Democrats losing all credibility in denial of overwhelming evidence..

[Dill]

(03-30-2024, 07:10 PM)hollodero Wrote: I disagree with the whole notion that it is about ranking levels of concernedness. I mean, honestly I can't really get into all of it, I just did not expect that me talking about Democrats would lead to you bringing up slavery and make me google Ragnary rolls. But sure, I am also concerned about false equivalencies. There's just the problem that they exist anyway and concealing certain truths for fear of them, once outspoken, getting misused in right-wing rhetorics imho is an odd choice. If any, it just adds dishonesty and blind loyalty to the list people can draw false equivalencies from.

And I can just say that this has nothing to do with history professors saying "blacks had slaves too", it's not about justifying or minimizing or relativizing Trump. Yeah he's the clear and present danger to democracy itself, I see it the same way, but that's all I can commit to. Your special bipolar politics sure make it apparent that this stance means supporting Democrats, no way around that. But also going along with this whole oversimplified mythology of Democrats fighting the good fight against Trump, hero against villain, that seems ill-advised to me. It gives me certain Bush vibes when he introduced the world to the logic of you're either with us or the terrorists, meaning you'd better be fine with everything we do and critizising us is akin to supporting the evil side. Which did not sit all that well with the world. Now here terrorists are Trump and the Bush admin are the democrats, just to make my example clear, but to me it's the same kind of underlying dogmatism.

Still don't think we're on the same page here.  I'm not a fan of "concealing truths" for fear etc. Wasn't advocating that, or dinging you for it.  I'm finding the/our misunderstanding useful for retooling, though. I'll not be offended if you are tired of the exchange and don't read the following. But working through a response helps me focus and improve the larger argument. This still doesn't nail it, but I'm getting closer.

I wasn't heroicizing Dems. So not ill-advised since that is not what is "advised."  I just don't see why criticism of Trump, without accompanying patter of how Biden and Dems suck too, should be cast as "imbalance" or an implicit "mythologizing" of Dems. Not sure how great my memory is about the Watergate era, but I don't recall people who criticized Nixon regularly adding that Dems, "of course," have their problems too, to avoid "concealing truths." Consider me curious about, and investigating, what has changed in our media environment to make kind of balance seem necessary.     

If Trump is a danger--and you agree he is--and justifying/minimizing/relativizing his behavior is a 24/7 requirement to maintain the danger (my claim; you haven't said you agree), then countering Trump-danger is about addressing that 24/7 justifying/minimizing/relativizing, whose primary tactic is "both sides do it," especially via false equivalence/whattaboutism. (Think of all the "independents" who, when asked to choose between someone who attempted to void democracy and someone who supports it, have trouble figuring out whether that is even the choice.) Making people more conscious of this pattern, of how it is systematic, is what creates my angle of critique and target here. There are other patterns too, like presenting Trump as victim and warring against Woke and DEI and immigrants. But the minimizing via equivalence is the primary support. Breaking that massively reduces effectiveness of all the rest. 

I reread both my recent posts to you and find nothing in either that I could construe as drawing lines between good Dems and bad Republicans and determining who is "with us."  I still see those posts emphasizing two basic goals, consistent with the aforementioned angle:

1. To describe an approach to historical and political issues which seizes them in pre-judgment, and reduces myriad contraries to either/or, often via stereotypes, absent any analytic intent or distance. People who LOVE America you don't write bad things about it. It is at odds with how professional/academic historians and social sciences approach/study social phenomena. That's why the history professors DON'T say "Blacks had slaves too!" every time they discuss U.S. slavery. But why DeSantis' Florida curriculum DOES need to say that Blacks benefited from slavery and killed whites too (and they'd find some Blacks owned slaves in the U.S. too, if they looked hard enough). I am using my description of that "Regnery" approach to explain a social pattern. And I've been pretty explicit in separating you from that. Fears that a disagreement with me could flip the forum's most concise and effective Trump critic into a Trump supporter are very premature.

2. A central aspect of the current politicized media environment is the cultural/political logic which pressures both Trump supporters and non-Trump supporting rightists to counter "leftist" critiques of Trump's behavior with oversimplified, deflating equivalences--Maddow=Hannity, Biden stole documents too, Dems have also denied elections, Dems are the "real" threat to electoral integrity (not the guy who employed his party to steal an election), "both sides" undermine rule of law, the liberal media is fake news too! etc. (On the "Trump Lawyer Disbarred" thread I was just asked if Dems were punished when THEY used a slate of "false" electors TOO.) It's not a problem of individuals; it's overlapping institutions, media and political, engaged in systematically generating propaganda, tailoring it to specific issues, and keeping it in circulation long after debunking, which renders democratic institutions dysfunctional and undermines competing sources of authority (Limbaugh's four corners of deceit). I've frequently argued the right wing media is structured differently from MSM, with much weaker vetting, politicized agenda setting, and re-circulation of debunked "truths." It's commentators construct elaborate, detailed alternative realities (Russia investigation =Witch Hunt"/ the Biden crime family) while grooming audiences to dismiss competing news sources. 

So to recap, you're not about "justifying or minimizing or relativizing Trump." But I'm talking about that because justifying or minimizing or relativizing Trump is what primarily keeps him in power. So it is a fair theme for discussion and a fair target for those of us who'd like to see Trumpism more effectively opposed.