Something is wrong with this split-screen picture. On one side, former president Donald Trump rants about mass deportations and claims to have stopped “wars with France,” after being described by his longest-serving White House chief of staff as a literal fascist. On the other side, commentators debate whether Vice President Kamala Harris performed well enough at a CNN town hall to “close the deal.”
…
Let’s review: First, Harris was criticized for not doing enough interviews — so she did multiple interviews, including with nontraditional media. She was criticized for not doing hostile interviews — so she went toe to toe with Bret Baier of Fox News. She was criticized as being comfortable only at scripted rallies — so she did unscripted events, such as the town hall on Wednesday. Along the way, she wiped the floor with Trump during their one televised debate.
Trump, meanwhile, stands before his MAGA crowds and spews nonstop lies, ominous threats, impossible promises and utter gibberish. His rhetoric is dismissed, or looked past, without first being interrogated.
Can any of you honestly say you have chosen which of the two is better based on how they speak? I think most are voting based on what they expect them to do.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/24/harris-trump-cnn-town-hall/
For the first time in decades, The Washington Post will not endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential election, the newspaper’s publisher announced Friday, a decision that sparked widespread outrage among the paper’s staffers.
“The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election,” Post publisher Will Lewis said in a statement. “We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”
The Post reported the decision not to endorse was made by the newspaper’s billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, citing two sources briefed on the matter.
– CNN
Media Bias Fact Check is a right-wing propaganda tool to repeat the laughable lie that the media has a left-wing bias.
First rule of resisting tyranny:
Don’t obey in advance!!
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Bingo bingo and bingo.
She pivoted away from the base to a non existent center. These have been the core ideological principles of the democratic base for decades. And she doesn’t support them.
One side must bring peace to the middle east, the other side is allowed to tell Israel to kill Palestinians faster.
And before someone comes defending their stance not to vote for either genocidal enabler, why aren’t you trying to save as many people as possible? Are you ok with more people dying because of your ideals? Enjoy living with that choice if he wins.
It’s not only about Palestine. Americans should now focus on the things they can actually change. Harris is the best candidate overall, because, well, her adversary is Donald F. Trump, but when it comes to Israel and Palestine both candidates are abysmal.
Harris should have ran for the side telling Israel to kill Palestinians faster then. She is wording her support for it more eloquently than Trump.
Cool so you’re okay with more genociding.
Just making sure 🤷
No u
I’m not even American but this voter-shaming is both frustrating to read and fucking stupid. Nobody—and I repeat, nobody—is going to vote because they were blamed by a random guy on the internet who refuses to acknowledge their very real concern that voting for Harris would be voting for genocide.
Opposition to genocide isn’t an option on the ballot, you can’t vote for it, especially not for president. And not voting sends a very clear message whether you intend it or not: “I don’t care”.
Do you value minimizing harm? If you care most about genocide, Harris seems to be the least-worst option. But if you care more about ideological purity than harm reduction, you can vote for a non-serious candidate like Stein, or none at all. Nobody will ever solve this kind of problem at the ballot box, that isn’t how democracies work, but if letting things happen instead of exerting what little power you have eases your conscience, that’s your right. Doing so does mean a greater risk of a Trump presidency, especially if you live in a swing state.
I would rather minimize harm, so I’m voting for Harris, and encourage others to do the same.
And given that American voters exist in a 2 party system, nobody should be under the illusion that they have any other choice. Don’t encourage people to delude themselves into thinking there is a better alternative. They’re right, you’re right, what’s the best option?
That’s y’all’s problem to figure out, but bullying people into voting simply doesn’t work. Don’t respond to a statement of facts with “should”.
I’m not trying to bully people into voting, just making sure that this dangerously short sighted bullshit doesn’t go unchallenged. Thank you for proving my point.
You talk a lot for someone with nothing at all to say.
They are not high info influencers they’re low-brow bullies with almost no understanding of the way the world works. Since they don’t have a leg to stand on morally, all they can use is accusations that others are as ignorant as they. So it’s not like they gonna stop, runnin their gums is all they got
And not voting for Harris gets you three genocides. Gaza, Ukraine, and the LGBTQ community at home. So, yeah, anyone that “can’t vote for genocide” is a moron or a shill.
OK thought exercise for you: If the LGBTQ folks cant be bothered to care about the murder of gazans, why should I be bothered to care about LGBTQ folks? I’m not LGBTQ myself. How about Ukrainians, or disabled people? I’m not one of those either.
If you are OK turning your back on them, then your turn, as LGBTQ, or black, or muslim or disabled, or mormon or vegan or…whatever is just a matter of time. So you can stand up for basic human rights or you can stand alone when it comes to your rights. Take your pick.
Again, if this shit worked Trump wouldn’t have won in 2016.
Cool. If people weren’t acting like morons I wouldn’t be calling them morons and if I was part of the Harris campaign instead of some asshole on the Internet I might try to be more diplomatic about it. But I’m not going to coddle a bunch of people who are too stupid to understand the implications of a two party system.
snicker someone doesn’t know how voting works clearly when living in a blue/red state.
also can someone find me a rabies shot? this one is foaming at the mouth.
just leave it alone and stay away from it. It will die soon enough on its own.
because most major media supports trump.
Fucking propaganda machines.
Weird 34 is their headline-grabbing fat cash cow.
“Moo for us! Cha ching! Yeah!”
…but the magabrained keep telling us that the corporate media is all liberal! Their proof? Supposed polls of the help at those MNCs. I’d like to know in what universe the help determine the direction of a MNC.
The truth is not better but there’s some nuance. Major media do not usually care about being for or against fascism. They care about clicks, and following “journalistic ethics” that boil down to Enlightened Centrism™ and bothsidesism.
Their billionaire owners don’t even have to interfere (most of the time). The system self-selects to make money through a shared set of beliefs in what constitutes “proper journalism”. This makes journalists, as a profession, ontologically incapable of fighting against fascists. They truly, honestly, firmly believe that “Fascist about to win US Presidency” is not a statement of fact.
It’s the same ideological pitfalls that makes Serious Media pit science against whichever anti-science fad is trendy right now. Vaccines, “climatic skepticism”, etc. anything goes and the journalists in charge truly genuinely from their heart believe that is a fair and balanced approach.
Not to say there aren’t actual conspiracies from time to time of course, but even actual independent traditional journalism has generally failed to accurately report on the rise of fascism.
No, they definitely care for Trump to be elected. Major media is owned by oligarchs. Oligarchs support fascism. Plan and simple
Like most conspiracy theories, there is a huge grain of truth there. Bush should have done 9/11 because it benefitted him in literally every way. Yet he did not.
Today’s WaPo scandal illustrates the more real situation quite well: usually the billionaires take a mostly hands-off approach to owning a paper. They don’t need to meddle. The journalists are ontologically incapable of being truly disruptive regardless of if the paper is owned by Bezos or funded by an independent government committee. That Bezos presumably felt the need to prevent the WaPo from endorsing Harris was unusual and a big enough deal for the journalists to raise a big stink. And as someone who lives in a country that has a strong tradition of independent and state-funded journalism (that doesn’t shy away from criticizing the government)… I can tell you it’s not very different from the rest. Certainly not as left-wing as it gets, and just as vulnerable to the fallacies I described.
That is not to say there is no outright corruption of big prestigious papers, or that oligarchs owning the press isn’t a massive, glaring threat to Democracy. But beware of oversimplifying such issues. For one because you might regret making such sweeping statements when the billionaires actually decide to wield their power, Murdoch style. And for two because you might be disappointed to find that prestigious independently owned papers aren’t so much better. Don’t expect them to start printing Marxist pamphlets any time soon if that’s what you are into.
No, we are not talking about Marxist. In fact I said fascists which you keep stesteering away from. Who pays you toispread propaganda?
Major immediate supports the GOP. This is hardly new or unique to Trump. It’s been like this for decades.
What’s new is how far down they’re willing to go to continue to do that.
“New” as in - in the last decade. Not like, new new.
With someone so stupid and weird and gross as donnie, it’s become nearly impossible to hide the corporate game.
You mean the ones whos mega-rich owners are being promised massive tax cuts by trump? Those very same ones?
I’m shocked to my core. I’m glad I was sitting down when I read your comment.
A lot of them aren’t just in it for the tax cuts but because they like the ideology.
What if they disguised their sociopathic greed as ideology?
You forgot the racism.
Imo, when it comes down to it, a lot of them won’t give a care what colour their wage slaves are, in much the same way that most of them aren’t really Christian or are secretly gay etc.
Imagine having to come out as a non-rascist to your conservative parents
Fuck that
They make feinting chairs for a reason, after all 🤔
Fainting is passing out. Feinting is bluffing.
I suppose that poker chairs would be Feinting chairs.
Lol my bad 🙃
Or mimics
Those too.
But but but there’s no direct physical evidence of these major media owners handing giant round bags of cash with big dollar signs on them to trump personally while they twirl their moustaches!!!
Don’t you see - we can’t know if they support him or not!
/s obvs christ some people on here are russian trolls or steadfastly refuse to understand a goddamned thing
And the few sources that may not be owned by Trump-backing Nazis still have to have their horse race. They want to make it seem close to get clicks and sell ads.
Trump is the best thing to happen for News Media since 9/11.
And they would do anything to have another 4 years of people obsessively watching/viewing/clicking all day every day to see what insane thing hes done to the country next.
What else should the media do about it? It’s not like Trump can be shamed into changing his behavior. It’s not like Republicans won’t completely dismiss anything he says. Even if they did wall to wall coverage about how he’s a fascist, the third of the country that elects the president won’t change their minds.
What else should the media do about it?
All they need to do is fact-check his bullshit like we saw in the debate. A simple “reporters here at XYZ network could not substantiate the claims made by the ex-president, and found no evidence supporting them” would do nicely.
That assumes he even cares about stating facts, or that his campaign won’t spin it as “the media is mean to me” and it might make him do better.
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Oh then what if we had more than two parties ?
Oh, they all get called traitors.
First you have to fix the electoral college and FPTP voting. Because until those are removed, you’re always going to end up with effectively a two party system. And if one of those parties is pledging to replace the system with fascism, well, then you’ve only got one democratic option to vote for, no matter their platform.
Once you can rank your options? THEN multiple candidates makes sense.
What a lazy take.
“Lazy” is too generous
One side expects their candidates to hold some standards, the other side doesn’t care. It’s like watching a sporting event with a homer who only sees the world based on how it effects their team winning or losing. Fairness doesn’t come into play, the other side is always cheating and getting favored media exposure.
She lacks momentum and a charisma that gets people to follow you. So random critics can shout from the bleachers and say how they think she’s doing it wrong. So they tell her to jump and she jumps. They tell her to move this way and she does. It’s always wrong. Because they don’t know what she needs to do either.
They know yelling at Trump is useless. They don’t have any power over him. He’ll do what he wants and says what he wants and we can try to call him out and he doesn’t care and his followers don’t either. In all his ignorance, he has confidence. Arguably because of his ignorance.
In all her intelligence, she’s not sure what to do. But neither do the spectators. I’m not sure what she needs to do, but it probably has to come from somewhere inside herself and proclaim it without apology.
There’s a lot of smart people in that room. I’m not sure there’s much wisdom.
I had a thought about this; fascism exists because there are evil but effective ways of swaying people. By scapegoating immigrants and providing propaganda, he’s doing exactly what other fascists have done (including Hitler) to great success.
It’s like any other good vs evil things, the good guys always have extra hurdles to deal with, like a super hero who has to save civilians and can’t just sucker punch the baddies. Too bad this is reality, and the good guys aren’t guaranteed to win…
it also shows how complicit media is in fascism and how any law that would enforce factual reporting by bringing conduct before a jury to decide whether intentional lying occurred by a celebrity or media platform would undermine fascistic lies.
Except half the jury would be comprised of people who either support those lies, even knowing they’re lies, or don’t care enough to form an opinion.
You would need a population that is both concerned with the rule of law and break from political teams enough to fairly examine arguments for bad faith.
We do not have that population. Any jury would be split or worse.
Realistic rebuttal: juries seem to have very easy times convicting trump in court cases.
Theoretical/contextual rebuttal: I would also note that juries are how we convict criminals in this country. If you’re saying the lesser task of just making a determination that somebody is knowingly lying is beyond the purview of a jury then our entire court of law where the juries determine far more than that should be called into question.
Yes, that’s the advantage of leading a cult.
I’m seeing ads on TV that are like “Harris is for they/them, Trump is for you”
I’d like to see an ad that says “Harris is for freedom, Trump is for Hitler”
To me it seems like less of a double standard and more of a representation of the divide between Americans.
Trump gets plenty of criticism from all around. Including from the same people that are also criticizing Harris. But his voter base is in full support of the stuff he’s spewing, and will believe anything he says wholesale. Even if it’s crazy, or unsubstantiated, or demonstrable lies.
The people who make legitimate criticisms of Harris are not supportive of trump. But them criticizing Trump will not change Trump. He already has unwavering support from a large number of people. Why would he do anything to gain the support of someone who is willing to call him out on his bullshit and hold him to an actual standard? And it’s not going to change the minds of any of his cult-like voters. However they do have hope that by criticizing Harris they might see her actually make changes towards becoming a candidate they wholesale fully support. Not a candidate that they are forced to choose because of the alternative. But a candidate that they actively want to be elected. These criticisms might also be persuasive to other Harris supporters and call them to be vocal and advocate for her to change as well.
So it’s less of individuals having double standards and treating the candidates differently, but the two polar opposite standards that the voter bases have.
Someone who gets it. The reason he gets so much play time in the media is because clicks. You are contributing to the problem. Not being part of the solution. Ignoring a problem in the public is how you stop them. The reason they keep doing it is because it works.
the media often bandwagons along these things so end up with bizarre and insane juxtapositions of like Kamala Harris’ actual proposed housing policies being being compared with like speculation on how mass deportations and military invasions of cities will affect housing prices or something.
Problem with that is, she’s getting the pull from both sides, the far left and the disTrumpled right. She can’t do enough of what either wants without losing the other, and she needs both to pull off a strong enough win to save democracy. So she’s walking a tightthread while dodging spitballs.
Meanwhile Trump is splashing about in his pigsty, slinging mud and shit, which his people gleefully eat and smear all over.
I can only speak for myself, as a Leftist I dont expect perfection but I have a few quite simple things that I would want from a presidency that I dont think are unreasonable. I want an end to the funding of genocide, an end to US imperalism, an end to the military (at least offensive military), an end to fossil fuels, an improved immigration system, decreased taxes for the workers, less inflation, ranked choice voting, enforced civil rights for women and trans people, a better healthcare system, no corporate bailouts or funding. Kamala might support some or none of those things and I wouldn’t know because she doesn’t make her policy positions clear. I think that if she was just transparent and honest then more people would vote for her, as of now her campaign website contains only a few very vague positions.
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Some of them may require a tad bit of effort (which yes I get expecting a Democrat to do their job is like asking for a million dollars) but she could at least not fund genocides. I think that’s a good bare minimum
We’re fucked and will probably all starve to death. At least vote for Kamala so we don’t devolve into fascism this fast.
the 60% of Americans that are paycheck to paycheck will starve to death, and the 39% who have savings will get poorer. The top 1% will get richer either way and none of this matters to them. Its just a matter of how fast their wealth increases.
They probably would be fine if half of us starved, as long as we dont block the higjways with our bodies, and dont stink up the place.
I voted for Kamala in early voting, it was the most painful thing I have done so far
