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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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How to Make a Semi-Fascist Party.

The Enemy.

a notable break for a movement that, in the pre-Trump days, had at least pretended to stand against “big government.”

Assumption of bad faith.

Christina Pushaw, whose official title is director of rapid response for the governor but whose role could be more accurately described as minister of propaganda,

Seriously? Pushaw is certainly a PR/press contact person for a politician, similar to the White House Press Secretary. I'd like an example of Chait evenhandedly referring to, say, Jen Psaki as Biden's "minister of propaganda."

Why yes, overwhelming bias sounds exactly on point. And given that obvious bias, an intelligent reader should not take his "summarizing and characterizing what was said at the conference" at face value, which undermines everything else in the article. These aren't "small points;" from the headline on down, it's his entire framing of the conference!

Why yes, overwhelming bias sounds exactly on point. And given that obvious bias, an intelligent reader should not take his "summarizing and characterizing what was said at the conference" at face value, which undermines everything else in the article. These aren't "small points;" from the headline on down, it's his entire framing of the conference!

So, upon reading gattsuru's response, I do agree with you that he's being fairly biased.

However, I'm not convinced that what's being reported in necessarily affected by his bias because it sounds like what has been reported by others regarding the strengthening of the conservative populist movement in the first place. The general points about identifying left-leaning journalists, seemingly-woke corporations, and making the perceived 2020 election theft as the important narrative thrusts seem like the kind of thing we were already hearing before Chait's article.

So I think it's necessary to separate what his bias is (his title about the fascist slide or his description of Pushaw as a propaganda minister) from what he's reporting about. It's certainly possible that even that isn't accurate, but I'm not convinced of that yet.