This Is How Democracies Die

[hollodero]

(01-25-2018, 07:22 PM)PhilHos Wrote: Are you young? I only ask, because I've not seen any differenc ein the support Trump gets from other politicians than any of the other presidents before him got (since I've paid attention to politics anyway - about the middle of Clinton's 2nd term).

Maybe there isn't any difference, but none of the other presidents have sent their supporters through such extraordinary lengths. Trump is distinctly different (or "worse", like I would put it).

(01-25-2018, 07:22 PM)PhilHos Wrote: You never heard of Bill or Hillary Clinton? 

When Bill was president, he walked the line for sure. But he "only" had the women stuff against him, not the authoritarian sayings, not the relentless attacks and so on. I don't want to defend that either, but this is not about the Clintons right now.
Also, I'm not young.

(01-25-2018, 07:22 PM)PhilHos Wrote: And the "other side do it more" argument is a HUGE problem. The fact that BOTH sides do it and to a significant degree is a problem. Just because one side is like 10 or 20% more corrupt doesn't make it better for the other side if both sides are hugely (or bigly ) corrupt.

Oh, I feel it does. 20% less still go a long way, the lesser evil is less evil after all. That being said, I don't argue on behalf of the Democratic party and have no particular sympathies for them.
In the end, the real problem to me is that there are only two sides to begin with.

(01-25-2018, 07:22 PM)PhilHos Wrote: All I'm going to say is that while it's true that Trump shouldn't call all news 'Fake', the fact remains that there are a LOT of 'fake news' stories from supposedly reputable news organizations. If news agencies would go back to making sure their sources were vetted, that their claims were based on merit, stopped rushing to be the 'first', and basically went back to being highly ethical, Trump would have no basis to call ANY news fake. Not that that would stop him, I'm sure, but it'd certainly take away from whatever credibility he might have left.

US media looks sensationalistic, sure, and make quite some mistakes. i'm perfectly fine with calling them out, promoting counter-narratives and that. But Trump doesn't just call them fake, he also calls them the most dishonest people and enemy of the American people and threatens with new libel laws and such. He suggested this morning Joe killed a woman. There's more to that than just the constant "fake news" narrative (which is troubling as it is).
And the discrediting of the (unfriendly) media is just one aspect here.