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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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who tried to live up to their opposition's supposed standards

Except it wasn't the opposition's standards - at least not on election denialism. The difference between that and "being racist" by wanting to deport people is vast.

The idea of accepting election results was uncontroversial on both sides until Trump talked. The benefits of polarization.

Hell, the Dominion lawsuit revealed that, even within Fox, people who didn't excoriate him in public were dubious but worried about their audience.

But I guess they were also playing by Democrat standards?

The idea of accepting election results was uncontroversial on both sides until Trump talked. The benefits of polarization.

This seems like a strange claim to me. Would you classify the two-year investigation of "Russian interference" by a Special Prosecutor as "accepting election results"? "Not My President"? Hillary - the actual losing candidate - calling Trump an illegitimate President? Sadly, the civilized norms had already been well eroded by 2020.

The idea of accepting election results was uncontroversial on both sides until Trump talked. The benefits of polarization.

I remember watching a documentary about how Bush stole the election with Diebold voting machines. Do you mean uncontroversial among politicians? I guess not since you mentioned Fox reporters.

Accusations of unfair elections have always been around, but the politicians themselves are supposed to accept defeat. Consider the 2000 presidential election: Al Gore disputed 1 legitimately very close state with sketch election practices, and when he lost the court challenges, that was it. There weren't dozens of lawsuits filed against every state and election official where he lost, alleging far-flung conspiracies. There wasn't a riot at the Capitol. There was definitely a lot of double-think and crappy opinionating from the peanut gallery (e.g. is it a question for Florida state courts or SCOTUS; depends on who everyone thinks they'll side with) but I think overall I think he had a much better case than Trump for losing unfairly and managed to handle it more gracefully.

I could quibble about some details, but I don't really have anything against what you said. It might be a tone thing, but I can understand where someone saying "there was a riot at the capitol, and the way Trump was acting was the most likely cause of it. That's pretty damn bad compared to recent presidential candidates" is coming from, but when someone unironically calls it an insurrection, I check out.

I specifically used the word riot because of how charged "insurrection" is!

The extent to which said riot was even Trump's fault is... eh. I'm personally inclined to blame individuals for their own actions. The 1/6 riot was the fault of the rioters, not Trump. BLM riots were the fault of BLM rioters, not some academic writing a sociology paper on how riots are the voice of the unheard. Mass shootings are the fault of mass shooters, not the NRA. It's not so much that he's mostly to blame as that I think we should have a very high standard when it comes to "are politicians following rules and norms for a peaceful transfer of power." Trump's behavior was a contributing cause, but even if it's only 5% of the cause, it should 0.001% (numbers fabricated).

Do you mean uncontroversial among politicians? I guess not since you mentioned Fox reporters.

Politicians especially are expected to concede publicly but, yes, I cited Fox to say that even they would were dubious about the path they were on. If it was normal why would they be?

But I just looked up that documentary and apparently it was Emmy nominated which is...shocking. Good counterexample.

If it was normal why would they be?

There were stats going around at one point about how the majority of Fox News employees donate to the Democrats, this old reddit post with a dead link is all that I could find about it now, but it could go some way to explaining the crew's selective memory about election legitimacy claims. Also the Republican establishment itself isn't all that hot on Trump either, so there's a potential reason for them to be biased even if they're Republicans.

I managed to find the blogpost, which the reddit post linked.

If the images don't work, they are: one and two.

@Tanista

Thanks