the alt journalists.”
Hey little buddy, it’s time for your nap.
This exactly. Well ranted.
If Journalists point that out and report on it, then the Republicans will refuse their interviews and to come on their shows… and they much rather have the fall of democracy, than risk losing access.
Here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we don’t have time to worry about the fall of democracy when the fall of ratings is on the line!
How will advertisers sell their keto gummy diet pills if no one is watching?
This is the paradox of liberalism.
You have blue MAGA outlets like NPR that spent the last 8 years being “fair” to both sides, telling their audience the antivax fascist psychopaths are just as valid and worthy as the left trying to give people education and healthcare.
As if conservative views are even worth recognizing.
Liberalism without a STRONG left wing always ends in fascism, and the liberals are more than happy to join the fascists (see: literally all liberal discourse on Lemmy).
Guess what the US has spent the past 80 years doing. Real coincidence every time a country leans left, they are overthrown by CIA puppets.
So now you have liberals in literal tears trying to get their guy elected without even fucking understanding the issues at play. They don’t give a shit.
Not all NPRs. Boston Public Radio, or at least Jim and Marjorie, the only time I ever heard them talking about antivaxers was when Art Caplan (a weekly regular…“American ethicist and professor of bioethics at New York University Grossman School of Medicine” per his Wikipedia) was tearing apart most of what they say.
But that’s more like a talk news show. You kind of expect a little bit less neutrality in that.
Art Caplan was also recently on an episode of Nova talking about ethics in modern medicine. Think it was actually about vaccination (may have been designer babies).
It’s a two party system, jabroni. If the liberals crying their tears don’t get their guy in office, who do you think DOES get into office?
newflash: Trump gets into office. Which must be your guy, right?
If you’re going to join conversations with people you might want to check your tone, as you could have the most sound argument ever but if you come across as a prick you’re going to turn people off your pov.
Be better my guy and talk to people how you would expect people to talk to your mother.
“bbbbut thuh Dems haven’t done anything to EARN my vote” and other such brain dead takes from ding dongs who don’t understand basic pragmatic logic.
* From dingdongs who are repeating – accidentally or on purpose – some bullshit that was professionally constructed to emotionally resonate and sound convincing on surface level, so that when people spread it on social media it can do its job and help Trump get elected and fuck up the country absolutely beyond recognition
The reason, that you already got some upvotes for this, shows, that Lemmy has more users who are able to read more than a couple of words.
Sadly they are the only voices trying to keep the Dems aim to the left.
Dems kept sliding right after coopting the middle with Clinton. Basically a Good Cop-Bad Cop routine.
Now there is no left, aside from Sanders.
Authoritarian to the left, fascist to the right, here we are.
If Sanders ever got the Presidency, leftists would drop him within 3 months.
Leftists want a unicorn, and they don’t exist. Until leftists realize this, they’ll be powerless. Leftism in America has spent 20 years eating itself, and now they’re surprised they have no power.
Sure, when Sanders was dominating the Democrats primary in 2016 we saw the entire county do a charachter assasination for a week straight.
It was the purest sign since Gove v Bush2 that the USA was no longer a republic nor a democracy.
AND the DNC went to court to make it explicitly clear in a court of law that voters and donors can suck a dick, we do what we want.
But “vote blue no matter who and move them left later (even though they only have ever moved right and attack anyone left of Biden WAYYYYY more than they ever have Republicans!)”
Leftist version of the Lost Cause
Your messiah didn’t have the votes. All the DNC shenanigans in the world don’t change that.
lol yeah, the whole concept of “earning” a vote screams unearned entitlement and narcissistic tendencies on part of the voter.
“The Dems aren’t liberal enough so I’m going to revenge vote tRuMp”
These people do not exist in any significant number.
Neither of us can convince someone whose friends had their asses beat by cops at a university protesting Biden’s action. Only Biden can do that, by ending the genocide.
When dems lose for not doing the things they need to do to get elected, are you going to blame the dems for not winning what should be an easy election by just doing the things the people want him to do, using all the means at his disposal, or are you going to blame every single voter in the US for not voting for a party that shows nothing but contempt for them?
Sure Biden has messed up with the protesters, but the Republican nominee Trump, would have had you shot.
Considering his cabinet has stated they actively had to dissuade him, several times, from simply ordering military elements to “gun down” protestors during the Floyd protests in 2020…yeah.
“what should be an easy election” <- this is how we know you are campaigning for Trump. There is no such thing as an easy election. Since 1992, Democrats have won the popular vote in 7 out of 8 elections, but that didn’t stop Bush from beating Gore, or Trump from beating Clinton.
lol, all your type does is talk about dems dems dems, not a single word about Republicans or how much worse they have proven to be when they are in office.
Trump said he would help Israel end the genocide, I guess that’s what you want after all, right?
Oh, so you’re still under the delusion the DNC did nothing wrong, and it’s the voters who were wrong for not voting harder.
Look at it this way: The democrats can change their own policy. They cannot change the psychology of the masses. No matter how much you yell at people for pointing it out, facilitating genocide, restarting student loans, letting Texas keep their child drowning fence, standing around while states ban abortion, are bad for electoral outcomes.
The republicans are psychopaths whose policies are bad for the material conditions of 99% of Americans. This has been true forever, but here we are, with dems somehow right of Richard Nixon. You have to have absolute dogshit policies for it to even be close, and that’s exactly what got us here. “Well trump might have restarted student loan payments but worse” isn’t gonna convince someone who is building up credit card debt now because they can’t balance rent, food, and student loan repayments.
my student loan repayments are currently $0 due to the SAVE repayment plan. the threat i currently face as a borrower in repayment comes from states suing the Biden admin in federal court to stop affordable repayment.
i see your propaganda. i hope others see it for what it is as well.
I’m not under any delusions. ANY political party wielding power is going to make decisions that help some people and hurt others. It can’t be helped it’s the nature of power itself.
I’ll repeat, the Democrats have won the popular vote 7 out of 8 times since 1992. They have the more popular policies on their side, and only have to fight rhetoric like yours. What are you doing to help change the Democratic party, hm? Tea Party and MAGA have each managed to get their fucknuts into power and change the direction of the Republicans towards fascism. What’s your plan, how does whinging in comment section trying to create voter apathy towards the Dems do anything but put Trump in office?
In life, you have two mutually exclusive options: you can be right about something, or you can be effective. So you go ahead and keep on being the rightist guy in the room. The people who focus on being effective will manage to work around you.
The dems are on a trajectory to lose the election. Your tactic of pretending otherwise is both wrong and ineffective.
I am not trying to create voter apathy, I am trying to create anger to encourage people pressuring the dems to do the things they need to do to win.
I notice a certain slight tendency in your comments to talk about China, implication that aid for Taiwan was “bought” from the US congress by someone, tendency to delve into the details of tariffs and suchlike.
Quick question for you: If I protest in China against a Chinese policy I don’t agree with, what happens to me?
(This isn’t a whataboutism – China doing something doesn’t excuse the US police from doing a much milder version of the same thing. I don’t think they should be beating or arresting protestors here either. I’m just curious how universally you apply this concern for protestors who had their asses beat.)
Quick question for you: If I protest in China against a Chinese policy I don’t agree with, what happens to me?
Quick Answer: You can just google “site:scmp.com (or any other english language chinese news site) protestors”
You could probably find much better data if you googled the chinese word for protestors, but then you’d have to translate the results.
Even when the government wants to shut down protests, such as in HK, it’s 100x more gentle than the US is. Think of how many people getting run over by cops we saw in 2020. I didn’t see a single child get domed with a pepperball in Hong Kong.
100x more gentle than the US is
Faaaaascinating
Also, look at all the happy Uyghurs leaving their re-education camps after the Chinese government helped boost their job opportunities. Sounds great.
Yes, that is 100x more gentle than how the US deals with terrorism. Abu Garib was not giving people job training and setting them up with careers.
Bro, it’s not a fuckin contest
I’m not in favor of Abu Ghraib, or Guantánamo, or the Uyghur detention camps, or the genocide in Gaza. From my point of view as a person who likes human rights, it’s actually not really that complicated to say that I’m not in favor of any of those things. It wouldn’t even occur to me to bring up one of them as a defense for any of the others, because I would have no reason to want to defend any of them.
This is exactly why I wanted to ask you that seemingly unrelated question. I was curious whether you were an overall pro-human-rights person who came organically to your viewpoint about not wanting to vote for the Democrats, or whether that “of course I hate that Palestinian protestors in the US are being abused” – a pretty sensible view, tbh – came alongside some other views which were incongruous and surprising, and wouldn’t commonly be encountered in a person who has strong feelings about human rights and domestic US politics.
Sounds like I got my answer.
a person who has strong feelings about human rights and domestic US politics.
My take on any enemies of the US is uncritical support; the only impact the US will have on those people is further immiseration, thus to criticize them as an American living in America is to carry water for imperialism.
It’s why you see people get more worked up about Iranian oppression than Saudi oppression, despite Saudi Arabia being dependent on US military aid to oppress it’s people. The context of you, and American, hearing about gay rights in Palestine is to support further oppression of the Palestinian people.
Yes I will blame the voters who think their pride is more important than the safety of others.
Dems lose? We all lose. You people seem to forget you’re fucking everyone. Your feelings don’t matter, outcomes do. If you know Trump wins in this scenario, and you know there may be no more free elections, how does this “force the Dems to learn for next time?” Braindead ideological bullshit. You’re a fucking cult.
Why the hell are you coming at me then? I can’t control the dems policies, nor can I change the psychology of muslims to vote for a guy who is facilitating genocide. Nothing I say would convince someone who is struggling to pay rent because their student loans were resumed by executive order.
The only thing either of us can do is pressure the dems to do the things they need to do to get elected. If Biden stops the genocide, then I could tell muslims “Hey, if you don’t vote Biden, Trump will resume it”, and college grads “Hey, if you don’t vote Biden, Trump will resume loan repayments”, and women “Hey, if you don’t vote Biden, Trump’s gonna remove your right to bodily autonomy” but I can’t do that because he doesn’t give me shit to work with.
One fucking Google search and this was the second link: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/02/joe-biden-30-policy-things-you-might-have-missed-00139046
That’s nice, but it’s really hard to convince someone to vote for the person still pushing the knife deeper into them. Stopping further damage done via gaza and student loans are an absolute minimum. I’m not even expecting him to pull the knife out, let alone do something to heal the wound. The bar is underwater when I have to set it at “Not actively making your personal material conditions worse”. “Yes he’s making things worse for you and will not stop doing so, but some of the things he did aren’t objectively bad” is not gonna win an election.
Also some of those were objectively bad, such as increasing militarism and oil production.
- Biden attempted to forgive half a trillion dollars in student loans, and the Supreme Court told him no. He’s still managed to do about $150 billion on his own. In what sense are you saying he’s driving the knife in?
- Biden is holding up military aid for Israel right now. Too little too fucking late, in my opinion, but you are aware that that’s happening, right? That the leader who is actively killing Palestinians is a whole different world leader on a whole different side of the planet?
- There’s a whole conversation to be had about 40% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030; that may be opening up a significant additional topic. But you brought up oil production.
That’s not even the main point. You said elsewhere:
- You’d “have to” support Israel, even if they were genociding Palestinians just like they are today, if they weren’t on the same side as the US, because you support all enemies of the US uncritically.
- “There is a discrepancy” between you wanting to drive the US as quickly as possible to its destruction, and being deeply concerned about Biden’s strategy and offering critique to what he’s doing (supposedly, ultimately, to help him win the election.)
I don’t know man. I think you wanna think through that discrepancy at some length. I’m pretty doubtful that you’re sincere about what you’re saying. Sorry.
If you actually are an American and this is actually what you believe, then you should know that I carry the same absurd hope that you’re talking about that the US can do better things. If you want better outcomes for the people inside the United States and less evil done in its name on the world stage, I think there are actually some good ways you can work towards that outcome.
Biden attempted to forgive half a trillion dollars in student loans,
He restarted loan repayments. Every dollar paid on every loan he didn’t forgive is the knife going deeper.
You’d “have to” support Israel, even if they were genociding Palestinians just like they are today
No no no, I’d have to support the US against Israel. My fault, “I’d have to support it” was ambiguous, it could have been referring to the US’s opposition to Israel or Israel.
It’s obvious you didn’t even read one sentence of the link. I know you and the troll farm have a job to do with your “Genocide Joe” rhetoric, but we’re tired of it and don’t want you here.
Except I referenced multiple things in that link; 3 of them were increased militarism, 1 was that oil production in the US had increased. Those are objectively bad things.
Sure but when Trump becomes president and you start to realise what you’ve done, don’t expect any help, sympathy, or even basic human decency.
Private Media’s duty is to the shareholders.
And if you look at who the big shareholders are voting for (and donating to and campaigning for) it’s the Trump GOP.
Sinclair Media, iHeartCommunications, News Corp, Amazon Media Group, Twitter…
These guys are lockstep with the conservative movement.
These groups also donate heavily to the DNC.
Play both sides, so you always come out on top.
But the folks they support are inevitably the most conservative Democrats in the bluest states. Obstructionists like Lieberman, Machin and Sinema, who exist entirely too say “No” from the inside of the party.
The end of democracy in the U.S. is not going to come from fascist conservatives, but from too-busy-with-life normies, the type who don’t vote in anything but presidential elections. They’re just too busy to notice anything other than their bills.
In their minds, they’re going to “punish” the blues for inflation while ignoring that the reds only ever made them poorer. These type of people don’t care about genocides (someone else’s problem, there’s always brown people dying, Israel is an ally etc), abortion rights (only stupid people get pregnant or only sluts need that), or trans people (that’s too weird for them). They don’t care about climate change (it’s a topic up for debate, it’s not factual), but have kids. They don’t care about workers rights, but work deadend or multiple jobs. They don’t care about getting more healthcare rights, but are a medical emergency away from bankruptcy.
I am not saying these people are dumb or callous, they need outreach and they need to be presented clearly with their options and outcomes. If you can, volunteer to sign people up to vote and present what’s at stake.
In my country, basically everyone accepts climate change, except perhaps the most conservative and those who already believe in conspiracy theories. What is going on in the US?
Those who believe in conspiracy theories have become our conservative party. Some (myself included) would argue they’ve always been there or that that’s always been the nature of the republican party. But the important thing here in the modern day is that the conspiracy theorists now control half of the country’s political system.
I’m personally of the opinion that conspiracy theory is the result of a fundamental unwillingness or inability to engage with reality. If that is the case then why on earth would you choose to believe in climate change? It’s scary, and an existential threat to humanity if it’s taken seriously. Besides, theres a lot of money to be made burning the planet.
I think at the end of the day that’s what the American right’s denial of climate change boils down to. Everyone in that party participates in some way in denying reality in favor of a collective fantasy. What’s one more denial?
Rings true, but the hard to swallow fact also is that they only think they’re “so busy with life” because they’re chasing the American pipe dream.
But but Biden didn’t personally go to Gaza to act as a human shield against Israeli shelling, so I don’t care if Trump wins!!
For those autists out there. The /s is pretty heavily implied. And we love you.
So he either did even remotely satisfactory in that regard or it’s not a really big deal, right?
So, something the better journalists have to be careful with, is using neutral language even in certain clearly one-sided situations. That’s not just to not upset people on both sides; it helps to inform the truth to those who want to read carefully and critically.
If I read, “beware! The right-wingers are conspiring to make a fascist government!” then all I can do is shrug at another sensationalist conspiracy clickbait.
If I read factual details of things said, done and published by said right-wingers: it turns out I’m capable myself of seeing something is bad or good. Sure, it’s still the journalist’s job to interpret the facts to a degree, but those facts should be as transparent as possible and attaching inflammatory language, even if appropriate, often obscures that.
There is a place for opinion writers. But we need, I think, more of the less-opinioned honest truth for honest people. Even if that scares you that readers might not take up your call to arms as quickly as you think they ought.
Sorry, that went a bit off the rails, because I’m not quite sure how to express - though I still think it’s true - the important place for journalism that doesn’t call a spade a spade but tells you its shape so you can understand.
Absolutely - and I agree entirely. However - there are a lot of choices that get made with regards to words and context indicators when writing a piece (Video is a whole other box of frogs but similiar things apply).
Just sticking to text, let’s say, I’m not suggesting that the NYT should write a front page article entitled Watch Out: Crazy Trump Will Kill Us All (although, that’s upsettingly not a zero-percent chance either.)
What I am saying is that they need to stop giving trump the benefit of neutrality. That was a typical and to a small-extent-reasonable excuse they made in 2016. “Let’s see what kind of President he’ll be” and “maybe he’ll grow into it” and sorts of rationalizations that I ranted against at the time and I think was extremely validated by the subesquent nightmare of an administration.
So that’s over. Now, we know who he is - he’s the kind of guy who lies at the drop of a hat. He’ll do it by force of habit. He’s incapable of empathy. He’s so singularly focused on grabbing money (not ‘making money’ now, he doesn’t care about that), and weilding power over his perceived enemies that he’s an absolutely dismal choice for president. He staged a failed coup right in front of us. And still remains unrepentant. Anyone who’s not a complete cult member can see that.
So the NYT writing their article can use that to leverage his latest outrageousness and limit the faux-respect (he deserves none) such as “former President”. Fuck that - that’s not a “fact” as much as it is an “editorial position”. He’s also a former game show host. He’s also gone bankrupt five times. (four? five, whatever) He’s never been a billionaire. These are facts. They don’t use those. Why not.
Because. The tenor of the NYT is that they are “supposed” to be lofty - distanced - respectful. Well, they’re failing us with that. Trump is using that against them and us.
Maggie Haberman’s mom used to be trump’s publicist. And she’s the trump-whisperer? Fuck.
Same can be applied to any of the video-based services. (Minus the sniffly air of old money). I’ll try to use a future post to dive into one of the articles and really highlight it because once you see it, it’s pretty blatant they’re tipping the scales towards trump. It shouldn’t be close at all. It is because they’re doing that. On purpose.
Both sides is a falacy since for most human subjects it’s incredibly rare for there to be only two options.
Real Journalism is discussing the situation on its own implications, merits and demerits, and presenting options and explaining their pros and cons.
The whole “both sides” reporting is an artifact of it being Propaganda in a system with a Power Duopoly, so mainstream media frames all human subjects with political implications to match that polical system’s own artificially reduced set of choices so as to make it seem like that political system is well suited to deal with human subject with political implications.
(I’ve actually lived in a couple of countries with different levels of actual political freedom, from the UK which is a lot like US and arguably in some ways even less representative, to The Netherlans which has Proportional Vote, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that the way the established Press frames news closelly matches the limitations in political choices in that system)
Then if you go out of mainstream media and look at amateurs (i.e. social media posts) the way they frame subjects is also almost invariably like the Propaganda they grew up with, IMHO not because of them trying to be manipulative but because that’s all they’ve ever known and seen all around them, though the result is still that in their parroting of a sometimes more sometimes less rationalised version of somebody else’s talking points, they follow the same falacious structuring.
There are a handfull of less mainstream media who actually mostly practice Journalism and a few diamond-Journalist amongst the muck which is mainstream media, but generally well established news media will not stray away from a framing that justifies the very system that made them “established”.
Real Journalism is discussing the situation on its own implications, merits and demerits, and presenting options and explaining their pros and cons.
Agreed
The whole “both sides” reporting is an artifact of it being Propaganda in a system with a Power Duopoly
Both sides is a falacy since for most human subjects it’s incredibly rare for there to be only two options.
‘Both sides’ is also a shorthand for both or more. I like your description of “discussing the situation on its own implications…” but I think it’s common in human discourse to frame things in two main perspectives and discuss from there.
Everything should be prefaced with the fact conservatives don’t think it’s possible they can lose.
Journalists say this all the time. Does this guy only follow fox news?
Okay it’s Saturday May 11th, what are the stories from CNN, NBC, ABC, WaPo, and NYT (front pages please) which say that. I just checked and there weren’t any.
There’s trump-in-court, trump-in-irs-trouble, other things like “some say he shouldn’t be campaigning in a blue state on his day off from court” or whatever.
It’s not like a breaking news story. It’s got to be folded into the telling of all the other stories about him. He tried - and failed - to stage a goddamned coup for fuck’s sake.
Incompetently planned, ridiculously reasoned, as one would expect, but he did it nonetheless and I want it to say IN EVERY ARTICLE ABOUT HIM that he tried to stage a coup which failed. Interview justice officials as to what - EXACTLY- are they going to do when he does it again. What protections are in place to prevent him from gutting appointees and protections? Where are those news stories?
And why, after 2016 and everything that we’re saying here happened then, would anyone need to explain this?
Their whole framing of the story should acknowledge that he’s an enemy of the United States. He got dozens of CIA assets killed, he supported our enemy in a shooting war that’s still going on, and he tried to kill a bunch of politicians to seize power. Instead, they’re treating him like a candidate for president. Every single newspaper should be running stories about what a catastrophe it would be if someone who’s so clearly hostile to the United States managed to seize control of the United States government.
It’s like those editors from World War 2 that wanted to tone down coverage of Hitler because he’s a popular and successful leader. I mean, your statement’s not fully objectively wrong. But also, objectively, you’re missing the point.
those editors from World War 2 that wanted to tone down coverage of Hitler
Fucking bingo dude.
I guess that you’re right they cant explictly say “Trump is a facist” because they will get sued but they hint at in and imply it in so many articles. Here’s a quick search which shows what I mean about journalists talking about this. You could find 10+ of these types of posts from each of the big news sites.
Opinion: Trump’s praise of dictators tells us all we need to know
‘It’s happening right here’: The authoritarian threat to American democracy
Why does Trump keep talking like a fascist? Because it works
Twelve signs Trump would try to run a fascist dictatorship in a second term
Talk of a Trump Dictatorship Charges the American Political Debate
You could find 10+ of these types of posts from each of the big news sites.
These are good examples, but here’s the problem with them:
Opinion: Trump’s praise of dictators tells us all we need to know
This is an Opinion article, not a news article. In particular, the NYT likes to hide behind these, allowing opinion writers free rein while hedging and minimizing and normalizing the candidate in all the actual News articles.
‘It’s happening right here’: The authoritarian threat to American democracy
Likewise this is an interview with an author, not a news article.
Why does Trump keep talking like a fascist? Because it works
Another ‘editorial’, and Maddow is pretty great but sort of preaching to the choir. Not news reporting as such.
Twelve signs Trump would try to run a fascist dictatorship in a second term
Another Opinion piece, they even preface the author with “Perspective by” to distance themselves from it.
Talk of a Trump Dictatorship Charges the American Political Debate
This is the only actual news article of the bunch, and it is largely based on trumps famous ‘i’d be a dictator on the first day’ quote which was unfuckingbelievably outrageous in its own right. It’s probably worthy of a breakdown but I’d have to get past the paywall first. Also to note it’s on page 23 of the A section, not exactly front page anyway.
I’d be curious to see how libel and slander laws would apply to accuse a former president and presidential candidate of being a fascist
It’s only libel if it’s untrue.
Journalists have incredibly broad protections against getting sued for saying something like that. In general, for public or political figures, they can say whatever they want, in a way they never could against a private citizen, for exactly this reason.
There are fuzzy cases at the edges (like Bob Murray suing John Oliver), but Trump is so clearly a public figure that he can’t sue them for libel without getting laughed out of court. This is why he keeps removed periodically about the libel laws and how we have to fix them; because they protect people’s right to talk about him and he hates that they can do that and he can’t punish them for it.
I think fascist is an ambiguous enough term to dodge libel lawsuits. How would you ever prove that someone is a fascist or not a fascist? It’s not like you get a membership card.
Well, not yet.
This is an Opinion article, not a news article. In particular, the NYT likes to hide behind these
Well that’s very much by design though. News articles are supposed to be as neutral and factual as possible, so with early newspapers a convention arose to mark any article that delivers an interpretation alongside the pure facts as an opinion piece. That doesn’t mean it’s not a news article and I actually think it’s commendable when a news source still tries to follow this convention. Many don’t anymore or never even tried to begin with.
News articles are supposed to be as neutral and factual as possible
That is the conventional thinking, however we can’t remove all perspective from a news article - it’s not technically possible. So the “as possible” part of the statement is really a kind of magic that allows us to presume news agencies are in fact trying to limit any one perspective to the maximum possible while still being recognized as written communication.
But they’re not. Almost all corporate news has an agreed-upon point-of-view that they edit from. This is partially just practicality - if everyone writes to the agreed POV, then they don’t have to edit much. Things move faster when they’re in alignment.
And that agreed-upon-point-of-view is not neutral, although they possibly intended it to be read that way.
Opinion articles are there to let writers loose and say whatever - but make no mistake, news articles have opinions. Consider use of the term “environmentalist”.
As an old, I remember when it wasn’t ever a thing. And I distinctly remember hearing it for the first time - in a newscast. I remember thinking, “what? Who’s not an environmentalist? Does someone not live in an environment?” Sort of like “Oxygenists today said people aren’t breathing”.
But it was being used as a way to separate those who cared about pollution, extinction, and yes climate change, from those who didn’t.
It was envisioned as a “neutral” term - as factual as possible - but it said on the face of it, “environmentalists said …” meaning not us. It was a bias still in use today. Artificial and wielded as needed. Are you an environmentalist? You know - one of them?
So the “as possible” part of the statement is really a kind of magic
Not really, it’s just a reminder that every human has inherent biases and writing an entirely neutral article is thus virtually impossible. That doesn’t mean journalists should go around and give into these biases without clearly stating that, and making this effort despite knowing you will fail in it is one of many indicators which can help separate serious news sources from propaganda and advertisement outlets.
Who’s not an environmentalist?
Fossil fuel companies?
It was envisioned as a “neutral” term - as factual as possible - but it said on the face of it, “environmentalists said …” meaning not us.
I don’t know, I see it as media needing a term to apply to a (back then) relatively new societal movement, and environmentalist seems sufficiently descriptive and neutral to me to fulfil that role.
Are you an environmentalist? You know - one of them?
Yes. Are you? I don’t see the problem here.
Maybe the journalist is one themselves. They didn’t say? That’s the point.
That doesn’t mean journalists should go around and give into these biases without clearly stating that
How? I mean, I agree - but I think you’re probably saying that’s what an Opinion article is for. But a news article that doesn’t state its biases is not unbiased. And I haven’t seen any news articles where bias is stated.
Who’s not an environmentalist?
Fossil fuel companies?
True, in the corporations-are-people sense, but use of the term predates that.
and environmentalist seems sufficiently descriptive and neutral to me to fulfil that role.
Are you an environmentalist? You know - one of them?
Yes. Are you? I don’t see the problem here.
I don’t know what ‘an environmentalist’ is - as discussed, the news made it up. But as one, would you please define it and explain your bias, y’know, like a news reporter would?
Maybe the journalist is one themselves. They didn’t say? That’s the point.
Mmmnnoo, they didn’t say. You’re suggesting they would? Or that that is normally done? Again, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that.
Let’s be honest here: how many people are really still getting their news from one of those formally mainstream outlets? Not a single news outlet is in the top 50 most visited websites. Cable and satellite subscriptions are at an all-time low and nobody even bothers hooking an antenna up to their TV anymore. We all just stream everything. And when’s the last time you’ve seen a newspaper on a driveway? I know I haven’t in over a decade.
What I’m saying is that what CNN, NBC, ABC, NYT, etc. don’t report on is irrelevant, because nobody gets their news from them anymore. Most people get their news from social media and word-of-mouth.
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Hahahah imagine expecting liberal media to stop fascism.
Liberalism creates the conditions of fascism; Capitalism tends towards crisis, eventually it must be buttressed by applying colonial methods at home.
Liberals always do everything they can to keep us on the path towards fascism, since socialism represents a greater threat to capitalism.
I’m so glad idiots like you are a joke to the silent majority, who will continue living free under liberalism long after fascism and communism are forgotten.
Have you been frozen since the 90s? All the proclamations that liberalism won and it was the end of history, and we’d just have technocratic tweaks to capitalism forever were wrong.
Capitalism tends towards crisis when it can’t expand its markets, it’s structural.
Hell this very post is about liberals being complicit with or facilitating the rise of fascism.
Because there’s nothing new under the sun, you can study the same dynamic in 1930s germany. The choice is socialism or barbarism, and the liberals choose barbarism every time.
I see a few people helping the fascists around here, and one of them is you.
Could you elaborate? I’m curious how you arrived at that conclusion.
lol OK kid
Social Democrat, here: Both of you people suck.
Don’t worry, you’re a ‘lib’ to all the self-proclaimed Very Pure Leftists.
to Those Leftists™, anyone thats left of them, right of them, or has identical political beliefs on everything except one issue are “libs”, its been thrown around so much on lemmy that it takes up the same part of my brain as “woke”, when I see someone use it unironically its generally safe to say I can ignore them.
Social democrats literally are liberals though; liberal is defined by support of capitalism, social democrats seek to buttress capitalism with social programs.
Not to be confused with Democratic Socialism, such as in Bolivia and and Venezuela, who aren’t liberals, nor are anarchists, or communists or various indigenous movements that are their own flavor of anti-capitalist.
Yeah, but I wasn’t replying to the social democrat. I can only go through seeing anarchists and communists be called lib so many times before feeling like the word liberal has lost all meaning and it just becomes another abstract insult
Where the hell do you see anarchists and communists get called lib?
Is it by republicans, who think liberal means anyone left of them and that communists are a type of liberal, and Mao’s Combat Liberalism was a pamphlet about doing liberalism, but really aggressively?
Those people are even dumber and more politically illiterate than the average blue maga.
I just want to throw in here, that the ‘silent majority’ used to mean the dead.
* according to a comic I read on the internet, but meh, maybe I’ll look it up later
Wow, that’s very profound. Thank you for wisely using both of our time on that insight.
BoTh SiDeS has already gotten people killed!
If fascists are attempting a takeover of our government then it would be irresponsible for Biden to accept the results if he loses the election.
I read another stupid and dangerous take, look at the username, and of course.
I’m sorry I forgot we’re just supposed to let them win
On the other hand, this is all MSNBC talks about.
…why am I being downvoted?
Single party dictatorship is acceptable 🤣
Dude calls himself a fascist in his own comments
