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.
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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.
This misses the point completely, claiming they believe their own reality is ignoring just how deliberately dysfunctional all our reality is, and has been for centuries. Them being manipulated in to blaming minorities for it is the exact same distraction as liberals being manipulated in to blaming republican voters for it (Do they suck? Yes. Do they help uphold the system? Absolutely. Are they responsible for it? No, they are crabs in a bucket, just like the rest of us, they’re just happy to step on more people). To be clear - I am not comparing minorities to republican voters, I’m comparing the level and effectiveness of these distractions from those who are actually responsible for the shit we’re in, and who will do anything and everything to make sure we don’t turn on them, but only ever on each other - the people they’ve made sure are constantly stressed trying to survive, who are poorly educated (and this isn’t about the quality of the school or the years spent in it, it’s about the whitewashed version of history and lack of critical thinking skills we’re all taught among other things), exposed to constant propaganda and systemic division. The fact that so many people fall for the hateful bigotry this promotes against their own best interests just goes to show how well the system works for those it actually serves.
And that isn’t even Trump, he isn’t even in the same league as those actually pulling the strings, and who will stop at nothing to safeguard their power and money (including letting a destructive mask-off clown run amuck for a few years, you now, as a treat, and to manufacture consent for the much worse shit that’s yet to come).
If you really want to stop fascism you have to understand what it is (capitalism in decay) and that the both sides they let you choose from serve the same master and only ever represent their side. The actual sides in “both sides” are working class vs owning class, oppressed vs oppressors, the system vs those it exploits to exist.
Don’t play along with their game, free yourself from the binary they’ve made you believe is free choice, and fight the system, the sham they call “democracy” included.
You’re the person the article is written about. The headline is about you. Even in this thread, you make the time to espouse this essay of yours. Do you seriously not see what you’re doing? This isn’t the time for this conversation. The grown ups are trying to keep the ship afloat and sail another day, hopefully with the wherewithal to course correct. Stop espousing both sides are the same. On a thread about an article about how dangerous that is. The cognitive fucking dissonance man…
I know. It fucking sucks. Nazi fascism sucks worse. We’re no longer on an up and right progressive trajectory. I have two grandfathers that fought Nazis to prevent this. It sucks.
I agree with everything you’re saying but I doubt you’ll find the discussion you seek here on Lemmy.
Thanks, it’s more about just having to say it, than wanting to debate it with anyone - those who would debate it have already made their minds up, it’s more for the undecided lurkers who come across it and it might make sense to…
I go back and forth on this. When I was younger the Palme Dutt essay you cited would have sounded like nonsense to me. Now I see his work as a brilliant analysis of the conditions that give rise to fascism. Going back and tracing the circumstances that led to my change in perspective is not easy. What was the relative impact of comments like yours or my life circumstances that led to a change in my perspective? I can’t say I know for sure.
