- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
Just because Republicans choose unreality doesnāt mean the media should ignore the facts of January 6.
On January 6, 2021, I watched CNN as thousands of Donald Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol. As someone well-versed in watching tragedy on television, I was struck by just how indisputable the facts were at the time: violent, red-hat-clad MAGA rioters, followed by Republicans in Congress, tried to stop democracy in its tracks. Trump had told his followers that the protest in Washington, DC, āwill be wild,ā and in the assault that followed his speech, some rioters smeared feces on the walls of the Capitol. Hundreds of them have since been convicted on charges ranging from assault on federal officers to seditious conspiracy. These are stubborn facts, the kind that do not care about your feelings. These facts include the inalienable truth that Trump is the first president in American history to reject the peaceful transfer of power.
It never occurred to me that these facts could somehow be perverted by partisanship. But three years later, we are seeing just that, as Republicans cling to the lie that the 2020 election was āstolenā by Joe Biden and are poised to make Trump their 2024 nominee. And perhaps even more dangerous than the GOP ditching reality is the news mediaās inability to cover Trumpism as the threat to democracy that it very much is.
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But the problem is, when all you have is conventional political framing, everything looks like politics as usual. One candidate makes a claim; the other disputes it. Two sides are divided, etc. This framing only works if both parties operate within the frameworks of a shared reality. But Trumpism doesnāt allow for the reality the rest of us inhabit. Trumpās supporters believe their leaderās reality and not, say, the reality the rest of us see with our eyes. As Trump once told a crowd: āDonāt believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. What youāre seeing and what youāre reading is not whatās happening.ā
Journalists may be well-intentioned in trying to be āobjective,ā or theyāre simply afraid of being labeled partisan. Either way, coverage of January 6 that gives equal weight to both sidesāone based in reality, one notāis helping pave the road for authoritarianism.
You will need a different source. That one is dodgy as fuck. We donāt fight right wing disinformation by trotting out disinformation of our own, so unless you can come up with a better source, no one should take your claim seriously.
The source has plenty of evidence inside of the article and is fully backed up by evidence of TV interviews, Haaretz articles, links to the family members whose interviews were falsified speaking out on social media. Even the IDF investigations evidence of the state of the bodies have shown to contradict these statements. No women were found beheaded or with their breasts cut off either.
I donāt care about what you perceive ādodgy as fuckā. The only thing that is dodgy as fuck is NYT publishing a Hamas rape fanfic as an article, that now has confirmed lies while providing exactly zero evidence except witness statements, which have now being debunked by multiple of the quotes people they supposedly āinterviewedā.