Hate Sells category archive
All the News that Fits (and Very Little of the News that Doesn’t) 0
At northjersey.com, Jim Beckerman reports on the news that wasn’t reported. A snippet:
We waited and waited.
There was one reference, somewhere between 9:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. A shooting in Buffalo had occurred, Fox told its viewers, and people were dead. But no elaboration, no commentary, no on-the-scene interviews. Perhaps 15 seconds, all told.
He goes on theorize that this was because the shooter embraced “replacement theory,” which a number of Fox News voices have been spreading energetically.
Follow the lin for his reasoning.
Originalist Sin 0
At the Bangor Daily News, Gordon Weil looks at the implications of Justice (sic) Alito’s draft abortion decision. He is not sanguine. A nugget:
That’s constitutional originalism. That logic could raise the question of whether the Second Amendment right to own a gun, adopted in 1791, should be limited to protecting only muzzle-loader ownership.
If the only rights the federal government can protect are limited to those expressly listed in the Constitution and then only as they applied when the document was adopted, the U.S. would plunge headlong back to the late 1700s.
The Republican Platform 0
PoliticalProf sums it up.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
The Arizona Republic’s E. J. Montini dissects the deception behind the dog whistle (emphasis added).
They were playing off a book published in France some years earlier claiming that Europe was being overrun by immigrants (in this case, Muslim and Black immigrants) under a plan by “elites” to replace native-born Europeans.
This ugly “replacement theory” was quickly picked up by nativists here and expanded to “you will not replace us.”
(snip)
Creating an honest and fair immigration system, and a secure border, is a sensible, necessary national policy. This isn’t that.
This is an attempt to use fear and deep-seeded insecurities to win elections. And it works.
American Taliban 0
Robert Elliott is fed up with all those authoritarian voyeurs.
Indoctrination Nation 0
The Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald do the math.
The Fear Factor(ies), Reprise 0
(Warning: Short commercial at the end.)
The Fear Factor(ies) 0
At AL.com, John Archibald reflects of the fear-mongering tactics of (mostly Republican) candidates in Alabama. I think what he says, though, applies in many election campaigns in many states.
Here’s a bit (emphasis added); follow the link for the complete article.
And hey, I’m afraid, too. I’m afraid of the fear mongering, of those who seek power by dividing people into us and them, who lead mobs with rhetorical – usually – torches. . . .
But it’s not just the ads. The problem is that politics and cultural bluster have become way more important than genuine solutions to real problems.
As the Twig Is Bent . . . 0
. . . and, boy, are these twigs bent.
And you know very well they didn’t get that way all on their ownsome.
Precedented 0
Writing at the Orlando Sentinel, Miles Zaremski argues that there is precedent for Justice (sic) Alito’s draft abortion decision. A snippet:
Follow the link for his reasoning.
Our Impending Idiocracy 0
David discusses a truly disturbing campaign ad and what it implies about the state of our can-you-still-call-it-a polity. (Warning: Short commercial at the end.)
The Marjorie Taylor Greene New Deal 0
Aside:
Farron missed the undercurrent. Let’s decode the code.
When right-wingers attack “welfare,” they are invoking the spirit and racist imagery of Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen.” The word “welfare” has become yet another racist dog whistle.
A Notion of Immigrants, Reprise 0
Sam and his crew discuss the Republicans’ weaponization of anti-immigrant bigotry.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
(The flags above the right-hand door are flags of South and Central American nations.)
Dis Coarse Discourse, He’s So Special Dept. 0
Scott Maxwell reports on a Florida legislator who can’t stand it if he doesn’t get his way. A snippet:
Why? Because organizers of a fundraiser at a local Chick-fil-A didn’t invite him to attend. Instead, they invited one of Randy’s sworn enemies, a school board member Randy hates with a white-hot, absurdist passion.
So Randy did what any responsible, faith-promoting person would do — called that woman a “whore” and said funding for the Special Olympics was now in jeopardy.
Fanatics Fomenting Fanaticism 0
Michael in Norfolk opines that, on one topic at least, Barry Goldwater was correct.