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I found her (Goldberg's) arguments to be the complete opposite of good straight from the get-go. The first point that stood out to me in her opening statement, that 'the media' is not 'ideologically captured' is just wrong. Like she doesn't understand what people are talking about. To reinforce her point she brings up the 'Red Wave' phenomenon the blue mainstream media were pushing in unison. A phenomenon that can be characterized entirely as 'I am afraid my enemy is going to win like they did last time'.
It seems to miss the point of what people have been saying about media bias. The point of the 'displeasure' of how the media was shilling for Hillary Clinton in 2016 wasn't that the media was saying that she was going to win. That was just a consequence of the actual problem. That problem being that 'the media' was obviously and completely in the tank for Hillary and an ill-defined political direction that we can code as 'blue'.
Because of this lack of understanding Goldberg's whole concept of 'over-correction' is just irrelevant at best. The media didn't 'correct' itself in any sense that relates to 'ideological capture'. It's still just as captured, just expressing itself differently. They recognized that they might have harmed 'the cause' and changed gears. They didn't change gears to correct their own beliefs. They changed gears so that they would stop harming the cause. From their perspective, in hindsight, it was obviously folly to say to your prospective voters that the election was in the bag. If you want to aid 'the cause' you must gin up your voters to vote. So you tell them that the enemy is mounting for an attack and that you must brace the gates, or you will lose everything you care about.
At risk of being too uncharitable to a person like this. Is she just that stupid? How can someone in her position look at this entire debacle, ongoing for years now, and still be so far off the mark? Is she a malicious actor?
She then moves into 'the big stories'. And says the mainstream media got most of them 'right'. She doesn't expand on what that means beyond that Trump and COVID where events that happened. Which, as a standard of 'rightness' doesn't seem to elevate mainstream media far above 'alternative' media but that's neither here nor there since she backpedals the argument a bit and says that you would be 'closer' to the 'truth' if you followed mainstream media and not 'alternative' sources. This is not really a truth apt claim since the 'truth' given out by blue media and non-blue media is simply not the same. This muddy language is then used to support her argument where she says that the hysteria ginned up about Trump was largely correct because January 6 happened. The problem here being obvious, one 'truth' says J6 was a coup attempt, the other 'truth' says it was a valid protest. If she is malicious, she is brilliant at what she does. If she isn't, she is an idiot savant at making stupid arguments.
I don't think you could underpin the concept of 'ideological capture' better that Goldberg does in her opening paragraphs of her opening statement. Not only does she demonstrate what it looks like, and that she is suffering from it. She also demonstrates that if blue journalists were fish, 'ideological capture' is the water they swim in. Lacking self-awareness to the point of absurdity.
I recently had a discussion with a guy who had a take along the lines "We should focus more on economy and not on culture war such as abortion or gay things that conservatives jin up constantly". When I pointed out that this would require the same sentiment from the left: stop going for trans rights, extending term of abortions or stop going for women quotas in professions and so forth. His answer was something along the lines that these are not CW topics, they are matter of unalienable rights that are outside of any discussion. And to me it seemed that he really believed it, he could not probably comprehend that let's say abortion from the position of conservative can be also viewed as question of human rights and preventing genocide. It just did not click.
I think that the whole "justice" angle fried the brains of some people. Everything is now matter of justice, fairness and human rights: we have climate justice, racial justice up to mundane things like dental care justice. In a sense this is "genius" position: every topic and policy I am in favor of is domain of fairness, justice and basic human rights. These are nonnegotiable and there is no compromise possible here, these are topics outside of standard political process and all reasonable people already agree. If you disagree it means you are extremist and not worthy of engaging in a discussion.
I'll grant you diversity quotas as a culture war topic the left is actively pushing on... but from my perspective the abortion and trans rights issues look entirely defensive from the left. The left wants the status quo ante of Roe v. Wade and wants trans people to be left alone. The right is the side making those into culture war issues, not the left.
Only in the "cries out in pain as he strikes you" sense, holy cow.
It's really interesting that you simultaneously suggest that "the left wants the status quo ante of Roe v. Wade," (nevermind that was imposed by SCOTUS and not anything like the result of a legislative process where all citizens had their say) because when it comes down to it the right wants the "status quo" of people with penises and Y chromosomes to have separate bathrooms, prisons, sports teams, and certain other facilities from people with uteruses and lacking Y chromosomes.
And definitely prefers the status quo where it doesn't matter what the person claims to identify as, the term 'man' and 'woman' has an easily verifiable component that isn't subject to the individual's personal preference. And that, on it's face, is entirely compatible with trans people being 'left alone.'
If trans people 'just want to be left alone' that message REALLY hasn't gotten through to the actual left.
Why else are, among other things, the existence of a biological male competing against biological females and unsurprisingly dominating the sport supposed to be celebrated as an achievement, even if this ruins the competition for biological females?
In what sense does this gel with trans people being 'left alone,' if it imposes on people who are trying to compete on something like a fair playing field?
Because blanketing a whole town with flags that represents your identity is almost fundamentally opposed to the concept of 'being left alone.' By this very act you are demanding people confront, acknowledge, accept, and support your particular beliefs. In so doing, you are requiring them pay attention, which is the opposite of leaving you alone.
Similarly when you make biological females wax your penis. That's not 'wanting to be left alone.' Nor is insisting to be allowed into a women's changing room with pubescent females. If this isn't some version of culture warring, then what is it?
You don't get to call it 'defensive' and then literally threaten to take people's kids away for failure to comply with your beliefs.
Or appoint openly trans officials to high ranking federal government positions seemingly only on the basis of their trans identity. This is not behavior that implies a desire to be 'left alone.' It is being openly stated there:
What is 'the faith' in this case?
"Just want to be left alone" but if you disagree with them, people at the very highest levels of government are ready to come for you.
I don't know that you're even arguing in good faith, but assuming you are, please put forward a plausible narrative of the last twenty years in which the right is the side that pushed trans issues to the forefront of public conciousness as a culture war issue.
I think the majority of trans people probably do want to just be left alone. But the loudmouth activists, and the mentally ill, have captured the microphone and are the ones getting all the publicity, and then you have the cis 'allies' who want to be patted on the head as one of the Good Ones who are marching right alongside them in the increasingly bananas demands.
Most likely. But that position blows up the claim that its the right who opened up this particular culture war front.
The left, once they won on same-sex marriage pivoted to this specific battle and pushed it forward with aplomb, anything the right did was directly in response to that.
The left pushed it forward? To my memory, the North Carolina "bathroom bill" was what pushed the trans rights discussion to the national stage. You apparently remember things differently? Wikipedia does mention various events leading up to the passage of that bill.
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