There is no “both sides” to Donald Trump’s threat to democracy - eviltoast

Just because Republicans choose unreality doesn’t mean the media should ignore the facts of January 6.

On January 6, 2021, I watched CNN as thousands of Donald Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol. As someone well-versed in watching tragedy on television, I was struck by just how indisputable the facts were at the time: violent, red-hat-clad MAGA rioters, followed by Republicans in Congress, tried to stop democracy in its tracks. Trump had told his followers that the protest in Washington, DC, “will be wild,” and in the assault that followed his speech, some rioters smeared feces on the walls of the Capitol. Hundreds of them have since been convicted on charges ranging from assault on federal officers to seditious conspiracy. These are stubborn facts, the kind that do not care about your feelings. These facts include the inalienable truth that Trump is the first president in American history to reject the peaceful transfer of power.

It never occurred to me that these facts could somehow be perverted by partisanship. But three years later, we are seeing just that, as Republicans cling to the lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” by Joe Biden and are poised to make Trump their 2024 nominee. And perhaps even more dangerous than the GOP ditching reality is the news media’s inability to cover Trumpism as the threat to democracy that it very much is.

But the problem is, when all you have is conventional political framing, everything looks like politics as usual. One candidate makes a claim; the other disputes it. Two sides are divided, etc. This framing only works if both parties operate within the frameworks of a shared reality. But Trumpism doesn’t allow for the reality the rest of us inhabit. Trump’s supporters believe their leader’s reality and not, say, the reality the rest of us see with our eyes. As Trump once told a crowd: “Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Journalists may be well-intentioned in trying to be “objective,” or they’re simply afraid of being labeled partisan. Either way, coverage of January 6 that gives equal weight to both sides—one based in reality, one not—is helping pave the road for authoritarianism.

  • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    What you claim to be concerned about will be worse if you continue on your path.

    Why doesn’t that seem to matter?

    • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      You say that things will be “worse” but I certainly never had to explain to a democrat why genocide is bad under Trump.

      If this was happening under Trump you all would be falling all over yourselves to act righteous because the other team was doing it. That’s just being a partisan hack.

              • i3c8XHV@aussie.zone
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                1 year ago

                I’m just here to say that any country that uses its civilians to protect its army can’t complain about genocide, especially when the opposing army is giving them a chance to move away from the battlefield in advance.

                • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  especially when the opposing army is giving them a chance to move away from the battlefield in advance.

                  The occupying army are the ones making this a warzone, and are the ones killing the civilians. The path they are offered is a death at the hands of bombs, or to be ethnically cleansed and left at the mercy of whatever refugee camps can be cobbled together. It’s inhuman.

                  You are blaming the people resisting an occupying force for their own genocide at its hands.

                  • i3c8XHV@aussie.zone
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                    1 year ago

                    Hamas chose this to be a war zone by firing rockets from there and building tunnels there and holding hostages there.

                    IDF didn’t choose Gaza to be the battlefield, Hamas chose it.

                    If Hamas can’t stand the heat, maybe they should step out of the kitchen.