A majority of Americans say this is the biggest threat to democracy

[Dill]

(10-24-2022, 07:57 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I do, however, tend to see other things as large threats to democracy like wanting to not count every vote from an eligible citizen, or removing eligible citizens from the voting roles, or making it more difficult for eligible citizens to vote. Those are direct attacks against democracy as opposed to the indirect ones mounted from the media. The problem is that the indirect attacks are so outrageous and attention grabbing (and often times covering up or excusing them) these direct attacks are going ignored.

There are people in this country right now that are directly attacking our democratic principles, but most people pay it no mind.

I agree the bolded are SERIOUS threats to democracy. But,

I don't live in DC, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona or Nevada. Everything I know about what is going on there comes from "the media." 

From the MSM I get a more accurate picture of what is actually going on, especially the "direct threats" you say people pay no mind to. From the RWM I get a sense of how people are lied to and misdirected, whipped to fever pitches of grievance and hatred, then directed to anti-democratic solutions.

We have what you call "direct attacks" because the "indirect attacks" have prepared people to support anti-democratic policies and actors. That's why the seriousness of "indirect" should not be underestimated.

For decades they have undermined political judgment to the point that people have difficulty telling truth from falsehood. MSM has been slow responding to this, in part because they don't want to respond in kind, but to present news even handedly. Trump came to power they had interminable debates about whether to say "Trump is lying" rather than just reporting the lie like ordinary news. Then when they decided for the fuller, more accurate reporting, the RWM then had plenty of fodder to claim "liberal bias." "Howcum they didn't call Obama a liar when he said you could keep your doctor?!?!" The MSM often tried to overcompensate, e.g., by keeping Hillary's emails a big story back in 2016.

So when I say the MSM has an ideal of presenting news even handedly and accurately, I'm not claiming they don't include biased editors or never make mistakes. I cannot imagine a perfect news world in any society, even in a diverse social democracy. What I am saying is that now an ever increasing number of people is ready to assume that the whole of MSM is disqualified by a few actors or errors, but are happy to embrace a much more deliberately inaccurate and unbalanced news sources. The environment of media consumers has become so distorted that even remarking on this disparity in accuracy and fair treatment brings the charge of bias and whattabout counters. "Trump claimed the election was stolen and tried to block the legitimate transfer of power to Biden? Well Hillary said she had doubts about the 2016 election after conceding. What about THAT, hunh?? Both sides do it." "You say Fox is biased, but what about the MSM constantly attacking Trump?!?" The quiet part being "attacking Trump for constantly lying and violating the rule of law in spirit and letter like no president in history."  They're like doctors who can no longer perform triage: bleeding femoral artery here, broken finger over there? How to decide which is the greater threat without bias? 

 It is often presumed/claimed there is a "far left" as extreme, numerous and politically empowered as the far right, mirror images, and both sides are working equally to divide the country at the expense of a reasonable and moderate middle. Saying "both sides do it" appears to many as a way of NOT being biased and retaining appearance of independence, but in the current political environment that requires unbalanced judgment regarding both the level of threat and its source. 

So we have direct threats to democracy because 1) large numbers of people can no longer accurately discern direct threats or where they come from, and 2) in consequence a growing number are embracing anti-democratic politics, ever more openly. Quite possibly they have always existed in large numbers, but didn't have visibility a voice and legitimacy--at least since  the 50s.

This paralysis is not all the MSM's fault. I think our education institutions, especially at the secondary level, could do a better job of preparing students for a world in which corporations (e.g., big tobacco and oil) spend millions to create alternative authorities and facts to paralyze judgment and selectively discredit science. They could also do a better job of foregrounding historical precedents and the conditions under which previous democracies collapsed into totalitarianism as right wing pluralities discredited the free press and delegitimized liberal democracy to protect everyone from "the left." Then we might have a greater mass of voters who wouldn't "pay it no mind" when authoritarian politics arises in their very midst. But there is considerable resistance to that. The energy is behind exposing the climate change "hoax," and creating laws to ban Sharia, CRT and a woman's right to choose.