[Missouri State TPUSA President] Rutherford also noted that college campuses are a place where controversial ideas should be heard.
“Many students on this campus made it clear that her ideas were dangerous and unwelcome here in this pivotal moment in our country — where wrong is right and two plus two is five. When you are threatened with violence for daring to think differently, Ann Coulter is a necessary voice to bring to the table.”
Who’s making fascism and democracy “equal”? The media?
I don’t disagree that it’s taken broadcast and print media to finally start calling a spade a spade when it comes to right wing politics in the US - and that they’re still not going far enough. Trump himself is being correctly labeled as fascist, authoritarian, dictatorial; the people who fully support him are still managing to avoid those labels.
But I don’t think that’s the primary issue. I don’t think that “the media” is the problem. Trump and his ilk have done and said fascist, authoritarian, and dictatorial things for a long time, and there are enough people who like that and want that. Chris Christie and Liz Cheney, for example, are very outspoken about the danger Trump poses, but they still carry water for the party that is on track to nominate him for the presidency.
There are plenty of people in that same situation. That’s the problem. The solution is for them to find their conscience and abandon the Republican party. Maybe that will happen once the primaries get underway. Maybe they’re waiting to see if someone can unseat Trump’s presumptive nomination. If someone does unseat Trump in the primaries, you’re still left with a party that’s given him an incredible amount of support. You’re still embracing that support, and you’re still going to be beholden to those supporters - who have shown that they will vote you out if you don’t toe their fascist line.
We can have vigorous differences on policy. We cannot have differences on the core principles of democracy, on the very structure of our government. We must agree on process. The Republican party has shown that at its core, it does not agree with the core principles of democracy, and if you don’t abandon it, you are complicit.
I agree with your broader point that there’s a deeper issue with American voters who want fascism, but the normalization of far-right politics with ‘both sides’ horse-race bullshit has fed that problem, and very often there still is pushback to Trump and his ilk being described with the correct terms in the media. Only a few (relatively) left-leaning outlets note it with any regularity.
I know I kind of went off on a rant there, it wasn’t pointed at you. I follow ABC, CNN, NBC, MSNBC pretty regularly, and all of those are now (over the last few weeks) consistently reporting the real danger in real terms (MSNBC leads by a country mile, of course).
Really? I haven’t followed CNN closely in years, but they were always pretty wishy-washy, and what articles I’ve seen from them recently have been very… ‘both sides’.
Ah, I’m watching clips from broadcasts on YouTube. Maybe broadcast and print are handling things differently?
I’ll note that ABC has been on point with a lot of scoops. They’ve got to have a contact inside somewhere in relation to the many notable civil and criminal trials going on.
I had checked out on CNN for a while, too, since they shifted pretty center-right, but figured I should keep up with them in order to stay aware of what that perspective is. I’ll catch a Fox News bit here and there, but I’m not putting them in my feed. If you have any other suggestions, I welcome them.
Who’s making fascism and democracy “equal”? The media?
I don’t disagree that it’s taken broadcast and print media to finally start calling a spade a spade when it comes to right wing politics in the US - and that they’re still not going far enough. Trump himself is being correctly labeled as fascist, authoritarian, dictatorial; the people who fully support him are still managing to avoid those labels.
But I don’t think that’s the primary issue. I don’t think that “the media” is the problem. Trump and his ilk have done and said fascist, authoritarian, and dictatorial things for a long time, and there are enough people who like that and want that. Chris Christie and Liz Cheney, for example, are very outspoken about the danger Trump poses, but they still carry water for the party that is on track to nominate him for the presidency.
There are plenty of people in that same situation. That’s the problem. The solution is for them to find their conscience and abandon the Republican party. Maybe that will happen once the primaries get underway. Maybe they’re waiting to see if someone can unseat Trump’s presumptive nomination. If someone does unseat Trump in the primaries, you’re still left with a party that’s given him an incredible amount of support. You’re still embracing that support, and you’re still going to be beholden to those supporters - who have shown that they will vote you out if you don’t toe their fascist line.
We can have vigorous differences on policy. We cannot have differences on the core principles of democracy, on the very structure of our government. We must agree on process. The Republican party has shown that at its core, it does not agree with the core principles of democracy, and if you don’t abandon it, you are complicit.
I agree with your broader point that there’s a deeper issue with American voters who want fascism, but the normalization of far-right politics with ‘both sides’ horse-race bullshit has fed that problem, and very often there still is pushback to Trump and his ilk being described with the correct terms in the media. Only a few (relatively) left-leaning outlets note it with any regularity.
I know I kind of went off on a rant there, it wasn’t pointed at you. I follow ABC, CNN, NBC, MSNBC pretty regularly, and all of those are now (over the last few weeks) consistently reporting the real danger in real terms (MSNBC leads by a country mile, of course).
Really? I haven’t followed CNN closely in years, but they were always pretty wishy-washy, and what articles I’ve seen from them recently have been very… ‘both sides’.
Ah, I’m watching clips from broadcasts on YouTube. Maybe broadcast and print are handling things differently?
I’ll note that ABC has been on point with a lot of scoops. They’ve got to have a contact inside somewhere in relation to the many notable civil and criminal trials going on.
I had checked out on CNN for a while, too, since they shifted pretty center-right, but figured I should keep up with them in order to stay aware of what that perspective is. I’ll catch a Fox News bit here and there, but I’m not putting them in my feed. If you have any other suggestions, I welcome them.