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Disclosure: I deeply loathe Trump, and I think he is unfit for office; very glad to see Mueller investigation initiated, because there was a lot of smoke and it

Disclosure: I deeply loathe Trump, and I think he is unfit for office; very glad to see Mueller investigation initiated, because there was a lot of smoke and it needed to happen. But the author is very correct. A 'free press' is the 5th estate - an important part of civil society. ... but it only works if they have integrity. Over the last two years it has become clear how narrow and biased they have become in their contempt for Trump and of course in search of 'more clicks'. This is a deep wound for America that I do not think we can blame on Trump himself, however much some of us may loathe him. Trump is a Loki who exposed a serious degradation in another part of the system and it has to remedied. Sadly, I do not think they will admit their failures, and they will not reform, and as a result, we're going to be having wars over 'fake news' for a long time. Post-Edit: I don't want this to take away from critiquing Trump for some of the awful things that he's said, or some of his questionable policies - my only point is 'the press broke' on this, and it's a legitimate concern. If the press lacks integrity, we lose the ability to hold people to account.

pmoriarty 8y ago
Half the reason Trump got elected was that the media just couldn't shut up about him. They're his best friends. If anything, all this media coverage shows is that the US mainstream media is now spectacularly ineffective and irrelevant. They might have brought down Nixon, but they can't bring down Trump. Everybody on all sides already has their minds made up, and they only read the news for entertainment, to confirm their biases, and to find talking points.
- mellow-lake-day 8y ago
  The media also chose to spread the emails stolen by Russian intelligence instead of covering the Hollywood access tapes.
  - oh_sigh 8y ago
    It's 'acccess hollywood', and they were extensively covered in the last 4 weeks before the 2016 election. Maybe it would have had a bigger impact if it dropped earlier. One wonders if it was intentionally held back to be a last minute kill-shot, or if it was truly just discovered in October 2016: > An NBC source said that an Access Hollywood producer remembered the conversation on Monday, October 3, and located it in the show's archives.[4][11] The celebrity news website TMZ reports a different chronology: when senior executives at NBC learned about the video, they thought it was too early in the presidential campaign season to release it with maximum effect, and (according to TMZ) those executives publicly said they learned of the video long after they actually learned about it.[12][13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_tape#Publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_...
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago
    What were you watching, they were completely silent on the emails, even though a lot of them were really salacious. They reiterated they were illegally obtained and wouldn't show them, or press anyone who wouldn't comment on them, but then they displayed leaks during the Trump Administration almost everyday... The Hollywood access tape was covered for weeks, and it's not exactly political. We've all said things in private that would make us look bad if they were recorded and displayed to the world. He apologized for it.
Theodores 8y ago
It is a pity you have to put the big disclosure at the top of your comment. But our media have made things very binary black and white. Not buying into the 'red scare' means that in the eyes of some you must be a Trump supporter. This is a failure of critical thinking and far too many people fall into this trap, thereby perpetuating things like 'RussiaGate' when it no longer makes sense to do so. The suspicions won't die down amongst those that have been sat in front of their televisions feeding their imaginations with 'RussiaGate'. To them 'it happened but it could not be proven'. Their suspicions are still confirmed. There is also a failure to take people at their word when it could be prudent to do so in this world of politics and lying. People have motivation for lying and people have motivation for being honest. The leadership in Russia - Putin, Lavrov and others - have stated why it is that they have not secretly foisted Trump on the American people. But those that don't listen don't want to take them for their word on that. Fundamentally the Kremlin see other nations as having national interests and, in the case of America, they have no need to care about who sits in the Oval Office as the national interests will be the same. The Pentagon isn't going to go away, the need for oil isn't going to go away, the need for the world to be using the dollar as the world currency isn't going to go away. American capitalism is always going to be what it is. American national interests are a constant as far as Russia is concerned. They cannot expect some external change, they have to be self-reliant and foster their own good relationships with traditional partners. The Russian leadership have also stated why it is not in their interest to put 'their man' in the Oval Office. It is not due to any standards of conduct it is simpler than that. Thinking two moves ahead, what legitimacy would a puppet President hold, how long would he/she last and how would Russia be treated should the American people find out? The Kremlin have thought this out. However, explaining to someone that the Russians are not motivated to influence the American elections also falls under the 'instant disclaimer'. 'So you must be a Putin fan?' is the expectation for proffering this explainer. But it is not about that, it is about understanding motivation and the Russian leadership are not motivated to influence American elections in some super-sneaky way. There is a failure by the press that have pursued RussiaGate to empathise and understand others, whether they be the people that voted for Trump, the Russians, the Democrat machine or even themselves. It is because of this that you are correct, the press will not reform. It is not in their culture and they don't have the mindset to do so.
- 8y ago
philpem 8y ago
To be fair, we've been having these wars for many years already... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
mattmanser 8y ago
There's no lack of integrity critiquing an extreme position, or extreme incompetence. There's nothing wrong with the press on this one.
cm2187 8y ago
But also this sort of fishing expedition can be triggered by both sides and is extremely unhelpful for democracy. For the moment it is a "winner gets investigated", just because of the opposition to Trump within the FBI and parts of the conservative party. But what's next? Looser gets investigated to ensure he cannot run again?
omegaworks 8y ago
As long as for-profit media has access to the broadcast spectrum in a way that non-profit, independent media does not, our 5th estate will be subject to perverse incentives that favor "click-based" content. We made a choice, in this country, to give away our spectrum to the highest bidder, no questions asked. We used to restrict programs that called themselves "news" to have to present a balanced, reality-grounded perspective, but by the early 90s fear of alternatives like the internet provided the fodder to dismantle that regulation. It wasn't necessarily bad foresight either. These days, influencers on YouTube regularly get the same viewership that cable news does. Only very recently[1] have we begun to grapple with the social decay and radicalization that results when their engagement-optimization algorithm meets vulnerable folks. Try searching for historical, economic or political content and see how quickly Related Videos draws you down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole. 1. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/youtube-announces-it-will-no-longer-recommend-conspiracy-videos-n969856 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/youtube-announces-it-...
happytoexplain 8y ago
I can never seem to follow any of the assertions that the media's negative coverage of Trump is, on par, biased away from reality, underserved, or contributing unnecessarily to the American rift in comparison to the politically opposite media's treatment of Trump. There are certainly biased outlets that are hurting us, but they don't seem to have changed with the arrival of Trump, relative to his own extremity. In fact, when you look at what's really there to critique about Trump, the media's reaction, taken as a whole, seems almost restrained.
jayd16 8y ago
I disagree. The Trump administration has done everything from secretly meet in Trump tower with Russian officials and lie about it to firing the head of the FBI because of the Russian investigation. In my mind, these two acts alone have warranted the last two years of coverage and investigation. Simply imagine a world where these things were ignored. How untrustworthy would the press seem then?
- jtbayly 8y ago
  Ignoring it is one thing. Practically promising collusion is another thing entirely.
  - rbg246 8y ago
    In my reading of the reports, they have stated what is known of the investigation, not promised anything.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Practically promising collusion is another thing entirely. The second (which is also a conviction by way of a guilty plea) and the final indictments made public were for collusion. Or, rather, for lying about collusion, but the collusion itself is part of the factual background of the indictments and a central and necessary one in each case. If there is a media failure, it's in continuously reporting the Presidents claim that no collusion was indicated and either letting it stand or endorsing it when that is factually incorrect.
- mc32 8y ago
  Don’t most campaigns, senators, etc., meet with foreign diplomats? Kerry went and met with foreign leaders despite not being part of the government. Carter does the same albeit with tacit or explicit approval. Also after Comey’s restart of the email investigation many Dems wanted him fired.
  - jayd16 8y ago
    Do most candidates have clandestine meetings with diplomats, lie about their existence, then once discovered lie about the matters discussed? No, it's not very common. The closest would probably be Nixon extending the Vietnam war. >Also after Comey’s restart of the email investigation many Dems wanted him fired. Irrelevant.
peisistratos 8y ago
I concur. I dislike Trump's comments about Mexican immigrants as rapists, his recent annexation of Syria's Golan Heights and so on and so forth. My comment history will attest to this. People on the left who are not part of the machine of the Democratic Party - Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, many lesser known people in that orbit, have said all along that this whole Trump/Russia thing has been overblown. The Democrats lost the 2016 election. Trump railed against NAFTA and TPP and campaigned around working class people in the Midwest and said the US was in too many wars abroad and steel workers needed help. Hillary took money from Wall Street, initially supported TPP, didn't visit the Midwest despite Michael Moore's entreaties - he was saying at the time which states she could lose, all of which she did. Nader said, paraphrasing - "The Democrats had unappealing policies in 2000 and lost, and in 2016 and lost. They could be self-critical and see US workers did not support their policies, and change them to be more appealing to US workers. Or they could keep taking corporate PAC money and find a scapegoat. They chose that option. The scapegoat was me (Nader) in 2000. In 2016 it was Putin." In a move to try to be less appealing to voters, the DCCC just passed a number of policies trying to prevent local Democratic parties from running primaries against incumbents. They want control to be held by incumbents and corporate PACs and party hacks - any body other than the local Democratic voters who do all the leg work and voting.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago
  I'm really curious if you really think he meant all Mexican immigrants are rapists? Have you read the stories what happens to those people who cross the border. The coyotes they pay, as well as people traveling with them, frequently rape them. There's many instances reported of this, even more going unreported due to the nature of the situation. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/03/us/border-rapes-migrant-women.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/03/us/border-rapes-migrant-w... It's crazy in this #MeToo era that this issue isn't more in the spotlight. 1 in 3 women are raped when they make their way to the border. Even Politifact had to agree, though they gave Trump a half-true because they used a sample instead of knowing every person who was raped and taking it "out of context", whatever that means lol. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/jan/25/donald-trump/trump-said-1-3-migrant-women-sexually-assaulted-jo/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/jan... Trump said, "One in three women is sexually assaulted on the dangerous journey north." A 2017 report from Doctors Without Borders said 31.4 percent of women had been sexually abused during their transit through Mexico. That's based on a 2015 survey of more than 400 migrants interviewed in facilities where migrants seek assistance. (The majority of migrants interviewed were men.) Doctors Without Borders said its report provided a snapshot in time of the perils migrants face, but said it wasn’t necessarily representative of the entire migrant population traveling through Mexico. Trump’s statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate it Half True.
abrahamepton 8y ago
> Over the last two years it has become clear how narrow and biased they have become in their contempt for Trump and of course in search of 'more clicks'. > This is a deep wound for America that I do not think we can blame on Trump himself, however much some of us may loathe him. > Trump is a Loki who exposed a serious degradation in another part of the system and it has to remedied. Who are you? What is happening? This is totally deranged. "Trump is a Loki"!?
IdontRememberIt 8y ago
What strikes me is that this trend is global (International) and not local (US). Trump (and many other public figures in other countries) are the products of a situation and not the causes.
_cs2017_ 8y ago
I'm curious, do you think without your disclosure, people would have read your post differently? Occasionally (both online and in real life) I feel that whatever I say tends to be interpreted in the binary: "are you with us or against us". This makes it hard to have a thoughtful discussion. Clarifying that I'm loyal to whatever cause the audience supports helps to some degree.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Politics is so heavily polarized that 'I assume they will assume'. I would hope on a forum such as HN people wouldn't make assumptions ... but I think we all have an assumptive instinct on some level. Intersectional issues (race/gender/class), some things about China, obviously religion - they're all so loaded it's hard to have a discussion. Finally, even though I have very nuanced views of Trump, and don't think he's 'all bad' - and my own politics are utterly not on the American spectrum ... I just don't want to be associated with him frankly.
  - _cs2017_ 8y ago
    > Politics is so heavily polarized that 'I assume they will assume'. [...] Intersectional issues (race/gender/class), some things about China, obviously religion - they're all so loaded it's hard to have a discussion Agreed... That said, there are people who are happy to have an open discussion without judging everything on the basis of "friend" / "enemy". I wonder if there's a forum, online or offline, where ideas are shared and discussed in good faith.
    - CookieMon 8y ago
      > I wonder if there's a forum... There was one https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread... <- a very interesting read. Various satellite forums of slatestarcodex have grown and are around, and only the original Culture War thread is gone. That whole group seems to be politically mixed and at least partially vaccinated against the dangers of framing political disagreements in terms of tribes and dehumanising the outgroup/opponent.
thatoneuser 8y ago
While I respect your dislike of the guy, I think that the fact that you consider his words so bad compared to what other recent leaders have said or done is a direct example of this propaganda machine. I mean what's the word he's said? Hillary said ~1/4 of Americans are deplorable, and also made the sexist claim that women are the primary victims of war. Bush put us into a nearly 20 year war entrapment. Clinton had unsavory sexual relations with an underlying. Trump saying some bad things isn't enough for me. Unless you're also dissatisfied with the character of most presidents, I think your stance is the result of the propaganda machine.

pmoriarty 8y ago

Half the reason Trump got elected was that the media just couldn't shut up about him. They're his best friends. If anything, all this media coverage shows is that the US mainstream media is now spectacularly ineffective and irrelevant. They might have brought down Nixon, but they can't bring down Trump. Everybody on all sides already has their minds made up, and they only read the news for entertainment, to confirm their biases, and to find talking points.

mellow-lake-day 8y ago
The media also chose to spread the emails stolen by Russian intelligence instead of covering the Hollywood access tapes.
- oh_sigh 8y ago
  It's 'acccess hollywood', and they were extensively covered in the last 4 weeks before the 2016 election. Maybe it would have had a bigger impact if it dropped earlier. One wonders if it was intentionally held back to be a last minute kill-shot, or if it was truly just discovered in October 2016: > An NBC source said that an Access Hollywood producer remembered the conversation on Monday, October 3, and located it in the show's archives.[4][11] The celebrity news website TMZ reports a different chronology: when senior executives at NBC learned about the video, they thought it was too early in the presidential campaign season to release it with maximum effect, and (according to TMZ) those executives publicly said they learned of the video long after they actually learned about it.[12][13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_tape#Publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_...
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago
  What were you watching, they were completely silent on the emails, even though a lot of them were really salacious. They reiterated they were illegally obtained and wouldn't show them, or press anyone who wouldn't comment on them, but then they displayed leaks during the Trump Administration almost everyday... The Hollywood access tape was covered for weeks, and it's not exactly political. We've all said things in private that would make us look bad if they were recorded and displayed to the world. He apologized for it.

Theodores 8y ago

It is a pity you have to put the big disclosure at the top of your comment. But our media have made things very binary black and white. Not buying into the 'red scare' means that in the eyes of some you must be a Trump supporter. This is a failure of critical thinking and far too many people fall into this trap, thereby perpetuating things like 'RussiaGate' when it no longer makes sense to do so. The suspicions won't die down amongst those that have been sat in front of their televisions feeding their imaginations with 'RussiaGate'. To them 'it happened but it could not be proven'. Their suspicions are still confirmed. There is also a failure to take people at their word when it could be prudent to do so in this world of politics and lying. People have motivation for lying and people have motivation for being honest. The leadership in Russia - Putin, Lavrov and others - have stated why it is that they have not secretly foisted Trump on the American people. But those that don't listen don't want to take them for their word on that. Fundamentally the Kremlin see other nations as having national interests and, in the case of America, they have no need to care about who sits in the Oval Office as the national interests will be the same. The Pentagon isn't going to go away, the need for oil isn't going to go away, the need for the world to be using the dollar as the world currency isn't going to go away. American capitalism is always going to be what it is. American national interests are a constant as far as Russia is concerned. They cannot expect some external change, they have to be self-reliant and foster their own good relationships with traditional partners. The Russian leadership have also stated why it is not in their interest to put 'their man' in the Oval Office. It is not due to any standards of conduct it is simpler than that. Thinking two moves ahead, what legitimacy would a puppet President hold, how long would he/she last and how would Russia be treated should the American people find out? The Kremlin have thought this out. However, explaining to someone that the Russians are not motivated to influence the American elections also falls under the 'instant disclaimer'. 'So you must be a Putin fan?' is the expectation for proffering this explainer. But it is not about that, it is about understanding motivation and the Russian leadership are not motivated to influence American elections in some super-sneaky way. There is a failure by the press that have pursued RussiaGate to empathise and understand others, whether they be the people that voted for Trump, the Russians, the Democrat machine or even themselves. It is because of this that you are correct, the press will not reform. It is not in their culture and they don't have the mindset to do so.

8y ago

philpem 8y ago

To be fair, we've been having these wars for many years already... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

mattmanser 8y ago

There's no lack of integrity critiquing an extreme position, or extreme incompetence. There's nothing wrong with the press on this one.

cm2187 8y ago

But also this sort of fishing expedition can be triggered by both sides and is extremely unhelpful for democracy. For the moment it is a "winner gets investigated", just because of the opposition to Trump within the FBI and parts of the conservative party. But what's next? Looser gets investigated to ensure he cannot run again?

omegaworks 8y ago

As long as for-profit media has access to the broadcast spectrum in a way that non-profit, independent media does not, our 5th estate will be subject to perverse incentives that favor "click-based" content. We made a choice, in this country, to give away our spectrum to the highest bidder, no questions asked. We used to restrict programs that called themselves "news" to have to present a balanced, reality-grounded perspective, but by the early 90s fear of alternatives like the internet provided the fodder to dismantle that regulation. It wasn't necessarily bad foresight either. These days, influencers on YouTube regularly get the same viewership that cable news does. Only very recently[1] have we begun to grapple with the social decay and radicalization that results when their engagement-optimization algorithm meets vulnerable folks. Try searching for historical, economic or political content and see how quickly Related Videos draws you down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole. 1. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/youtube-announces-it-will-no-longer-recommend-conspiracy-videos-n969856 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/youtube-announces-it-...

happytoexplain 8y ago

I can never seem to follow any of the assertions that the media's negative coverage of Trump is, on par, biased away from reality, underserved, or contributing unnecessarily to the American rift in comparison to the politically opposite media's treatment of Trump. There are certainly biased outlets that are hurting us, but they don't seem to have changed with the arrival of Trump, relative to his own extremity. In fact, when you look at what's really there to critique about Trump, the media's reaction, taken as a whole, seems almost restrained.

jayd16 8y ago

I disagree. The Trump administration has done everything from secretly meet in Trump tower with Russian officials and lie about it to firing the head of the FBI because of the Russian investigation. In my mind, these two acts alone have warranted the last two years of coverage and investigation. Simply imagine a world where these things were ignored. How untrustworthy would the press seem then?

jtbayly 8y ago
Ignoring it is one thing. Practically promising collusion is another thing entirely.
- rbg246 8y ago
  In my reading of the reports, they have stated what is known of the investigation, not promised anything.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Practically promising collusion is another thing entirely. The second (which is also a conviction by way of a guilty plea) and the final indictments made public were for collusion. Or, rather, for lying about collusion, but the collusion itself is part of the factual background of the indictments and a central and necessary one in each case. If there is a media failure, it's in continuously reporting the Presidents claim that no collusion was indicated and either letting it stand or endorsing it when that is factually incorrect.
mc32 8y ago
Don’t most campaigns, senators, etc., meet with foreign diplomats? Kerry went and met with foreign leaders despite not being part of the government. Carter does the same albeit with tacit or explicit approval. Also after Comey’s restart of the email investigation many Dems wanted him fired.
- jayd16 8y ago
  Do most candidates have clandestine meetings with diplomats, lie about their existence, then once discovered lie about the matters discussed? No, it's not very common. The closest would probably be Nixon extending the Vietnam war. >Also after Comey’s restart of the email investigation many Dems wanted him fired. Irrelevant.

peisistratos 8y ago

I concur. I dislike Trump's comments about Mexican immigrants as rapists, his recent annexation of Syria's Golan Heights and so on and so forth. My comment history will attest to this. People on the left who are not part of the machine of the Democratic Party - Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, many lesser known people in that orbit, have said all along that this whole Trump/Russia thing has been overblown. The Democrats lost the 2016 election. Trump railed against NAFTA and TPP and campaigned around working class people in the Midwest and said the US was in too many wars abroad and steel workers needed help. Hillary took money from Wall Street, initially supported TPP, didn't visit the Midwest despite Michael Moore's entreaties - he was saying at the time which states she could lose, all of which she did. Nader said, paraphrasing - "The Democrats had unappealing policies in 2000 and lost, and in 2016 and lost. They could be self-critical and see US workers did not support their policies, and change them to be more appealing to US workers. Or they could keep taking corporate PAC money and find a scapegoat. They chose that option. The scapegoat was me (Nader) in 2000. In 2016 it was Putin." In a move to try to be less appealing to voters, the DCCC just passed a number of policies trying to prevent local Democratic parties from running primaries against incumbents. They want control to be held by incumbents and corporate PACs and party hacks - any body other than the local Democratic voters who do all the leg work and voting.

s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago
I'm really curious if you really think he meant all Mexican immigrants are rapists? Have you read the stories what happens to those people who cross the border. The coyotes they pay, as well as people traveling with them, frequently rape them. There's many instances reported of this, even more going unreported due to the nature of the situation. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/03/us/border-rapes-migrant-women.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/03/us/border-rapes-migrant-w... It's crazy in this #MeToo era that this issue isn't more in the spotlight. 1 in 3 women are raped when they make their way to the border. Even Politifact had to agree, though they gave Trump a half-true because they used a sample instead of knowing every person who was raped and taking it "out of context", whatever that means lol. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/jan/25/donald-trump/trump-said-1-3-migrant-women-sexually-assaulted-jo/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/jan... Trump said, "One in three women is sexually assaulted on the dangerous journey north." A 2017 report from Doctors Without Borders said 31.4 percent of women had been sexually abused during their transit through Mexico. That's based on a 2015 survey of more than 400 migrants interviewed in facilities where migrants seek assistance. (The majority of migrants interviewed were men.) Doctors Without Borders said its report provided a snapshot in time of the perils migrants face, but said it wasn’t necessarily representative of the entire migrant population traveling through Mexico. Trump’s statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate it Half True.

abrahamepton 8y ago

> Over the last two years it has become clear how narrow and biased they have become in their contempt for Trump and of course in search of 'more clicks'. > This is a deep wound for America that I do not think we can blame on Trump himself, however much some of us may loathe him. > Trump is a Loki who exposed a serious degradation in another part of the system and it has to remedied. Who are you? What is happening? This is totally deranged. "Trump is a Loki"!?

IdontRememberIt 8y ago

What strikes me is that this trend is global (International) and not local (US). Trump (and many other public figures in other countries) are the products of a situation and not the causes.

_cs2017_ 8y ago

I'm curious, do you think without your disclosure, people would have read your post differently? Occasionally (both online and in real life) I feel that whatever I say tends to be interpreted in the binary: "are you with us or against us". This makes it hard to have a thoughtful discussion. Clarifying that I'm loyal to whatever cause the audience supports helps to some degree.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
Politics is so heavily polarized that 'I assume they will assume'. I would hope on a forum such as HN people wouldn't make assumptions ... but I think we all have an assumptive instinct on some level. Intersectional issues (race/gender/class), some things about China, obviously religion - they're all so loaded it's hard to have a discussion. Finally, even though I have very nuanced views of Trump, and don't think he's 'all bad' - and my own politics are utterly not on the American spectrum ... I just don't want to be associated with him frankly.
- _cs2017_ 8y ago
  > Politics is so heavily polarized that 'I assume they will assume'. [...] Intersectional issues (race/gender/class), some things about China, obviously religion - they're all so loaded it's hard to have a discussion Agreed... That said, there are people who are happy to have an open discussion without judging everything on the basis of "friend" / "enemy". I wonder if there's a forum, online or offline, where ideas are shared and discussed in good faith.
  - CookieMon 8y ago
    > I wonder if there's a forum... There was one https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread... <- a very interesting read. Various satellite forums of slatestarcodex have grown and are around, and only the original Culture War thread is gone. That whole group seems to be politically mixed and at least partially vaccinated against the dangers of framing political disagreements in terms of tribes and dehumanising the outgroup/opponent.

thatoneuser 8y ago

While I respect your dislike of the guy, I think that the fact that you consider his words so bad compared to what other recent leaders have said or done is a direct example of this propaganda machine. I mean what's the word he's said? Hillary said ~1/4 of Americans are deplorable, and also made the sexist claim that women are the primary victims of war. Bush put us into a nearly 20 year war entrapment. Clinton had unsavory sexual relations with an underlying. Trump saying some bad things isn't enough for me. Unless you're also dissatisfied with the character of most presidents, I think your stance is the result of the propaganda machine.