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> progressives aren't known for wanting to be neutral or muted about their causes. Activism and "everything is political" are fundamental aspects of their world

> progressives aren't known for wanting to be neutral or muted about their causes. Activism and "everything is political" are fundamental aspects of their worldview. I'd agree with this 100% if it didn't pretend that this is only true of progressives. This is undeniably true about the hard right as well.

Karunamon 4y ago
Indeed it is, but the 'hard right' doesn't exist on CNN. I wouldn't expect people to bring up the problems with progressive commentators on a thread about, say, Fox News, because they don't exist over there. To me, in this thread with this topic, this reads as whataboutism.
- heleninboodler 4y ago
  The GP presented these properties as if they are unique to progressives. It's not whataboutism to point out that they aren't. If they'd simply attributed activism and an "everything is political" attitude to CNN, that would have been reasonable since this discussion is about CNN, but they decided to expand this attribution to to "progressives", which is a very different thing.
  - SllX 4y ago
    Only if you flatly ignore the context. BitwiseFool’s original commentary was not just about progressives, it was also about CNN’s staffing choices.
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    >"The GP presented these properties as if they are unique to progressives. " I genuinely wasn't trying to do that. The article, and discussion, was around progressives when I shared my observation and thoughts about them. Wanting to stay in focus, I kept my comment and observation about them only. I'm genuinely surprised that by not bringing up a contrast with other political ideologies I'm perceived as believing it is unique to them.
    - heleninboodler 4y ago
      Really, I think the word you should have used instead of "progressives" in your original statement was "people."
      - BitwiseFool 4y ago
        To be honest, I think using "people" rather than "progressives" would be less insightful and would ignore a genuine perception that I, and probably many others, have with progressives as a whole. They are insistent, they are vocal, and they seem particularly driven and uncompromising when it comes to fighting for what they believe. I wanted to present this in a neutral or matter-of-fact way. It can either be seen as a negative (progressives are pushy and obstinate), or it can be seen as virtuous (progressives are relentless in the pursuit of justice). After reading through all the comments in this thread, I get the sense that many commenters want to dismiss any perception that is remotely negative about the behavior of progressives by attributing the alleged attributes as something that, one, other groups do more, and two, something that everyone does. But in so doing, progressivism becomes something you can only ascribe unquestionably positive attributes to.
        heleninboodler 4y ago
        I'm not sure how to reconcile "I want to present this as neutral" with "but I also want to say, without supporting evidence, that progressives do this more." I make absolutely no claims about being able to objectively say which side does this more, but it is clear to me that both sides do it a ton, so trying to attribute it more to one side in any significant way requires some evidence that hasn't been offered. And for the record, I'd have made the same objection if in some alternate universe comment thread you'd tried to claim this was a particularly conservative trait too. There are unlimited examples of either side being egregiously bias-driven, insistent, vocal, uncompromising, hyper-partisan, activist, etc. There is remarkably little news on either side that's free of it. Note also that this isn't an "I will ignore that because both sides do it" argument. It's deeply disappointing in all cases.

Karunamon 4y ago

Indeed it is, but the 'hard right' doesn't exist on CNN. I wouldn't expect people to bring up the problems with progressive commentators on a thread about, say, Fox News, because they don't exist over there. To me, in this thread with this topic, this reads as whataboutism.

heleninboodler 4y ago
The GP presented these properties as if they are unique to progressives. It's not whataboutism to point out that they aren't. If they'd simply attributed activism and an "everything is political" attitude to CNN, that would have been reasonable since this discussion is about CNN, but they decided to expand this attribution to to "progressives", which is a very different thing.
- SllX 4y ago
  Only if you flatly ignore the context. BitwiseFool’s original commentary was not just about progressives, it was also about CNN’s staffing choices.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  >"The GP presented these properties as if they are unique to progressives. " I genuinely wasn't trying to do that. The article, and discussion, was around progressives when I shared my observation and thoughts about them. Wanting to stay in focus, I kept my comment and observation about them only. I'm genuinely surprised that by not bringing up a contrast with other political ideologies I'm perceived as believing it is unique to them.
  - heleninboodler 4y ago
    Really, I think the word you should have used instead of "progressives" in your original statement was "people."
    - BitwiseFool 4y ago
      To be honest, I think using "people" rather than "progressives" would be less insightful and would ignore a genuine perception that I, and probably many others, have with progressives as a whole. They are insistent, they are vocal, and they seem particularly driven and uncompromising when it comes to fighting for what they believe. I wanted to present this in a neutral or matter-of-fact way. It can either be seen as a negative (progressives are pushy and obstinate), or it can be seen as virtuous (progressives are relentless in the pursuit of justice). After reading through all the comments in this thread, I get the sense that many commenters want to dismiss any perception that is remotely negative about the behavior of progressives by attributing the alleged attributes as something that, one, other groups do more, and two, something that everyone does. But in so doing, progressivism becomes something you can only ascribe unquestionably positive attributes to.
      - heleninboodler 4y ago
        I'm not sure how to reconcile "I want to present this as neutral" with "but I also want to say, without supporting evidence, that progressives do this more." I make absolutely no claims about being able to objectively say which side does this more, but it is clear to me that both sides do it a ton, so trying to attribute it more to one side in any significant way requires some evidence that hasn't been offered. And for the record, I'd have made the same objection if in some alternate universe comment thread you'd tried to claim this was a particularly conservative trait too. There are unlimited examples of either side being egregiously bias-driven, insistent, vocal, uncompromising, hyper-partisan, activist, etc. There is remarkably little news on either side that's free of it. Note also that this isn't an "I will ignore that because both sides do it" argument. It's deeply disappointing in all cases.