4 ms·

Hysterical commentary is contributing to the radicalisation on both sides.

• makomk 6y ago
  Not just hysterical, but unbelievably, cynically partisan. Three and a half years ago, someone radicalised by Facebook shot a group of members of Congress after asking them about their party affiliation. One of them, Steve Scalise, was hospitalized for a couple of months fighting for his life, and my understanding is that if some of the bullets had been just a couple of inches across he'd be dead right now for sure. The response of the New York Times and the mainstream press was to lie - to falsely claim that actually, it had nothing to do with political polarization and his party was the one that had incited the shooting of a member of Congress, Gabby Giffords, as he lay in hospital with potentially fatal injuries. (This was literally the exact diametric opposite of the truth - Giffords was shot by someone who had a weird grudge against her personally which had nothing to do with national politics.) There certainly wasn't any kind of concern about the radicalization behind it. In the eyes of the New York Times and the mainstream elite whose views it represents, it's like someone on the wrong side going to a protest and turning around when the property destruction starts is more violent, more dangerous, more in need of suppression by Facebook than someone on the correct side actually filling one of the other side's Congressman full of lead.
  • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    To my way of thinking, building a gallows outside the Capitol, with apparent intent to use it on the Vice President, is in at least the same category as filling a Congressman full of lead.