Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Now, think of how destructive 70 years of a non-stop barrage by the Leftist media monopoly must have been. Think of all the crazy things the leftist media could (and did) get people to believe with such a prolonged campaign of disinformation.
And if such a thing actually happened - which it didn't - you might have a point.
Come on. Nobody is buying it, aside from Trumpers, and they are all behaving like brainwashed cultists at this point. I'm sorry that the facts don't agree with the crazy right-wing agenda, but that doesn't mean there's some vast "left wing media conspiracy."
The reality is that most members of Cult 45 who are licking Trump's boots and praising him for nonsense would not have given him the time of day a few years ago. Then - before he became the sainted Republican candidate - he was considered nothing but a pathetic, greedy oaf. A caricature of excess, a spoiled rich kid, a sleazebag who couldn't be trusted, and a slobbering blowhard. He was entertainment, and nothing more. But once he was able to put an (R) after his name, we're to believe he's a saint? Hahaha - no. Trump the man has not changed, but now all the crazy righties pretend the facts - facts they used to believe before Trump became a Republican - are now "stuff made up by duh liberal media."
Hypocrites. If any Trump lover were honest, he knows full well he wouldn't have trusted Trump the Real Estate Mogal with his retirement fund, his house for a weekend, or his wife or daughter for a night. But, like partisan tools, now they expect us to trust Trump the President with the nation. Hypocrites!
Everybody just believes what they want to believe these days. People live in distinct and separate realities. A lot of people don’t even know how to hear opposing views anymore without hating the other person. And all sides complain about everyone else being this way without recognizing when they themselves do the same thing.
Even people who think they are moderate half the time are just as delusional, they are just calmer about it.
I don’t know how we as a country can pull ourselves out of the spiral of anger and distrust.
Elect politicians that are more moderate, and truly interested in working with other people.
The problem is you can't just elect one person like this, though. You can't have a president like that, and then have a Congress full of extreme partisans. You need more moderates across the board.
One idea I've long hoped would come true is the creation of a legitimate third (ideally third and fourth) party to challenge our broken two-party system we currently have.
This would go a long way from removing the tribal mindsets that have entrenched in certain sects of the political system in the US. If you give people more than one option, things become less "me vs. you"...all of a sudden, it's a lot more complicated. And you really have to start thinking about the issues more deeply, instead of knee-jerking into one side vs another.
Obviously, I'm a bit idealistic here - but I think it's possible.
Trump's crazed attacks on the press have wreaked such havoc that now 46% of Americans believe reporters simply make up things about Trump.
In early 2016, 74% of Democrats and 77% of Republicans supported the press's role as a watchdog.
Now it's 89% of Dems and only 42% of Reps. In other words, in the space of two years, Trump has managed to convince Republicans to abandon their basic ideas. (It reminds me of the way in various authoritarian regimes, citizens were convinced to turn in their own relatives and neighbors to the police.)
We are dealing with cultists at this point on the far right. It is amazing to watch a bunch of toadies lick Trump boots when, a few years ago, they wouldn't have trusted him with their retirement fund, house for a weekend, or wife or daughter for one night. They've simply lost their minds because Trump represents some sick ideal - both for the nation and for how they wish they could live - that they simply cannot stand the facts about him.
Just to give an example of the insane mindset with which we are dealing, one of my "legacy friends" is a right-winger. Like most of them, he lost his mind when Obama was in office and now believes nearly every stupid conspiracy or right-wing drivel he can find on the internet. That's bad enough, but he's also guilty of REWRITING his own life history to suit his partisan beliefs vs. the facts.
He worked for a retail company in a dying industry that collapsed during the Great Recession and the end of the Housing Bubble. The company filed for bankruptcy in early 2009, and it was no surprise. The company was badly mismanaged and focused on dying technology to make their money, all of which was stated by my friend and verified by other sources. In short, it's a wonder they lived as long as they did.
Fast-forward a few years, and now the same person claims "Obamacare cost me my job and ruined my company." No, it didn't. The ACA didn't come into play until 2010 - his company was at death's door in 2008 and filed for bankruptcy in early 2009. While most locations didn't technically close until some years later, the reality is that the company died in 2008 - which my friend understood at the time. But, being a partisan right-winger, he has rewritten his own life story to suit his version of the facts, despite his "facts" being nothing but partisan nonsense.
THAT is the mindset which we are up against. Straight out, fact-warping, cultist level lunacy.
Elect politicians that are more moderate, and truly interested in working with other people.
The problem is you can't just elect one person like this, though. You can't have a president like that, and then have a Congress full of extreme partisans. You need more moderates across the board.
One idea I've long hoped would come true is the creation of a legitimate third (ideally third and fourth) party to challenge our broken two-party system we currently have.
This would go a long way from removing the tribal mindsets that have entrenched in certain sects of the political system in the US. If you give people more than one option, things become less "me vs. you"...all of a sudden, it's a lot more complicated. And you really have to start thinking about the issues more deeply, instead of knee-jerking into one side vs another.
Obviously, I'm a bit idealistic here - but I think it's possible.
Maybe a three or four party system can help in some ways, but I do worry what happens when the president can be elected with say 35% of the vote. That could lead to bad things pretty quickly IMO. That’s my only hesitation.
A return to moderate politicians being the norm has been my dream for a while now. Im in full agreement with you there.
|
|
Calling the Irag invasion a "leftist project" is some weird and nonsensical revisionist history.
No, it's historical literacy. The architects of the war were intellectual (and in some cases) physical descendants of Trotskyists (proponents of exporting revolution worldwide), while their useful idiots (Bush foremost among them) were the modern-day equivalents of Woodrow Wilson (proponents of foreign intervention to make the world safe for democracy). One of the architects of the war, Michael Ledeen, said the following:
Quote:
Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence—our existence, not our politics—threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission.
Maybe a three or four party system can help in some ways, but I do worry what happens when the president can be elected with say 35% of the vote. That could lead to bad things pretty quickly IMO. That’s my only hesitation.
A return to moderate politicians being the norm has been my dream for a while now. Im in full agreement with you there.
You could have a series of elections, like what is done in other countries, if you don't reach a majority.
The real question-has the mainstream media learned anything during this process? They have been caught in many, many lies in the last few years. The bias against Trump, and any conservative option, has been documented for years, if not decades. The focus on trivia (how many hours of new time has been about Trump's diet?) and the use of "unnamed sources", as well as the refusal to report on any form of Democratic wrongdoing or investigate any left-wing stories by much of the MSM (and the inverse by Fox) has cost them any form of credibility. Moderate, intelligent people have realized they have been lied to by the MSM. Worse, MSM personalities have admitted that there goal isn't to report, it's to manipulate public opinion.
Maybe I noticed it less when I was younger-might have just been more naive. But it didn't seem like things were this biased in the 70s and 80s. The media at least tried to pass themselves off as somewhat neutral and made some effort to focus on facts. Or perhaps the people involved at that time were doing the same things, but were more professional in their manipulations and made it less obvious. Watching historical programs, it is obvious that they lied and manipulated the public extensively during the Vietnam war.
Hopefully polls like the one in the OP will be a wakeup call to the media. Perhaps they will recognize that there is a large portion of the population that is moderate, that wants to hear news and reports-not manipulation and bias. It would be nice to see some responsible sources, especially in the broadcast media. If not-I suspect we will see more network news programs going the way so many of the most biased print media is/has.
It would take a long time to break down each falsehood of this post, but the overall point is that this is all largely untrue and not supported by empirical data. This sort of nonsense is what I like to call the Sarah Palin effect. You say something and no matter how untrue it then becomes someone's fact. Sarah Palin didn't start it, that was more the Murdoch media machine. But I think Palin was most effective in bringing it to the masses and she was the first to really start hammering the media and falsely accusing it of bias when reports and stories didn't come out in support of her personal worldview.
Maybe a three or four party system can help in some ways, but I do worry what happens when the president can be elected with say 35% of the vote. That could lead to bad things pretty quickly IMO. That’s my only hesitation.
A return to moderate politicians being the norm has been my dream for a while now. Im in full agreement with you there.
A parliamentary system would probably be more appropriate in this case. We'd need a constitutional convention.
And this is why so many of us in the middle are increasingly viewing the right as the saner of the two. That, and being told on a regular basis that anyone who does not share the liberal view is a racist inbred.
That was true from about 2010-- 2016. In the past year that has taken a dramatic shift the other way mostly due to how unhinged Trump is from reality as are most of his vocal supporters. I know that's definitely the case for me and many of my peers.
I've always been registered as independent/unaffiliated and don't see that ever changing.
The first national election in which I was able to vote was 2008. Voted for Obama and mostly D's (if I recall correctly; a few local R's had familiar names so I voted for them), I was a young naive sophomore at a university that has a very liberal reputation and the great recession was pretty hard to not associate with GWB and the R's.
Skipped 2010 midterms. Shame on me.
2012; voted Romney, Republican Governor for my state (HUGE HUGE mistake; most regrettable bubble I've ever filled in; was very happy to be part of the correction of that mistake in 2016) and a relatively even mix for the rest (no major players in this election; no senate elections in my state at the time; voted to keep incumbent Democratic member of congress). Didn't get the Obama hate; but also didn't get the Messiah vibe from him anymore and found that annoying (if only I could have seen what the future with those red MAGA hats would look like; puts its all in perspective).
May 2016- Got a Republican ticket at the primary. Voted for Rubio. Wasn't a fan of Hilary or Bernie but also didn't view either of them as a big danger. Trump was dangerous; Rubio would have been a great president IMO.
Nov 2016. Republicans chose Trump....voted straight- ticket for the first time without batting an eye.... all Democrats. This was also to rid my state of a buffoon of a R Governor who came in with a Trojan Horse moderate platform and then took the state far-right.
Democrats seem to be making pretty big grounds in local and special elections in the past year. Will be interesting to see how things play out in 2018. I suspect the pendulum to swing back to the left with most moderates.
No, it's historical literacy. The architects of the war were intellectual (and in some cases) physical descendants of Trotskyists (proponents of exporting revolution worldwide), while their useful idiots (Bush foremost among them) were the modern-day equivalents of Woodrow Wilson (proponents of foreign intervention to make the world safe for democracy). One of the architects of the war, Michael Ledeen, said the following:
Could anything be less conservative than that?
By this absurd definition of "leftist", essentially every conflict ever entered by the US would be a 'leftist project", including conflicts like world war 2.
Is this your logic path?
Gotta give you credit, this is certainly a creative argument. Bush and Cheney... The Left-wing heros we never knew that we had..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
