"America is on the brink, so of course the #media doesn't get it. Last week, the disconnect between rising GOP #fascism - on a debate stage, in #Trump's arrest posturing - and journalists covering 'a normal election' was really jarring
Now what?
The media is really not getting it about 2024, GOP authoritarianism and the election"
If @willbunch wrote it, you should read it.©.. & I thread it. 1/...🧵
4/ "America is entering its most important, pivotal year since 1860 & media doing terrible job explaining what is actually happening. Too many still covering elections like it was 20th cent., as if old touchstones like debates or 30-sec spot still matter.
What we are building toward on 11/5/2024, might have outward trappings of election but it is really show of force. What we call GOP is barely a political party...but a dangerous antisocial movement that has embraced many tenets of fascism"
11/11 🎯 "We need the media to see 2024 not as a traditional election but as an effort to mobilize a mass movement that would undo democracy and splatter America with more blood like what was shed Saturday in Jacksonville. We need to understand that if the next 15 months remain the worst covered election in U.S. history, that it might also be the last."👈
PLEASE read the entire column. I left out a lot.
@GottaLaff
It's like how can almost of the people from a twice impeached, criminally indicted administration have gotten jobs in our media and/or get so much attention from them when it comes time for them to try to sell their books.
Our mainstream media would have offered #Prigozhin a gig to be their Russian commentator I have no doubt if he'd volunteered to call in to them.
@GottaLaff
I do have to thank goodness that we have MSNBC as a counter to #FauxNews but that seems to be the only actually pro-Democratic media organization in contrast to how many our opponents control.
Also, besides acknowledging that, I wanted to post a screenshot of this rightfully angry Democratic state representative from Florida.
She's pleading for America to wake up to the danger we're facing.
@GreenFire @GottaLaff I mean, what's the fun in this interview:
Reporter: Would you kill someone you didn't like?
Progressive: You're joking - that's horrible. No!
@GottaLaff I don't know why I have to keep being the one to say this. The GOP has ceased to be a functioning political party, with political goals and political means of achieving them.
They want to kill us. That's the platform.
@LadyDragonfly You're not the one to say this. MSNBC prime time hosts go there all the time. I do too. So do my followers and many many journalists and legal analysts.
In fact, some former Republicans have too. 2 nights ago, Stuart Stevens did. So have multiple GOP pundits (or former GOP) repeatedly. They're terrified too.
@LadyDragonfly Yeah, sometimes people forget to voice things, they let others do it for them.
You're not alone. Not by a long shot.
@GottaLaff @LadyDragonfly While Bunch about may be right, three themes I wish he'd addressed are:
1. Primary eligible GOP voters are 34 percent of the electorate. If 50-60 percent of the 34 percent are cult-members, so what?
2. Reporters could do a way better job explaining how any of what is "really happening to America" will change communities.
3. Readers/listeners need options and information, i.e. what is ranked choice voting?; how might RCV change our election landscape?; what is the Electoral College, and what's the fastest way to dispense with it?
As long as we have only social media & ad-driven news and information, and Citizen's United written in stone, I have little faith that many editors/publishers will address any of the above.
@Eohippa @GottaLaff @LadyDragonfly
Absofinglutely....
VOTER TURNOUT in a presidential election has not reached 70% since 1900. This is one factor we can control and certainly one we can improve upon, even when voting laws and dirty politics muddle progress.
Person-to-person engagement is key. Volunteer efforts are critical. Funding campaigns is vital.
YOU can make a real difference, even if your bank account and volunteer time are limited. EVERY SINGLE EFFORT IS VALUABLE.
🔷 It’s not too early to #DonateToDems
🔷 It’s not too early to join activist organizations.
🔷It’s not too early to get involved locally to register voters, encourage others to check their registrations, to help young people register.
You know what the stakes are if MAGA-GOP candidates prevail.
You’ve experienced the disaster of a Trump administration.
DONATE TO DEMS. JOIN ACTIVISTS. WORK TO GET OUT THE VOTE.
#TootTheTruth about Biden/Harris Administration’s successes.
Call your county Democratic Party office and offer to do one or more of these things:
- Make phone calls
- Canvass
- Write postcards
- Staff their office
- Assemble yard signs
- Deliver yard signs
- Put signs in your own yard
- Give them money
You'll do good and build your own community.
@GottaLaff The news media is slow to understand that, in a Trump America 2, they will be the first to be sued, raided, and shut down by a hostile DOJ unconcerned with the Constitution.
First they came for the journalists...
"What we call the Republican Party is barely a political party in any sense of the word but a dangerous antisocial movement that has embraced many of the tenets of fascism, from calls for violence to its dehumanizing of “others” — from desperate refugees at the border to transgender youth."
The for-profit media, by and large, isn't ever going to "get" it.
It's the for-profit media and that's always going to be it's primary motivation, profits.
That's very sad.
Back in the day (sorry to sound like an old lady, but that's what I am), news organizations were not profit centers. The networks produced them kind of as a public good. They weren't expected to make money.
Now that's all changed, as you know, and trust in news organizations has declined ever since.
@GottaLaff Good piece, but @willbunch needs to pay attention to syntactic parallel structure.
Should be “Democratic or Republican… flawed democracy or brutal fascism.”
Going anti-parallel here undermines the thesis.
@GottaLaff Ramaswamy utilizes an interesting variation on political theorist Carl Schmitt's Friend/Enemy Distinction. In the NSDAP's application in Third Reich Germany, it was argued that by getting rid of all the Others (Jew, communist, Roma, gay, etc.), society would be made great again as the problems are specifically caused by the existence of those Others. In a sense, purge the barrel of the bad apples and you've got nothing but greatness.
Ramaswamy's variation is even more sinister than that used by the Reich, returning to the core of distinction. By removing distinctions from our political, economic, social and legal systems, we remove the bad apples. People are prohibited from being recognized by race, gender or any other identity dynamic. "I don't see differences" becomes codified into law. Naturally, this legal blindness not only fails to impact society in general but it legalizes all forms of discrimination against Others.
Instead of centralizing fascism into the State to determine the Friend/Enemy Distinction, Ramaswamy's fascism distributes the fascist element into the atomic level of all individuals. We could appropriately regard this as Libertarian Fascism.
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