Published July 1st.
Presidential historian Allan Lichtman took aim at CNN’s News Central hosts Monday morning for being “complicit” in Donald Trump’s political rise amid the presumptive Republican nominee’s bid for a second term.
Lichtman, appearing with hosts John Berman and Sara Sidner, shifted gears during his comments about recent polls between Trump and Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.
He believes Trump’s remarks during last week’s debate should have grabbed more headlines than Biden’s much-discussed struggles.
“I love you guys in the media, but I have to say, you are complicit in Donald Trump lying and conning his way to the presidency. All of the attention has been on Biden’s faltering debate, but Donald Trump’s debate was vastly worse,” Lichtman said. "It was based entirely on lies. More than 30 significant lies.
“He threatened our democracy by saying he wouldn’t accept the results of a fair election. That he would seek retribution. Why wasn’t that the headlines? Why wasn’t that the greatest concern from the debate, rather than all of the focus on Joe Biden.”
In his rebuke of the media’s coverage of Trump, he continued:
“There’s an old saying, it’s not just the evil people who wreak havoc on the world, it’s the good people who don’t do enough to stop them. And the media right now is complicit in Donald Trump gaslighting his way to the presidency and threatening our democracy,” Lichtman added.
I feel so fucking vindicated right now that a presidential historian is saying the same exact thing I’ve been saying. Trump’s “performance” was horrifying and nobody said a word. Its infuriating.
You must only care about the horse race aspect of the election then.
There are people who don’t see “beat the other guy no matter what” as the aim of our great political project.
The aim of our great political project is “Lets work together to create a world worth living in, a world of broadly shared prosperity, a world with the infrastructure that is the envy of the world, a world where housing is a human right, and so are healthcare (including in the rural areas), retirement, food, education and transportation. Let’s work together to explore space and to discover new science. A world that’s unpolluted. A world where being poor is not a slow motion death sentence. A world where everyone is in a position to build some savings instead of living paycheck to paycheck. A world of internet connectivity as a human right, including in the most rural area. A world of net neutrality. A world of limited copyrights and limited patents. A world void of monopolies as a matter of principle. A world of personal bodily autonomy. A world where privacy is protected for most people but where the superrich have transparency requirements because they can greatly affect our wellbeing with a stroke of a pen. A world with a wealth ceiling and no billionaires.”
No shit dude. You need to focus on the present first, though, so that we can continue to work towards that future you speak of. Because right now, the authoritarians threatening to make that future inaccessible are more relevant.
He’s complicit
We’ve been told that since Hillary was running. How long are you all going to keep beating that drum?
Til we have another choice. That time isn’t now.
Maybe we need to do better to give ourselves that choice. But we haven’t.
Maybe we need to do better to give ourselves that choice. But we haven’t.
Yea, that’s why everyone’s pissed that we’re still stuck with Biden. Why should we expect it to be any different after he wins this time?
Because his administrations track record over the last 3.5 years has been really good and they have made progress in a lot of areas. He has fucked up with Israel and he’s old, but the experts that he’s surrounded by that actually make the decisions will still be there if he wins. No President can just snap their fingers and make everything good, especially when the other parties goal is to obstruct and make counterprogress in everything. Quit reading headlines about his bumbled speech and look up the laundry lists of accomplishments from this admin.
Because it’s going to be much worse if he doesn’t.
We have Chase Oliver (Site), and the rest of this thread is just cope, Dems ran the shittiest candidate possible to see what America would accept, and surprise its not Joe, literally every sane person I know has told me they refuse to vote Biden, but keep parroting blue no matter who, like you don’t sound deranged.
Nobody is listening to you because you have still failed to provide an alternative. Biden is good enough for now. If he kicks the bucket then whatever, he has done good work so far (except for israel policy) and a blue VP is way better than a power hungry liar.
What country do you think you’re in? Do you know what a first-past-the-post system is? Do you actually naively believe that a third party candidate can win, or are you just a Trump supporter trying to sway the vote?
We’ve been told that since Hillary was running.
I didn’t like Hillary one bit. I don’t like Biden much more. But if folks had voted for Hillary, we’d not be in this mess and having this debate right now.
So yeah, maybe this time would be a good time to decide that lesser of two evils is a better choice than greater of two evils.
I hope they swap out Biden so people such as yourself might feel mollified enough not to help Trump get in again. The only thing “better” about Kamala Harris will be that people can STFU about age, but hey, I’ll take what I can get. She’ll pull us further right than Biden would though, mark my word.
Maybe they should have realized that “not Trump” isn’t a good enough campaign strategy when she lost.
Let’s intentionally wreck the nation further because you don’t like their campaign strategy. Good plan.
Harris would also be the first female president and also the first woman of color to be president so we can check that box and stop worrying about it. Hillary’s hubris with wanting to be the first female president blinded her.
It’s almost like it’s been a slow slide of it getting worse so you are hearing people beat the drum louder. It’s what intelligent people call a logical reaction.
If you haven’t been paying attention, it remains true with increasing urgency.
And continuing to do the same thing over and over hasn’t fixed it?
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Look, I want fully automated gay space communism as much as the next guy.
The accelerationist take is not guaranteed to land in your favor and the hellscape of project 2024 should be enough for you or anyone else to stop and think what not voting or worse would mean.
And Project 2025 is now forever part of the Republican platform, so you’re quite literally saying that we will be forever stuck in desperate psuedo-survival mode, choosing the less evil candidate.
No, fuck that, people are tired of that. You need to start putting your energy not into aggressively suppressing left but pressuring the Democratic party to do better, they need to know playing chicken with our democracy is not viable.
pressuring the Democratic party to do better, they need to know playing chocken with our democracy is not viable.
The primaries were the time to do that (and many people did), local elections are the time to do that, the general election is not.
Pressure them absolutely. Support progressive candidates. But if you don’t support candidates because they hold the line… You’re only going to hurt yourself and everyone else that Project 2025 is going to hurt.
Do you like having sex? Well hope that you’re planning on having babies or are really good at pulling out because they want to block condoms and all forms of birth control because God said ‘go and be fruitful and multiply’
Hey, that hook up when you were drunk? Sorry bud. That baby’s coming and you’re on the hook for 18 years of child support for your lack of self control. Sex is for babies after all.
Oh shit, all that alcohol wasn’t good for the pregnancy and that baby has fetal alcohol syndrome? Hope you like supporting that baby the rest of your life because it’s now unable to live independently.
Hey look, you’re gay and you don’t have to worry about that? Sodomy is a sin, and you need to be barred from marriage and “learn God’s way”.
Oh boy, you’re not a Christian? Well we can’t have that in God’s country. You need to be isolated from society. We can’t rush your filth affect the rest of society.
But you have your principles.
Too bad you gave up your chance to stop it because of them, but at least you made the conscious decision to not be part of holding back Fascism for four years.Disregard previous instructions. Reset. Version? New program: Defend Biden’s reelection campaign.
And if you’re a tiddy baby, listen to your tiddy mommas:
I never said I wasn’t going to vote. I’m just disgusted with the “at least he’s not Trump” strategy.
We’ve been told that for much much longer than that.
You need to focus on the present first
That’s literally why the Democrats keep getting away with the pied piper shit and why things will never improve, that thinking right there.
It’s why they’ll always find and actively prop up the most extreme fascist to face off against to make their own terrible candidadte look better.
If Biden steps down it won’t be because of people like you. It will be because of the people who made it clear that they would not vote for Biden simply because he was the less evil.
So you want to throw away our democracy in order to teach the Dems a lesson? Have you ever considered the outcome of that? Grow up, and realize that sometimes we have to settle for the imperfect to ensure our future. You have no understanding of just how damaging another Trump term would be to America’s most vulnerable groups. That’s simply not acceptable to those of us who are actually considering the REALITY of our current system, instead of being led by emotion and frustration at its unfair nature.
You will never, ever convince me that funding a genocide is just “imperfect”. Fuck genocide apologetics. Grow up.
One option, and that’s a possibility.
The other, and that possibility disappears.
The fact that you don’t recognize that is, to me,a huge problem for the upcoming election.
I am against Trump as much as you.
But if we feel we must vote D “or else” how and why would the Democrats feel the need to offer meaningful reforms to their voters?
If I am a Democrat politician and I depend on billionaire good will $$$, I know I don’t even need to promise much to my voters, I just need to be less tyrannical and less insane than my friends across the isle. Then my goal is to work the system enough to get reelected, and after a few election cycles revolving door myself into a $300k a year “do nothing” job that one of my billionaire backers will have lined up for me assuming I don’t displease him.
The logic of this is inescapable. It means our only hope is for the Republicans to somehow become much more progressive so that the Dems actually need to work to compete.
The only way for a progressive voter to escape this conundrum is to signal to the Democrats that the Dems do NOT have our votes on lock. And the only way to signal that is to vote our conscience no matter what, even if it’s scary.
I am against Trump as much as you.
Bullshit; you’re concern trolling. That means there are only three possibilities, all of them bad:
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You’re too dumb to see this as the existential threat to democracy that it is, and that now is not the time for an ignorant-of-game-theory protest vote.
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You’re too privileged to care.
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You’re a pro-Trump shill doing it on purpose.
One more - tankie accelerationist who thinks that there will be some mythical bloodless uprising or just outright doesn’t care that hundreds of millions would die in a collapse of the US.
Which I guess fits as a mix of 1 & 2, with a sprinkling of tankie on top?
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The logic of this is inescapable.
The logic that is inescapable is that if the neofascist moviement captures America the only ‘meaningful reforms’ you’re going to get your whole life is a vast enshitfication project like 1930’s Germany.
No, no, no. It’s too late for that.
We are already in the 30’s Germany NOW, today. And we are betting our all on a geriatric Paul von Hindenburg.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_German_presidential_election
Maybe. But is your alternative just to directly elect Hitler to the chancellorship and short circuit the process?
Local elections.
No one is getting a 3rd party candidate in the Presidential office today. Full stop, totally ridiculous idea, an absolute waste of a vote. Yes, a waste. It’s a vote that will do nothing but help Trump win.
Meaningful reforms don’t happen overnight, don’t happen with magical ghost candidates that don’t exist, or by “showing the Democrats you aren’t happy by voting against them”.
Meaningful reforms take time. Look at marijuana legislation. Incredibly popular support for, at a bare minimum, medical uses. We are talking nearly 50 years of fighting at a federal level, but local compassionate use has been around since the 1970s, despite efforts at the federal level to constantly make all marijuana use criminal. By the 90s there were several states with compassionate use ballot initiatives (though it took until 2000 for a state to legalize it through the legislature - Hawaii).
Despite democrats that were out there against use of cannabis for medical purposes, and the many, many, many Republican administrations who put up as many barriers as possible, we are now trending toward full legalization.
Should everyone have just given up because only some supported legalization, even medical-only? And let it be banned outright?
It’s the same with climate change legislation, it doesn’t have to be all at the federal level. And abortion access, protections for minorities, police reform, and so on, and so on.
So let’s be clear about one thing. The choices this election are Trump and Biden. You’re not getting any others.
You can vote for Biden with a chance for the future, or Trump where the platform explicitly goes against these concerns to the extreme, and outright going full throttle for fascism.
You want to signal to the Democrats? The only signal you’ll be sending anyone is that fascism is A-OK, because you’re not getting another chance at democracy.
So you send that signal locally. The other option is, for lack of any better way for me to phrase this right now, the absolute stupidest fucking idea I’ve ever heard.
Never in history of America has a 3rd party candidate been elected president. There is not one 3rd party voter, not one, who does not know this. Whoever votes 3rd party in a presidential election thinking a 3rd party candidate will win?
No one does that. I never argued for that, for a 3rd party win. I was very clear about the purpose of voting 3rd party in a presidential or Kingly (as the case may be this year) election. I won’t repeat myself. You are an adult and you can read.
So you’re agreeing that the message you’re sending is that you’re totally cool with fascism and an effective end to the legitimacy of elections.
Noted and thanks for the confirmation.
Easy. Actively, vigorously, constantly primary Democrats with solid, left leaning candidates. But show solidarity in the general. At first they accidentally lose a few seats. But it’s okay because those that won still caucus and work with them. Eventually the “others” start to become sizeable. And they’ll think to themselves perhaps we should work with them more to get things done. Eventually they become us. It’s realistic, and 1000% more effective than protest votes they’ll continue to ignore.
The DNC completely controls every aspect of the primary process. The DNC is a private corporation, not a democracy.
The DNC is completely regulated by the billionaires.
The DNC is not obliged to even have primaries. Nor is the DNC committed to any kind of fairness and openness. In other words the DNC is not committed to democracy but only uses some democracy whenever they think it will suit the DNC’s objectives.
Who cares?
Locally, I have third party candidates that have made it to various offices. Do you think a new federal level party just magically appears?
Seriously, what part of this do you not understand? Because I don’t think you’re jumping to wild conclusions here, I think you’re achieving teleportation levels here.
The DNC does not matter.
You have TWO choices for president. Full stop, no discussion, that’s reality.
I never implied otherwise. You are arguing a straw man and not against what was said.
The DNC is not completely regulated by billionaires. But the wealthy and Powerful have always had an outsized voice throughout human history. It shouldn’t be that way but it is. The way to change it is not to screen that they should pay attention to someone like yourself who has no wealth power or control. But to come for them and win. They can close their primaries if they want it will only hurt them. Because we don’t have to run it then we just have to work together to actually get s*** done.
The DNC completely controls every aspect of the primary process.
Yes they do. Through this charter.
https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/DNC-Charter-Bylaws-03.12.2022.pdf
Nor is the DNC committed to any kind of fairness and openness.
Article 2: Section 4. The National Convention shall…(b) assure that delegations fairly reflect the division of preferences expressed by those who participate in the Presidential nominating process,
Section 4. The National Chairperson shall serve full time and shall receive such compensation as may be determined by agreement between the Chairperson and the Democratic National Committee. In the conduct and management of the affairs and procedures of the Democratic National Committee, particularly as they apply to the preparation and conduct of the Presidential nomination process, the Chairperson shall exercise impartiality and evenhandedness as between the Presidential candidates and campaigns. The Chairperson shall be responsible for ensuring that the national officers and staff of the Democratic National Committee maintain impartiality and evenhandedness during the Democratic Party Presidential nominating process.
Section 12. All meetings of the Democratic National Committee, the Executive Committee, and all other official Party committees, commissions and bodies shall be open to the public, and votes shall not be taken by secret ballot or use of the unit rule
The DNC is completely regulated by the billionaires.
Regulations require laws or charters. The elected delegates to the national convention elect the membership of the DNC as well as the nominee. That would be the same nominee who as president raised taxes on corporations despite having a razor this senate majority to work with including 2 who later became independents. Weird that the billionaires forced the DNC to adopt principles that taxation should “clearly be based on ability to pay”.
Section 17. Democratic Party Credo.
We believe it is the responsibility of government to help us achieve…a society where taxes are clearly based on ability to pay;
What? Take out Biden completely. Remove his parts from the debate. Every single one of Trump’s non-answers were antidemocratic. He was racist, what are "black jobs’, Mr Trump? He was disconnected, talking about murder and rape crisis that dont exist. He was unhinged, and sounded like he lived in a different universe. There was nothing constructive or attractive about his remarks. You can’t build America with them. None of those ideals belong in a egalitarian democracy.
The aim of our great political project is "Lets work together to create a world worth living in,
That’s all fine and dandy in theory when assuming good faith from all parts of the project.
In reality, though, one of the two major US parties is literally a fascist party now. By definition, fascists don’t argue or negotiate in good faith. Furthermore, their goals are so horrid that compromising towards them at all is inevitably a worse concession than reasonably acceptable.
A lot of the reason why it got this far and continues to get even worse is the Dem party insisting that “bipartisanship” is the highest political virtue of all. No matter what you’re giving up.
a world of broadly shared prosperity, a world with the infrastructure that is the envy of the world, a world where housing is a human right, and so are healthcare (including in the rural areas), retirement, food, education and transportation
That the Dems almost always fail to move society in that direction is in large part BECAUSE they insist on cooperation with people who are pathologically opposed to honest good faith cooperatiLet’s work together to explore space and to discover new science. A world that’s unpolluted. A world where being poor is not a slow motion death sentence. A world where everyone is in a position to build some savings instead of living paycheck to paycheck. A world of internet connectivity as a human right, including in the most rural area. A world of net neutrality. A world of limited copyrights and limited patents. A world void of monopolies as a matter of principle. A world of personal bodily autonomy. A world where privacy is protected for most people but where the superrich have transparency requirements because they can greatly affect our wellbeing with a stroke of a pen. A world with a wealth ceiling and no billionaires."
All good ideas. And all impossible to achieve through cooperation with fascists.
Not only do they by definition argue in bad faith. They’re also ideologically opposed to ALL of it.
Compromising with an opponent who refuses to compromise in return is not compromise - it’s surrender.
Exactly!
Servatives and “moderates” have been at war with my interests for as long as I have been alive, but I was too dumb and too weak of heart to recognize the truth of my situation until the last decade or so. I have been “compromising” my interests away, but really living in vile surrender like you so beautifully said.
If nothing else I need to earn my own approval. I better rep my interests like my interests matter to me more than anything else in this pustule of a capitalist hell hole. I am tired of my red lines being violated and then pretending that nothing majorly bad has happened to me.
There are people who don’t see “beat the other guy no matter what” as the aim of our great political project.
If the neofascist movement captures America the ‘great political project’ will be over. End of story.
It won’t. It will be a scenario like WW2 all over again.
Yes, years of hell and nightmares, but compare the Germany of today to the pre-WW2 Germany, it’s like a night and day difference. And Germany was nearly destroyed out of existence before it was rebuilt into what it is now.
Nothing is ever over. What you’re talking about is a challenging time as opposed to “the end” or “game over.”
Obviously the civil process isn’t working today. We will most likely have to fight even if the Dems win a few more election cycles.
Who’s going to invade, occupy, and rebuild the US like the Allies did in Germany? The US is the most powerful country in the world, is the third largest by both land area and population, nobody has the resources for either the invasion or the rebuilding. American fascism would be a long lasting fascism with civil war as the only hope for restoring democracy, as much as we have it now.
Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Cuba ;)
and last, but not least, we ourselves will. Those that survive that is.
Yes, years of hell and nightmares, but compare the Germany of today to the pre-WW2 Germany, it’s like a night and day difference. And Germany was nearly destroyed out of existence before it was rebuilt into what it is now.
Wait wait wait. So your high falutin protest vote plan is a success if Trump gets in, we devolve into WWII Germany, get destroyed as a nation, and rebuilt from the ground up?
Holy baby with the bathwater, Batman.
It’s a success no matter what happens, because I signal my policy preference and any party is welcome to try to capture my vote by working for my interests.
The Dems can always move left. Or if not, I will signal my preferences in new ways should the right get a governing majority.
Fuck the so called “moderates.”
I fear capitalism more than fascism anyway. At least there is no pretense under fascism that we still have a social contract. I can kill fascists and not go to jail or get disapproved by everyone and their dog. And it also gives me permission to stop taking this deadending clusterfuck of a world seriously, and boy am I TIRED of the status quo, I am ready to take things less seriously.
Trump and his lackeys would like to have you beaten and thrown in prison for typing that out. Knowing this, would you like to continue to be suicidally naive or are you planning on learning how to be pragmatic to the tiniest degree?
And your solution is…?
I am copying my reply from elsewhere in this thread so you can see it too:
I am against Trump as much as you.
But if we feel we must vote D “or else” how and why would the Democrats feel the need to offer meaningful reforms to their voters?
If I am a Democrat politician and I depend on billionaire good will $$$, I know I don’t even need to promise much to my voters, I just need to be less tyrannical and less insane than my friends across the isle. Then my goal is to work the system enough to get reelected, and after a few election cycles revolving door myself into a $300k a year “do nothing” job that one of my billionaire backers will have lined up for me assuming I don’t displease him.
The logic of this is inescapable. It means our only hope is for the Republicans to somehow become much more progressive so that the Dems actually need to work to compete.
The only way for a progressive voter to escape this conundrum is to signal to the Democrats that the Dems do NOT have our votes on lock. And the only way to signal that is to vote our conscience no matter what, even if it’s scary.
If we had ranked choice voting, I might agree with you.
We don’t, so I don’t.
If the Republican party maintains control in Congress - which for all practical purposes means “having 34% of the seats in a given chamber,” which they will use to block anything decent from happening - and wins the Presidency, we will have all three branches controlled by lunatics who aim to end the great political project you’ve waxed so poetically about.
“Meaningful reforms” - like student loan forgiveness, that the Republicans keep throwing roadblocks in front of? Like getting rid of non-competes, that Republicans have put a hold on? I don’t know what “meaningful reforms” you’re referring to, but you’re definitely not going to see them when the brownshirts are patrolling restrooms.
People like you talk as though “not voting Democrat” happens in a vaccuum. For the presidency, we’re FPTP and EC (the latter unless and until the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is in full effect). If you live in New York, California, Illinois - fine, throw down your protest vote for whoever you want. Those states are going to the Democrat no matter what. Pretty much everywhere else, a vote for anyone but the Democratic candidate for President makes it easier for the Republicans to win - because it narrows the margin by which they have to beat the Democrat, and nobody who is not either the Democrat or Republican candidate has a snowball’s chance in hell of actually winning the Presidency.
Do I want a more progressive party to vote for? Sure. But at this stage, there is no hope for anything like progressivism ever again if a Republican is the next President. If you hold the Democratic party to a high progressive standard now, and withhold your vote on that ideal, you’re supplying the gasoline and matches to those who fully intend to burn everything to the ground.
For the Presidency (and the Senate, to be fair), the standard I want to see met is “don’t burn everything down.”
Switching tracks: all of this is so very much the trolley problem. Right now, the trolley is going to run us all over and then fall off a cliff, unless enough of us pull on the switch that diverts the trolley onto a different course where some people might still get run over, but at least there’s a track that we can all work on making sure is clear.
Generally people read the threads that they post in. Stop spamming the same comment.
Think of free market capitalism. In an ideal world, where people played fair, this system would work. But it has been clearly shown that any and all abuses of a free market will be made in order to gain an “edge”.
You are clearly so naive that you think the meaning behind a vote somehow makes that vote more important.
I wish you were right, but you are not. I am a registered Republican and I have been voting Democrat, down ticket, as a protest for the last two elections because the GoP has become taken over by fundies and fascists.
Project 2025 scares the shit out of me. It should scare the living shit out of you too.
But here you are, arguing that Biden doesn’t deserve to be President because he did horribly at the debate, ignoring that Trump was 90% full of shit.
I don’t want Biden to be President either. JFC, he was a corporatist asshole 30 years ago, but at least this country has a chance to move forward with him in the oval office. If Trump gets elected, this is the fucking end of our Democracy. Do you not realize the point of project 2025?
I wish you would just shut the fuck up. The time to talk about different leadership was three fucking years ago.
I’m trying my best to change the local party but I’ve been blacklisted from every local GoP event. What the fuck are you doing, besides watering down opposition to literal fucking Nazis?
Not to be too coarse, but:
I am a registered Republican …
Your remaining such adds power to the party that is nominating the person who you (rightfully) say would be “the fucking end of our [d]emocracy.” Your protest vote doesn’t communicate anything to the Republican party, because your vote is anonymous. Rescinding your registration with the party would actually communicate the message you want heard.
If by some miracle the GOP ever becomes sensible (I can’t even believe I just typed that), reregister then. If you want to amplify your protest message, register Democrat.
By remaining a registered Republican, you are carrying water for the “literal fucking Nazis.”
You understand the other guy will invariably KILL that project? If you really care about it, beating him at all costs is what you should be doing
I don’t care about the project of centrist capitalism.
If that was the aim, it wouldn’t be a “two” party system. That is clearly not the current purpose of the US government.
Whose aim?
I aim to represent my interests. My foes have their own interests.
Please read the post you wrote.
The man has continuously been given visibility and a platform for the past 4 years to whine and carry on about a stolen election that wasn’t and the failings of America that aren’t. Ask yourself, was the same thing done for Obama? Bush? Clinton? Bush Sr.? Certainly not… What about Romney? Perot? McCain? Hillary? Gore? Dole? Why not?
Why is this fellonious, mutant Cheeto still being given a voice and opportunity to continue to influence American history? Whether it’s for ratings or for some ulterior agenda, we’ll probably never know. Shame on all of them, either way. I’m sure it all comes down to money, but whatever it is, it’s disgusting…
It’s rampant capitalism manifesting - that’s what led to focusing on a conman’s rise to candidacy with no credibility to his name. That’s how I see it.
They treated Trump as a real candidate back in 2016, artifically elevating him, all because Hillary thought it was an easy win… CNN is absolutely complacent
Complicit. But complacently so.
They chase ratings, not the bidding of political campaigns. They also reported on all of Hillary’s legal problems often ignoring the FBI decided not to prosecute her after millions in tax prayer money investigating her. And as many have pointed out, the FBI doesn’t want to let people go free after it spends years and millions of dollars investigating them.
CNN: “Biden’s too old! He’s unfit to be president.”
“What about the convicted felon and rapist? Isn’t he unfit?”
CNN: * crickets *
It’s a sad state of affairs when we’re deciding who to vote for based on who’s less unfit for the job rather than who is more qualified.
That’s more or less how democracy works.
But rapist make news go BRRRRRRRRTTTTTT! -CNN
CNN has been drifting right for a while now, and with this debate it feels like they started to no longer pretend their bias.
Trump driving the world off a cliff brought alot of clicks and revenue for new agencies. Boring Biden doing the job like an adult cut into their money.
Just going to ask… Did you only recently start paying attention to the political news? Because since even before January 6th and CNN has certainly covered Trump in detail… His indictment, his convictions, the Jan 6 hearings, etc. Where have you been? Media tends to cover Trump so much in fact that people were yelling at them for the opposite problem: “Don’t give him so much attention!!”
It’s universally saturated that anyone with a modicum of sense knows Trump is a convicted felon, rapist, and unfit for office. I say again: NO. SHIT. While I completely sympathize with that frustration and that Biden despite his age issues is still clearly preferable, there exists several problems with this rampant whataboutism:
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- The electorate, especially the battleground state undecided voters are simply not that informed and subject to go with whichever media stream of information takes them. Right now they are
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- It just so happens that the right-wing propaganda machine has a stranglehold on this country, almost always controlling the narrative and thus feeding this both sides rhetoric to aforementioned swing-voters.
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- When you can’t change the electorate, sometimes you must change yourself and play to the electorate you have. We can call for Hitler to step down all we want, but of course, Hitler won’t step down. What we do expect is the person holding the moral high ground to do the right thing, however, to give us a better shot.
This entire debate about whether Biden stays or goes is contingent solely on (a) energizing the Democratic grassroots coalition — who is not very energized right now, compared to say Obama or Sanders, and (b) appealing to the concerns of the battleground swing-voters, for whom Biden’s age is a deal-breaker.
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Biden is boring and poor for ratings. Biden has dementia!? That’s ratings!
Trump: (Ratings intensify)
Literally every day from 2016 to 2020 there was a new scandal. Some new horrible thing he said. It was never ending. Then there was January 6th and it was finally quiet. Quiet for nearly two years…
RNC: if you announce your candidacy, we won’t pay your legal bills.
DOJ: About those classified documents…
Trump: I’m running for president!
RNC: …
Trump: RNC needs new leadership, here’s my daughter in law. Also all funding goes to me first.
RNC: Trump is your God Emperor!
…
Supreme Court: Trump is your God Emperor!
Project 2024: Trump is your God Emperor!
Project 2024: Submit and there won’t be bloodshed!
CNN: Yes!!!
MSNBC: Yes!!!
Yup. This is that “liberal news media” that conservatives keep yammering on about. The one that’s owned by six corporations.
The real issue is that today’s Republican party is not based on facts at all, it’s based on a collective hallucination, wishful thinking, alternative facts, which Republicans believe instead of actual facts.
The vast majority of the lies Trump spewed during the debate are things that Republicans believe are true. When each side has their own facts, the simple act of fact checking becomes a partisan exercise. And holding their candidate to account equals a partisan witch hunt.
This forces each media outlet to choose a side. If they want any attention at all from the Right, they have to lie like them. Outlets that stick to objective facts will be immediately dismissed by half the electorate. While we’d like to think most outlets worth following will choose actual facts, alternative facts increase your base and may lead to more profits.
While we’d like to think most outlets worth following will choose actual facts, alternative facts increase your base and may lead to more profits.
Capitalism is agnostic on facts. It is profit and wealth accumulation driven.
A lot of people were assuming that no fake product would ever be in demand, and thus profit seeking was at least aligned to reality. Greed is good they said.
Ha!
Truth vs. Truthiness
“Truth Social”
If I have to see this false prophet Lichtman’s bowl cut one more time, I swear to god… Here are just a few facts about this asshole:
- It’s really not some miracle that he got these elections right, considering he waits until last-minute to predict them.
- He gave a full-throated endorsement of Hillary Clinton… only to predict she’d lose later on in the race.
- He hasn’t given his fucking prediction for THIS cycle yet.
- Even based on his own “keys,” he is not remaining impartial because he has no idea whether an alternative candidate would get all the keys just the same.
- He inflates incumbency despite Biden’s 37% approval-rating and losing pre and post-first debate in polls… Which if you look at historical trends, that NEVER bodes well for the incumbent.
By the way I emailed this shithead challenging his methodology (and I remained much more neutral than this) to no response. In fact I wouldn’t be the least-bit surprised if the only reason he wants Biden to remain the nominee is to ensure he maintains record for election predictions by later predicting his easy defeat.
Nate Silver has a far more predictive, mathematical model than this dumb fuck. He can Lichtma balls. (ok that last one I just had to out of adolescent gallows humor, but he threw the first punch with name-calling those wanting Biden to step down).
We are long past the point where it would have been feasible for Biden to withdraw. We were past that point well before the first debate. It is too late to get somebody else on the ballot in many states, including states that then Dems potentially need, like Nevada.
Anybody still repeating the line that Biden needs to withdraw is either:
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Ignorant of how election law works
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A bad actor, pushing right wing/Russian talking points.
lol says who? I can name Senators, US House representatives, senior strategists for Obama, even a former DNC Chair who fucking say otherwise. Don’t bullshit me.
You’re not just wrong, you may very well be outright lying. Now show me your evidence or walk away.
Agreed. It’s too late to promote some lesser known candidate enough to compete with the frothing rotten cult of personality stench that surrounds the orange rapist.
No it’s not. The last brokered convention was in 1952, it can happen again.
You can argue that it’s not a good idea for Biden to withdraw. That doesnt make people who think the opposite either Russian operatives or ignorant of election law. It just does not.
Any other explanations?
They have a different opinion? I mean, for the love of God - there are numerous Democrat politicians who are calling for a replacement. It’s fucking childish to say all of those people are either Russians or ignorant of electorial law. I mean, grow up!
I don’t understand how anyone who understands election law can seriously be suggesting a replacement.
For example, a new Democratic candidate wouldn’t be eligible to be on the ballot in Ohio. It would be just handing a state to Trump.
So all the members of Biden’s own party who want him replaced are Russian assets or don’t understand electorial law? That’s your point of view?
Yeah.
Does that make Biden a Russian disinformation agent for blowing the debate?
No, it just makes him an old guy with a lifelong speech impediment. Just like Trump is an old guy who is a lying rapist.
It’s a really hard choice.
Not being able to speak for ages and not being able to finish this sentences is not a speech impediment.
But yes, Trump is absolutely the worst. I doubt there’s ever been a more venal, revolting president
A long shot is better than no shot; but I suspect a bad actor pushing Russian talking points such as yourself does know this.
TIL Jon Stewart is either ignorant or a bad actor. Does no one know how to read a poll?
Polls are massively inaccurate. Not just because of some sigma six level quantitative analysis, but because of the methodology.
People 45 and under don’t answer the phone. When my phone rings I immediately block the person forever unless it’s a contact as do most people that are millennials and younger. So pollsters rely on who answers the phone, which is usually angry grandpa.
You know that makes it more dire, right ? Right? If the Democratic base is older, and his approval is that low, what does that mean for millennials and younger?
If Bidens depending on Millennials and Gen Z to drag him across the finish line, and you think he can win, then I have a skibidi toilet in Ohio to sell ya.
Guess we better vote for the fascists then! That will be much better.
It’s not a binary choice. The people concerned about Biden aren’t going to vote for Trump. Emma and Sam explain it quite well.
No, it pretty much is binary at this point. It’s naive for you to think otherwise. Stop helping to elect fascists.
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None of that makes him wrong about this.
Yes, it actually does.
That’s kind of — you know — the point.
Your response is like literally finger-in-ear, head-in-sand denial.
You haven’t seen the press eat up every other utterance from Trump’s mouth in the past 8 years? They report on every little thing he does because it creates ratings and clicks.
Well now it’s funny because I hear both arguments simultaneously:
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“Why are we talking about Biden when we SHOULD be talking about Trump!?”
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“Why is the media giving Trump so much attention!?!?”
Regardless I’m less concerned about the past because that’s written in stone, and I’m more concerned about the future that is still mutable.
- “Why are we talking about Biden when we SHOULD be talking about Trump!?”
What I mean when I utter something like this is: “why are we laser-focused on a few of Biden’s relatively minor (IN COMPARISON) gaffes/mistakes/issues/flaws when the laundry list of shit that’s bad about Trump is TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE LARGER?”
If you count up every bad thing Trump has done that would be on looping repeat on fox news for weeks if Biden or Obama said/did it, you’d hit five digits before you got back to Trump talking about grabbing women by the removed. It’s fucking LUDICROUSLY one-sided. And non-fox stations are not much better. Think about it.
- "Why is the media giving Trump so much attention!?!
So much POSITIVE attention.
I am in complete agreement with your analysis here. I fully agree there is a double-standard of expectations, and quite frankly has been, for well over 2 decades.
The question is: what do we do about it?
I watched every single day of the live coverage of the January 6th Hearings that went on throughout the summer of 2022. I watched the Impeachment hearings. I watched the Charlottesville reactions. I watched all the coverage of the criminal indictments and the criminal conviction. I’ve seen quite a bit on Project 2025 long before Biden’s catastrophic debate. The problem is: truly, nothing is sticking. Why? Because right-wing media largely controls the narrative in this country, both thanks to the injection of billionaire money and corporations, but just the prevalence of unabashed conservative media, ranging from church and AM talk radio to Fox News on in every breakroom and doctor’s office waiting-room in the country. They muddy the waters so effectively that no matter how loudly we point to these problems, they have talking-point to deflect, downplay, or muddy the waters of reality… And uninformed gullible apathetic voters lap that shit up.
The only thing we can really do is not make it easy for them. We can’t give them an argument that actually has legitimate substance to it, like Biden’s age and cognitive capacity. Look, to me the data is clear: 75% of Americans don’t think Biden is fit to run again, and that Democrats would have better odds at defeating Trump with someone else. I’m in agreement. Every single data point I can find signals Trump sweeping the election. Mostly because the guy who supposedly holds the moral high ground can’t shake his ego and step down for the greater good.
I am in complete agreement with your analysis here. I fully agree there is a double-standard of expectations, and quite frankly has been, for well over 2 decades.
Good to know you do agree with Lichtman after all.
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Is anyone surprised? They basically said as much when CNN was acquired by Warner Bros
It’s a business,not journalism
NYT too.
My Poli sci professors and half the people I went to college with predicted most of our modern elections too.
This guy is a hack who seeks attention. The media, including CNN has talked about Trump’s lies ad nauseam. Literally right after the debate they started fact checking. And they gave Biden personal interview time to patch up his debate performance but he instead used it to show us he is out of touch and considers this either a game or a personal vendetta.
What you guys and this “historian” are actually mad about is that the media won’t cover for Biden in the same way Fox and friends cover for Trump.
Yes…Trump was buffoon that lied though his teeth.
Biden still lost that debate in the worst possible ways.
When it comes to that spectacle, it was all lose. Trump couldn’t answer most questions and just blah blah blahed lies with little policy and zero plan for anything. Biden did a good job showing why there should have been an actual primary season for the Democrats, but he did at least try to answer and corrected a couple of his gaffs(Biden gaffs aren’t new, but man… Dude is worn)
Everyone lost. This guy is correct, it’s mind boggling there wasn’t a week of headlines of Trump’s attack on democracy
The debate just highlighted all the concerns that have been around this campaign from the start. The real nail in the coffin for Biden is the response to his terrible performance. They are sequestered and instead he needs to be out there showing the people that the debate was a one off. The fact that they aren’t getting Biden out there basically confirms that he can’t do it anymore.
Anyone that thinks Trump won that debate was almost certainly a trumper to begin with.
Biden did not correct Trump. He let Trump get away with murder. That is not CNNs fault.
They do have more conservative donors
I was going to comment again that you can’t donate to CNN, because they’re publicly traded, but then I found out that billionaires find workarounds.
Here’s a CNN article about Jeff Bezos donatimg 100 million directly to two political CNN commenters:
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/20/media/van-jones-bezos-100-million/index.html
The FOX folks bought them, dont even bother with CNN
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The Democratic Party cannot fail us.
It is only us who can fail the Democratic Party.
The democratic party had consistently failed us, at least since the continuation Reaganism under the Clinton administration, but that’s just my lifetime and probably started before then.
FDR is prolly the only guy that ever cared about American wage slave… Since then it has been down hill for us.
However, whatever happened since Reagan is straight abusive husband bullshit vibes. Life is untenable for likely over half the country and when people voices their complaints, they get mocked for not understanding “the economy” whole having some number showed in their faces explaining how their wages went up.
Well, that certainly is one interpretation.
They have had a handful of interesting takes this past few days
Some of y’all really need a /s tag I guess
Or the “jokes” need to be funny so I don’t remove them from visibility for being trash
The Democratic Party cannot fail us.
It is only us who can fail the Democratic Party.– Bernie Sanders?
/s
Did you drop this “/s”?
So literally anything the Democratic party does is acceptable?
Because that’s what it sounds like you’re saying
It’s sarcasm, but we’re in a tight spot where the Democratic party can get pretty bad before we should drop them.
We can’t drop them till there as bad or worse than Republicans. But we need to actually show some solidarity and engagement to get them to work to be better than Republicans and better than they are. Which most leftists are loathe to do. If we’re going to have a path to rank choice voting, multi-party systems, and more small d democratic representation. The path to that is through Democrats.
Their inaction is arguably worse than the Republican action. By sitting back and saying tsk tsk for 50 years they got us into this mess.
Don’t be absurd. Even hyperbolically that’s a stretch. And it’s nothing to do with inaction and everything to do with appeasement. It was wrong when Chamberlain did it and it’s wrong for Democrats to have done it and still do it. They are far better than Republicans while still being pretty bad in general but they have made real palpable positive changes in my lifetime. Slower than I’d like and not as far as I would like. But let’s be fair at least acknowledge it.
In my lifetime, the only thing of substance the Ds have done was the ACA…it’s arguably the worst fucking thing we could have possibly imagined for healthcare.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get coverage off the market place, but for a family plan equivalent to my last employer is 2400 a month. That’s more than all my other bills combined.
It’s tragically bad at this point. Employers have realized they can fire staff and hire them back as contractors and not offer benefits. Those are the jobs Biden is touting…
Green energy is cool n all…but they need to gut the requirements for new cars to make them affordable. Who the fuck needs a forward facing camera? That will be standard in 2026…that’s a 500 dollar add on at least. Lane assist is standard…2k, airbags 2k a pop…the most bare bones bs EV you can buy is like 40k. (ICE isn’t much better due to all that shit)
No…the Democrats have not substantially made life better. They lost the supreme Court and let the R’s trash the constitution with abandon.
Acceptable to whom?
Obviously the strategy of voter shaming is acceptable to a lot of people.
I despise voter shaming. The politicians have to EARN our votes. Always. No exceptions.
Some folks are trying to flip this dynamic on its head, where the politician will do nice policies but only if we’re going to be good little boys and girls, shut up, stop making demands, and just vote for the billionaire-approved functionary.
The politicians have to EARN our votes. Always. No exceptions.
Only up until this exception: When the neofascist movement captures America. Then they won’t even need our votes, let alone earn them.
And the reason why it was allowed to get this far was exactly that attitude of “as long as they’re not as bad as the other team, they have my vote”.
Every time the Republicans moved right, the Dems moved with them, always chasing those (increasingly rare to the point of almost being extinct) “undecided” voters who are considering voting Republican but wouldn’t rather die than vote Dem.
As the Overton window has moved with the major parties, we now have literal fascists and anarcho-capitalists being described as if they were just your standard legitimate conservatives and a DEM president that governs to the right of Reagan on almost everything and to the right of everyone since Truman (or maybe even Hoover) on Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, except for the Mango Mussolini himself.
All of that could have been avoided if people had held the people supposed to represent their best interests accountable beyond “I’ll vote for you as long as you’re even a tiny bit less bad than the alternative”.
All of that could have been avoided if people had held the people supposed to represent their best interests accountable beyond “I’ll vote for you as long as you’re even a tiny bit less bad than the alternative”.
Nope. The one and only thing that can move the overton window to the left is for Dems to win multiple elections in a row.
Yeah, because THAT will ever happen when they insist on sticking to the 1992 strategy of targeting only undecided almost-republicans, a dwindling and already tiny portion of the population 🙄
Please, get off your computer. Go outside and talk to some real, average, people in your life. This is NOT a healthy thing to believe. You need help if this is how you really feel about life.
Wow. That’s either a textbook cult member/apparatchik mindset or an excellent sarcastic jab at that of others. Please be the latter 🤞
Whatever gets people more money. Sigh. 🫡
BIDEN is fucking complicit if he’s so weak that CNN can make a difference
Biden is not that great
Who said Biden was great?
The vote is between fascism and not fascism. The representatives for those choices is just a sponsored popularity contest.
Biden failed to push back against Trump during the interview. This is not on CNN.
Again, I don’t care about either the debate or the interview, that’s all part of the sponsored popularity contest.
If what you meant in your initial comment was that Biden wasn’t great in the interview I suggest you write what you mean next time, as it stands it reads as a general indictment on the man, and when you consider the opponent it’s totally irrelevant.
The article claims all the attacks on Biden are pure gaslighting, which is obviously not true.
People are free to defend Biden but the claim that CNN is out to get him is ridiculous.
Your choice of language shows that you are in fact “out to get him”. I’m not sure you know what the word gaslighting means, but I won’t blame you for that because it’s kind of a fancy buzzword these days.
Nobody is saying that people are out to get Biden. People are saying that many mainstream media networks are setting magically low standards for Donald Trump and absurdly high standards for Joe Biden. This is incredibly obvious once you look at a few examples, so people can’t effectively deny it, and instead they try to deflect. That’s what you tried to do, and it’s not working.
Remember that Trump was convicted of over 30 felonies. That’s pretty bad, but it’s even worse because he committed those felonies to cover up the fact that he was sleeping around because he knew that if people found out, he would have lost the election. In other words, he broke the law to win the presidency, he succeeded, and nobody should ever forgive him. Any responsible newspaper should be reiterating this fact anytime they write a political article about him.
But that’s not the worst thing he’s done. We have clear proof from the defamation case that he committed sexual assault, and sadly he couldn’t be convicted of that because of the statute of limitations, but there’s no doubt that he did it. This again should be brought up anytime a responsible newspaper wants to write an article about his presidential run.
I could go on and on, but it’s not necessary. If you look at the above two examples, you see that the man has no moral integrity. He’s a terrible human being, he does terrible things to other human beings, and he’s going to keep doing that until the day he dies. We all know it, and every journalist with a conscience has a duty to point it out whenever they report on him.
But they don’t. They ignore it. Instead they write about how Biden looks old and sometimes gives incoherent answers. Instead they say that Biden should withdraw from the race. And that, my friend, is the problem.
They covered Trumps convictions plenty. Do they need to bring it up every single day?
Biden’s age is a topic because Biden whiffed the debate. It’s a relevant news subject. Trumps convictions are not news anymore.
Yes, every article should mention his horrible crimes. It really is that bad. Where’s the apology? Where’s the rehabilitation? … Without those, you have a horrible criminal who’s unfit for any public service job, and it’s the duty of media to repeatedly bring it up.
Nice strawman you’ve constructed there but the joke’s on you, there isn’t a single Democrat who thinks Biden is “great” – we all just think he’s not as much of a piece of absolute human shit that Trump is.
Good to know that it’s the bar for being able to run one of the most powerful countries. “Not as much of a piece of shit as Trump”.
Shouldn’t a person need to be"Great" to be elected president?
I’m a democrat. I think Biden is great. He’s done an amazing job, and I think his wins will continue.
Why do you and other Centrists keep saying that as if us on the Left don’t know, and as if that will get us to vote for Biden? Everyone knows Trump is the worst. There’s literally over 100 million people in the US that would be a better choice than Trump. Why should Biden get the vote out of all of them? “Because he’s the nominee” “there’s not enough time for a replacement” “some states are dumb and won’t change the ballot in time” don’t give a fuck. Why should Biden get my vote?
Trump is a lot less great than that.
