Stormy Daniels says Trump compared her to daughter Ivanka

[anon61221983]

@anon3894935

Does this even need to be said?

when you’re laying the blame solely on one group, that did not fully cause the problem yes.

@anon3894935

They need to run the party to criticize it?

They DO and have been criticizing the party. That’s, you know, partisan politics.

@anon3894935

To point out the inhumanity and vileness of Trump and his policies?

Which many have.

@anon3894935

The Democrats spent those four years largely treating the Republicans as though they were acting in good faith

Not all of them, no. And the fact that many of those criticism got ignored or dismissed wasn’t entirely their fault.

@anon3894935

but maybe you could elaborate on this part.

With regards to NPR, the GOP has been working hard to get rid of pretty much any and all public funding (which is only a small amount of their funding, but still), making them more reliant on corporate donors. And then there was deregulation around the media (end of the fairness doctrine and allowing for greater consolidation - all GOP goals) that led to less independent media around the country, and major corporate buyouts of local papers, to the detriment of us all. The end of local news has meant that we’re mostly getting fed corporate news which are now often owned by large conglomerates who care about the bottom line, not informing the public. This warps all our understanding of events, local and national, and all of that can be traced straight back to the GOP-backed deregulation… And as corporations had greater sway across the media, they sought to tone down actual journalism and people who were actual journalists could often lose their jobs for doing their jobs…

And just in general, there is a direct line between the Reagan GOP and Trumpism:

Column: How Reaganomics, deregulation and bailouts led to the rise of Trump

What this doesn’t really address is the coded racism being used since the Nixon era, which took on new levels of racist rhetoric under Reagan.

@Brainspore

“how could the Democrats let the Republicans get away with this?”

And again, any time the Democrats pushed back on any of this, from the Reagan era on, they got held to a different standard. Every one just melted the fuck down when Obama dared to talk about racism at all, even in the most gentle way.

@chenille

The political discourse is choked with people who like to blame everything on the left not opposing fascists in precisely the right stern but loving, gentle but firm way. You can find a million editorials wondering what exactly we did to drive so many people into the arms of a racist misogynist xenophobic criminal without admitting for a moment they might be racist, misogynist, or xenophobic.

That has happened even here, quite a lot… And that stuff gets platformed on the media, because of how much pressure the media is under to be “fair” and balanced… the fairness doctrine ending opened up the way for that, and then the rise of cable news cemented it. Now to be able to compete, you got to play ball with that or else, your news room will be gone tomorrow. There was a Adam Conover podcast about that recently, in fact…

Journalism is Collapsing with Matt Pearce - Factually! - 252

They focus less on the deeper history and more on the current situation in the news, but this is the logical outcome of years of right wing attacks, both on the deregulation front and on the ideological front…

[anon3894935]

@anon61221983

when you’re laying the blame solely on one group

I haven’t been solely blaming anyone, but the moment criticism against Democrats comes up, somehow it gets made into an all-or-nothing proposition.

@anon61221983

With regards to NPR

Thank you for going into more detail. While I was aware of much of that, it sounds like it’s even worse than I thought, to the point where there’s essentially nothing left of mainstream journalism that isn’t a corporate mouthpiece.

@chenille

Yes. The political discourse is choked with people who like to blame everything on the left not opposing fascists in precisely the right stern but loving, gentle but firm way.

Fair enough. While I am very much not one of those people (and in fact feel the very Democrats I’m criticizing are of this “oh, if only we weren’t such elite meanies” mindset), they do indeed exist still, so yes, I guess it DOES have to be said.

[anon61221983]

@anon3894935

somehow it gets made into an all-or-nothing proposition.

It’s not, but one group most certainly should get the majority of the focus, and it’s the fascists…

@anon3894935

there’s essentially nothing left of mainstream journalism that isn’t a corporate mouthpiece.

There still are people out there in the mainstream media doing good work, and still putting out good work, it’s just far too often drowned out by the crap.

[Melizmatic]

@anon3894935

the moment criticism against Democrats comes up,

That’s inaccurate, at least here on BB.

Here, the Dems get criticized constantly, mostly rightfully… and on some occasions, even unfairly - that’s politics.

However, doing it to the point of letting the GQP dictate the narrative is not only infuriating to those with more to lose, it’s just counterproductive.

Not saying that you personally do this, mind you; I’m speaking in general.

[anon61221983]

@Melizmatic

letting the GQP dictate the narrative

I’m really getting sick of this happening, that the far right is managed to hijack what the narrative is and who deserves the blame for our problems. And far too many people just seem content to let them do it, generally speaking, in the media, but not just… I do see this here not infrequently, and it’s frustrating, since pretty much the far right just offers up a pack of lies, or half-truths at the very best.

[anon15383236]

I do wish Dems would get more feisty though.

[anon61221983]

Well, some have been, but they tend to not be the ones who get on TV or listened to much…

[DukeTrout]

And when they do, it seems like too little too late. I like that Biden is calling it like it is now, but he and congressional Dems needed to be ruthless when they had control of the House and Senate to shore up voting rights and mitigate GOP foul play.

RIGHT NOW is when they have to go all-in on removing GOP House reps for insurrection. The GOP has a one seat majority. Remove two and the Dems have a nine month window to pass legislation before the next administration.