Hate Sells category archive
Devolution, Reprise 0
The Portland Press-Herald’s Greg Kesich sees an ominous trend (emphasis added):
At some point, the party went from hating Democrats to hating democracy . . . .
Follow the link for his reasoning.
Aside:
I can’t tell you exactly when the tipping point came about, but I can tell you when the tipping started: When Richard Nixon implemented the “southern strategy” (an idea, by the way, that he did not originate) and welcomed overt bigotry and racism into the Republican Party.
Devolution 0
Rex Huppke is less than optimistic about the fate of the polity; he fears that glorification of stupid which has taken root in some quarters does not bode well. Here’s just a tiny a bit from his article (emphasis added):
You can draw a straight line from the glorification of numbskullery and the rejection of facts to the Jan. 6 attack.
Yet somehow, since Jan. 6, the stupidity being peddled has only gotten worse. Trump and an astonishing array of Republicans and right-wing media types continue to insist the 2020 election was stolen. There is zero evidence to support that and, in fact, even the former president’s most loyal flunkies who have ham-handedly “audited” election results in various states have come up with zilch.
Repairing the Disinformation Superhighway 0
In an article syndicated by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, three scholars speak out on the role of “social” media in spreading mis- and disinformation, suggesting possible remedies to the flood of falsehoods pouring out of our screens. Here’s a bit of what one of them, a Michigan State professor, has to say (emphasis added); follow the link for the rest.
The bit I put in bold reinforces something I’ve observed since my earliest days participating in computer bulletin board systems and Usenet: For some reason, persons will believe unquestioningly something they read on a computer screen when they won’t believe the same thing if if happens right before their eyes.
And the reverse is also true: persons will refuse to believe something that happens before their very eyes if some rando on “social” media tells them that it didn’t happen (see the link to Dan Casey’s article in the previous post).
We are a society of stupid willing to cling to the stupid if being stupid makes us feel better, regardless of the harm it will bring in the end.
I am not sanguine.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Charles Blow decodes de code:
Follow the link for his reasoning.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Walter Suza muses about the Trumpettes’ abortive attempt to seize the Capitol. A snippet:
Flying that flag inside the seat of the legislative branch of the U.S. government enabled Seefried to drag all of us back to a past some would rather leave unspoken.
On our way with him to the United States’ past, we stopped briefly in 2000 when Alabama became the last state to end a law prohibiting interracial marriage.
And we didn’t stop there.
Follow the link to join Suza as he takes us with him back through that past.
Vaccine Nation 0
Paul Krugman makes sense of the senselessness. A snippet (emphasis in the original).
So none of this makes any sense — not, that is, unless you realize that Republican vaccine obstructionism isn’t about serving a coherent ideology, it was and is about the pursuit of power. A successful vaccination campaign would have been a win for the Biden administration, so it had to be undermined using any and every argument available.
Dis Coarse Discourse, Pretzel Logic Dept. 0
This torrent of demented drivel defending the Trumpettes’ attack on the Capitol a year ago yesterday astounds in its absurdity.
Let me summarize it for you: They were wrong but they had legitimate questions about the elect–they shouldn’t have done it but they were aggreiv–oh, hell. I’ll just go solve a maze instead.
He can’t bring himself to admit that they fell and are still falling for Trump’s Big Lie. Instead, he chooses to pretend that said lie was somehow legitimate.
We are a society of stupid.
Vaccine Nation 0
Warning: Short commercial at the end.
Debunking De Bunk 0
In a long, detailed article, the AP’s David Klepper tears apart what his story identifies as “the five top falsehoods” about the January 6 insurrection, which are spreading in right-wing and “social” media. Here’s a bit of debunking; follow the link for the rest of de bunk.
CLAIM: THE RIOTERS WEREN’T VIOLENT
Dozens of police officers were severely injured. One Capitol Police officer who was attacked and assaulted with bear spray suffered a stroke and died a day later of natural causes.
Former Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who rushed to the scene, said he was “grabbed, beaten, tased, all while being called a traitor to my country.” The assault stopped only when he said he had children. He later learned he had suffered a heart attack. Fanone resigned from the department in December 2021.
Rioters broke into the Senate chamber minutes after senators had fled under armed protection. They rifled through desks and looked for lawmakers, yelling, “Where are they?” In House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, staffers hid under desks while rioters called out the name of the California Democrat.
That’s not how some Republican politicians have described the insurrection.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
Apparently, law professor Amy Wax wants to bring back the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
Afterthought:
The United States’s immigration restrictions are a history of racism writ in law.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Christopher Dale is less than optimistic, and I fear he has reason.
Words Matter 0
One more time, “social” media isn’t.
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
In a fascinating example of history’s repeating itself, Karen Dunn and Roberta A. Kaplan explain how the increased racist militancy and violence of the New Secesh has breathed new life into the Ku Klux Klan act of 1871.
The False Idol 0
Michael in Norfolk muses upon those who believe in a craven image.