The American Two Party system

[Dill]

(03-10-2023, 07:48 PM)hollodero Wrote: Dill Wrote:[url=http://thebengalsboard.com/Thread-The-American-Two-Party-system?pid=1337976#pid1337976][/url]So I am just mystified as to where the urge comes from to say things like "Well, the Dem side has its biased voters and politicians too"
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I say things like that because imho they are true. I am equally mystified with you having such an enormous problem with that, time and again. If I had said that to make a case for republicans, then ok I understand the response. Or if I said MSNBC is biased and therefore I only watch FOX. But taking exception with someone claiming that MSNBC is biased? Well, they are. And time and again your stance seems to be that saying things like this is some kind of taboo.

In what follows I am trying to make sure that our arguments and counter arguments actually meet on the same ground. I don’t think they are if you feel the need to say “Dems bias too” because “it’s true.”

I can imagine situations in which “Dems do it too” would be a quite appropriate response. E.g., if were making a categorical claim “All Repubs are biased,” as if only one side were, that would be sort of like claiming “all and only GOP swans are black” and then you’d show me a dozen black Dem swans and some white GOP swans. The category suddenly has no clear boundaries: argument refuted and category useless for description/analysis.
 
Politicians on both sides have always “lied” and taken bribes and been caught in sex scandals or been “biased.” It would be trivial to claim only one side does it; making such hopelessly GENERAL and TRIVIAL claims would teach us nothing about the present moment—nor would “refuting” them.
 
That’s why my claim is not simply or only that Repubs are “biased,” nor is it general. I am trying to understand the current disruption in our politics and the very destructive divergence from previous norms and precedents. To understand that disruption means to understand its causes. So I am looking for what is unique to this political moment; it is not that one side is “biased” and the other is not. It is that one side swiftly absorbed what seemed at patent lie to a majority of voters, which led to a coordinated coup attempt, and in its aftermath, an enraged party went to work on “voter integrity” laws and Congressional investigations into supposedly “weaponized” government, generally working to disrupt any potential accountability for their followers’ illegal behavior—after already protecting their dear leader from a Russian investigation and two impeachments. And now millions want that leader back in office. So my guiding question is not “Which side is (more) ‘biased’?” but rather “which side is coup-inclined, and why?” 
 
I think the current division is a serious problem, an assault on the rule of law and democracy which still has a chance of success. Or if not success then surely more potential disruption and violence as an angry, confused and disillusioned Fox audience doubles down on its primary source of “truth” in the aftermath of the Dominion suit, and a MAGA core sets about “accelerating” the breakdown of governance and civil order. That effort may create its own counterbalance even within the GOP, but that is hardly certain.
 
I can begin to explain some of this when I understand how it has followed from social changes (civil rights, feminism, immigration) and changes in technology as well as politics, law and education—and the picture gets much clearer when I look at how Fox and the rest of the RW media environment have diverged from previous journalistic norms and standards in specific and identifiable ways, and how the Republican party leaders have embraced autocratic leaders, uncivil norms and rejected compromise. The political history of authoritarianism can shed much light on what is going on here, but “Dems are biased too!” Doesn’t clarify much. Or worse, it enables water-muddying false equivalence.  Why don't Dems coup too?