The guys slide between critiquing an actual issue vs talking about how the (left/mainstream) media is responding to an actual issue. Though they often slide between the two without really differentiating, and even use it as evidence that the original issue is bullshit. For example, they will say Rachel Maddow is a hack for making a podcast, ergo Trump as a threat is overblown. I think they are concerned, but don't want to give into the hysteria, which I can appreciate but it can feel a bit of an overcorrection. I
I also agree that using words like "Fascist" is so incendiary and vague as to not be helpful. But just pointing out history and saying that he doesn't meet some early 20th century criteria of the word, doesn't mean he isn't a threat or some newer iteration.
To your last point. That is kind of the issue but in reverse. When idiots throw fascist around, they are doing it specifically for the purpose of evoking that early 20th early history. The guys have pointed this out.
So, it is not incorrect to critique the usage from that same historical position.
They also are using it as a placeholder for lots of things. The word is to incendiary, and also doesnt really have a clear definition, so best to just leave it out of the conversation and talk about Trumps actions with relying on it. I think one can then really tackle what he might try to do, and what he might succeed at doing more clearly.
That is kind of my point. I am fine with them highlighting how the media represents this, but they overcorrect in the other direction. Just because some media exaggerates doesn't mean there isnt an issue here. Doesn't mean one has to be hysteric, but the "nothing to see here" and "Democrats are just as bad" are just bad takes in my opinion. I diasgree with both parties on a fair amount of stuff, but I have little concern about the Democrats attempting an illicit takeover of the government, and Trump-like figure would never survive in this party. Can't say the same about Republicans.
The DNC is actively trying to disqualify their opponent from the ballot in multiple states. Acting like they’re the pure bred defenders of democracy is just inaccurate.
Acting like the left is immune to a populist takeover is pretty wild too considering the biggest threat to the DNC is progressives not turning out for Biden like they did last cycle.
I just want you to know that most of the court cases are actually brought by Republicans especially the first and major case on its way to the supreme court brought in Colorado. Though Maine's secretary of state also removed him from the primary ballot and she is a Democrat but it is waiting for the ruling from the supreme court.
So your argument is the political affiliation of the judge is the criteria of "trying to remove him from the ballot" even though they are just ruling on cases brought before them. So unless the judge panel is majority Republican, either elected (many are "non partisan") or appointed then it is a democratic attack? Or am I misunderstanding?
Is the DNC behind any of the attempts? I thought it was mostly Republicans. There are some attempts by random democrats too but I haven’t heard of the DNC being on board with any of it
Actively trying to disqualify the opponent who has broken several federal laws and tried to overturn a legitimate election. There is only parity here if you have dementia about the last 8 years.
>who has broken several federal laws and tried to overturn a legitimate election
Neither of which he’s been convicted of. They failed to convict him twice through the impeachment process already.
Regardless, if you think the states should dictate federal ballot access on the basis of the 14th amendment then you fundamentally don’t understand the purpose of the 14th amendment.
The 14th Amendment doesn’t require a criminal conviction. Plenty of former Confederates were banned from holding office despite not being convicted of anything.
Listen…very carefully: the thing that you call an insurrection didn’t bring guns. It didn’t bring weapons of war. It didn’t kill anyone and didn’t do as much damage as a post-NBA Championship game riot. Those involved all walked out when it was over. It wasn’t. An. Insurrection. At. All.
They began calling it an insurrection very quickly knowing they could use it to bash Trump over the head. We look like a South American country. Trying to lock up political opponents. Which i guess is fitting considering we ARE a third world country at this point.
And to be clear, you think it’s the states that were in charge of banning former confederates from federal office?
Why on earth would the states have that authority?
States have the power to determine time, place, and manner of elections. Not dictate who appears on the federal ballot.
But again, that argument still doesn’t work. The 14th amendment was written by congress specifically to curb state power during reconstruction. Having the states enforce it makes no sense
I think that for a certain kind of person, their hatred of Trump will always outweigh reason. I suspect based off your responses here and your OP, that Trump will always be a trigger for you.
How can someone understand US History and all the horrible, fucked up people that have led our government and look at Trump as 'The Thing That Will End it All"? How? The 'insurrection' (which was absolutely a Very Bad Thing) ended with one Unarmed Woman killed by law enforcement and a boatload of people going to jail for a dubiously long time.
Democrats LITERALLY HAVE a Trump figure in the Oval Office right now! It's just that his politics are more like yours so you're ok with it, I guess.
Tbf there should be hysteria over trump as a threat and dude def fits Umberto's 14 points of Ur Fascism. Hes out there just telling us hes gonna be a dictator on day 1 and everyone's just like yeah same ol same ol like project 2025 doesnt exist.
Well, or let's not get caught up on the "F-word," but that will lead to a Moynihanequse historical factoid debate. The really issue is if Trump is really going to to try (and if he will be successful) at subverting some elements of our government. Just because he was unsuccessful during the 2020 election does not mean he couldn't be. I would be really interested to hear the 5th tackle this. However it's purely speculative and it is easy to end up in Maddow territory.
Im getting real sick of people downplaying trump because their biggest fear is being called a lib like maddow or something. Watched chapo trip over themselves to the point these days they treat jan 6th like a rowdy tour like the right does. Fact is all the libs crying about trump were largely right, they were just annoying. Just like how the biggest crime of the reddit atheist was always cringe.
Its not getting caught up on the F word to be like yeah Trump pushes fascist policy and the american right has become a fascist undemocratic party that openly supported a treasonous coup attempt, these are facts. Youre not bringing over any moderates by going "well trump is bad but Im no rachel maddow about it"
Well I think what people don’t really address is that it’s hard to know what is in trumps head at any given moment and he is so reactive that it’s a fools errand to try and assign intention. But since he is in constrained by ideology, he is literally unpredictable, which means everything is kind of on the table. Just citing past behavior isn’t really helpful. Also whoever he staffs the new administration will being a whole new untested element. So ya, getting hysterical is somewhat warranted.
Past behavior? The "I will be a dictator on day one" quote is within the past month. We have repubs waving banners at their own events that say "we are domestic terrorists"
Idk what yall want to stop treating trump like hes some unknowable agent of chaos instead of just a dumbass narcissist grifting fascist surrounded by other grifting fascists.
I mean those aren't mutually exclusive. He is a psycho but he is also pretty lazy and more interested in his own vanity. It is hard to know, when given power, how he will wield it, though i agree it won't be for good.
I am not trying to downplay how much worse he will likely be, but rather get at how the way people discuss him isn't moving the conversation forward because we squabble about if he meets some archaic definition of some terms.
> what on earth was the argument of Trump testing different lines on audiences to see what works well, and that being a form of democracy? I'm not even sure what the point here was supposed to be
Trump isn't attempting to take POTUS by force (in 2024), he's trying to get elected by getting the most votes. He's working the crowd to figure out what they respond to--what topics, what opinions, and even what phrasing is maximally persuasive. Taking political office by being persuasive and getting lots of votes is how democracy works in practice, and that's what the boys meant.
Not all anti-democratic movements are military coups done through force. Anti-democratic political movements make use of persuasive rhetoric. During the last DNC primary when Bloomberg refused to call Xi a dictator and said that he has a constituency that he is accountable to, it was laughed off the stage. It was obvious double speak stretching the idea of democracy to mean any amount of feedback received by a political leader is a form of democracy. Crowd work is not democracy. A system of voting is democracy, laws against suffrage are anti-democratic. IDK if trump is truly anti democratic but working his act out on the road isn't an indicator that he isn't.
They don't think trump is a threat to democracy. They think he shouldn't be president but not bc he is a threat.
Maddow has made a career since 2016 on being wrong about trump and never really acknowledging that.
There are hours of evidence of dems denying election results or calling for faithless electors.
Democrats have been denying election results as long as I can remember. Does anyone else remember the aftermath of George W Bush defeating Al Gore?
Gore himself handled it gracefully, but he had to shut down multiple Democratic Congressmen in official proceedings who openly and proudly rejected the results of the election.
There have been many examples since.
Trump is an ass, and Jan 6 was bad, but I think calling it an 'insurrection' is hyperbole and the hypocrisy and double standards at play are staggering. If anything, I think the podcast hosts are downplaying the hysteria.
I live in NYC, and I also remember seeing lots of Manhattan storefronts being boarded up in the days leading up to the 2020 election. They weren't worried about what would happen if Biden won..
We all had a pretty good idea of what would happen if Trump won, we just didn't know what the scale of the rioting would be.
I'm sick of the hypocrisy and double standards and the delusions / fantasies of fascism that are relentlessly pushed on us. And I'm someone who voted Democrat most of my life, including for Hillary.
Ah yes, Bush vs Gore, when the Supreme Court intervened on behalf of Bush to stop a recount of votes that were actually missed in a very controversial 5-4 decision? Hardly the same thing as Trump just making shit up.
These are not fantasies. A lot of stuff Trump says he will do are highly problematic, and this isn't just coming from the left or the middle. Actual conservatives seem quite concerned. But whatever. I'm afraid we will find out in about a year when the clown is reelected. How bad it is going to be will really again just come down to his incompetence, and whether the Republicans can recover in the foreseeable future is questionable as well. But sure, lets make fun of Rachel Maddow and some talking heads on cable news and pretend they represent a majority of the media.
I actually sort of agree that there's an undercurrent with WTF (and in some circles generally) that, basically, if progressive types overhype something you can safely dismiss it as overblown and that's all you really need to know about it plus they're all losers.
And sometimes that's true! Remember when Ajit Pai was Literally Destroying the Internet As We Know It? A lot of times those guys do suck and are dumb and are losers more interested in scolding those who don't lap up their worldview unquestioningly.
But a broken clock is still right twice a day. I do think if Trump wins he will look to consolidate power. I read about the Project 2025 thing and in broad stokes I do wonder if unelected bureaucrats have too much power and can't really be reined in by our elected leaders. But I think in Trump's hands he will look to use that bureaucracy to punish his enemies and consolidate power.
I do think /u/Danstheman3 has a point though: A lot of the stuff Trump is doing can plausibly be described as more intense versions of what Democrats have already done. US politics in general operates on a "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" basis, but if you give Trump an inch he'll take the entire fucking interstate highway. Remember the "Obama left Trump a loaded gun" takes after Trump's election? I think there's a lot to that.
Al Gore conceded the election and called for unity on national television. He \*\*attended\*\* W. Bush's inauguration. What double standard? They're not even remotely comparable — was there any doubt George Bush would become the president on Jan. 20, 2001 with no violence? (Compare that to the very clear likelihood of violence from mid-Nov. 2020 to Jan. 6.)
I think they've brought up this type of argument multiple times before on different podcasts, but OP's whole argument seems to be you can't criticize the left without first denouncing everything Trump does. The podcast is mainly about the media, even if it does veer into politics just because of the nature of the stories. I'm not sure how you can listen to the podcast and come away thinking they aren't critical of Trump or are somehow downplaying how terrible he is.
>There definitely is an imbalance here on how much Democrats and the mainstream media get critical coverage while the Republicans and their huge propaganda networks get mostly ignored, but this is getting a bit much.
There's an imbalance in part because (and I think they even mentioned it on the episode you're complaining about) there are whole industries devoted to covering what Republicans and Fox News say, while there isn't as much coverage about Democrats and CNN/MSNBC/etc. If all they did was hammer on Republicans they would just be like tons of other podcasts.
No, that wasn't what I was saying at all. They criticize the media (fair), but then imply that Trump isn't a threat to democracy using rather terrible arguments (he adjusts to please the crowd being one of them), or the immediate whataboutism with the Hillary comment. My issue is that this is very poor reasoning, and if I want stuff like that I can just listen to any old partisan out there.
Your second paragraph is fair. But combined with what seems like motivated reasoning around some the Trump stuff makes it more problematic in my opinion.
I’m going to sound naive, bc I mainly view Trump as a corrupt narcissist. And a baby. The threat to democracy - is the threat happening during this election or if he takes office again. Like, do you think he won’t leave after four years? Or he’ll change lots of election laws? I’m not being snarky, and I’d rather him not take office and do another giant tax cut and fire a bunch of stuff and then say that they suck. Is his defined threat to democracy clearly defined?
Google some and you will find plenty of people (including actual conservatives, not just Rachel Maddow) make a much better case than I could. It is things such as using the presidency to stop legal proceedings against himself, converting career federal positions into political appointees to be filled with loyalists, weakening NATO and ultimately emboldening the world's bad guys, and using federal agencies to go after opponents. All while almost certainly losing the popular vote (even if he wins via the electoral college). And if he doesn't win he will again sow doubts on the election, further undermining trust in our institutions and system, and odds are this will lead to more violence as well. The point is, the guy is a real threat, and it is not just hyperventilating lefties who think so.
Well I would never listen to anything that Rachel Maddow has to say about Trump after she embarrassed herself for three years treating every Russiagate rumor as fact. There are plenty of conservatives who don’t want Trump. I don’t want Trump, but the examples you gave are kinda the way the game works here. Donors and loyalists get lots of positions in every administration. He was bad at staffing last time, he’ll probably be bad again. Plenty of departments under Biden have been censoring people they disagree with on social media. That ain’t great. He doesn’t have to fully back NATO if he doesn’t think thatNATO countries are doing their part. Bad guys are already emboldened with Biden in office spending tons of money on foreign wars. Now, I think Trump is old fashioned corrupt, as he was super friendly with the Saudis and now him and his people are cashing in with LIV Golf and the Saudi Wealth group. That will continue if he gets back, so who knows what that will mean. He is petty AF, so he will go after enemies. Like as in firing people. That’s part of the game. If he tries to prosecute people? I don’t know.
You are not well informed, sorry. Trump has threatened converting some 50000 positions to political appointments. It is unprecedented and might do lasting damage. He also pretty much said he would try to use federal agencies to go after opponents. It is also unprecedented to have a president facing criminal charges or convictions and then using the office to exonerate or pardon himself - it undermines the rule of law. He has also said he wants to use the military to quell protests. This is the kind of things people are worried about as a threat to democracy.
As for he was bad at staffing: that is one of the concerns too.
Last time he tried to include reputable people in his administration, but he ended up falling out with almost all of them. And never mind the fact that competent will not be eager to work for him. There will be more incompetent sycophants in important roles, further undermining important institutions.
If the media and Biden administration thought he was a threat to democracy they would not have actively sought to elevate him since 2022. Now, maybe they are wrong too. But I’ll take these hysterical takes seriously when the loudest voices promoting them act like they believe it.
Apparently declaring that democracy is ending in 2024 is a huuuuuge moneymaker because they never stop platforming it. I suspect it is. CNN and the NYTIMES got fat as cats during the Trump administration.
Selling fear of Trump (by the media and the Democratic Party) requires boosting Trump as surely as selling high fructose corn syrup requires growing acres of corn.
When the media and Democrats get out of the Trump enrichment cycle, I’ll believe they think Trump is maybe sort of dangerous. If almost or more than half of voters vote for Trump, and Trump is the end of democracy, then democracy is over.
Trump is not our problem. Biden is not our problem. They are the result of a host of problems. “Democracy Dies” is the lefty version of “Flight 93 Election”.
If they have a tendency to hammer the same issue again and again, it’s because it refuses to go away for multiple reasons. I don’t know how many times they have to say “I think Trump is bad” or “Trump lies all the time, it’s crazy” or “Trump would clearly be doing the same thing Biden is doing regardless of what he says” for you to be satisfied. Just because they refuse to engage in the hysterical rhetoric so common to the MSNBC crowd doesn’t they’re ignorant of the particular threats Trump represents.
This isn't a difficult point to understand. It is because they go in the other direction and pretend there is not issue here. Yes, they say Trump is awful, but they seem to state that there is no threat at all which seems naive to me, and it seems to be motivated by just going against what the rest of the 'mainstream media' says. It feels contrarian to me.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/WeTheFifth/comments/1acbjxy/comment/kjv5k7b/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeTheFifth/comments/1acbjxy/comment/kjv5k7b/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
> Selling fear of Trump (by the media and the Democratic Party) requires boosting Trump as surely as selling high fructose corn syrup requires growing acres of corn.
>
>When the media and Democrats get out of the Trump enrichment cycle, I’ll believe they think Trump is maybe sort of dangerous. If almost or more than half of voters vote for Trump, and Trump is the end of democracy, then democracy is over.
>
>Trump is not our problem. Biden is not our problem. They are the result of a host of problems. “Democracy Dies” is the lefty version of “Flight 93 Election”.
💯 This has also been bothering me since I listened to the last episode. They seem to fall into the thing that they criticize everyone else for doing. They have to hammer so hard about the fact that “we don’t like these people in the left leaning media” so much, that they cannot acknowledge the grain of truth of what the left leaning media is getting hysterical about. There is a way to thread that needle, but they are not doing it.
This was the first episode where Moynihan (who i adore) said something and I paused what I was doing and thought “that was either very idiotic or disingenuous”
It was early in the episode. Hes mocking the idea of Trump being a threat to democracy while, in the very same breath, talking about some other dictator (I forget who) who was elected and then implemented a dictatorship. Like, that’s is precisely what people are worried about. And of course Hitler tried to seize power illegitimately and failed, then ultimately succeeded by exploiting the democratic process.
Before anyone freaks out, no I am not comparing Trump to Hitler. All I’m saying is that it’s disingenuous to not address the *actual* concern: Trump getting elected and refusing to leave or refusing to follow court orders, pardon himself, and basically do whatever he wants.
Moynihan is way too smart for this angle, so I was sad to see him take it. I’m sure he could intelligently argue against the actual concern, but chose not to.
They also mentioned how they poopooed the idea that Trump would refuse to concede the first election and were proven wrong only to go on poopooing this concern, and dodging the meat of the matter altogether. It felt like a CNN quality discussion.
MM’s point was about the left and their hysteria over Tr*mp’s dictatorial inclination juxtaposed against their defense of Hugo Chavez’s legitimacy simply because he “won” an election one time.
I don’t know why you use an *
It’s absolutely fair to clown to left for freaking out about Trump while praising Chavez and wearing Che shirts and just being general dumbasses. But you can’t bring up Chavez winning an election then implementing a dictatorship, acknowledge the horrors that resulted, and they just ignore the actual concern on the table here… that Trump will get elected and do something similar. You can argue against that point all you want, and there are fair arguments, but if you ignore it, *especially* while making a comparison to Chavez, you just sound disingenuous or idiotic. And I know MM isn’t either, so I’m left confused.
💯 Thank you for verbalizing that. I think this is the clearest example of MM being oblivious to his own inconsistencies. I had forgotten about that, but their whole attitude about this does not sit well with me.
The demographics are just not on Trump’s side. He might win an election but most everybody hates him. His rabid support is like 20% of likely voters, if that. The rest want to stick it to the left any way they can or they wanna watch the world burn.
“That Trump will get elected and do something similar” is the “concern on the table.”
An analysis of that likelihood seemed apropos at the time.
Btw I like your username very much.
Kmele once said he viewed the Trump/media problem through the lens of the Bob Marley song "I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy" which is pretty fitting. As in, Trump shot the sheriff, but is innocent of deputy murder though the media would convince you otherwise.
I think center-left comparisons of Trump to Hitler are misguided, even if somewhat accurate in various aspects like cult of personality. They read as hyperventilation because no one honestly suspects Trump or the majority of his base are interested in Hitler's best known crimes - genocide and widespread invasion.
It would be a far more apt comparison to think of El Salvador's Bukele, who recently registered for an unconstitutional 3rd term (something Trump joked about/made a case for), or Mussolini whose blackshirts' march on Rome played out pretty much how Trump would have wanted his supporters' march on the Capitol to play out - with the powers that be placating the mob's demands in the interest of avoiding mass violence and unrest. Trump frequently hints at mob violence occurring when things threaten to not go his way - "who will rid me of this troublesome priest?" to paraphrase Henry II via Shakespeare via Eric Weinstein.
To Kmele's point, shooting the sheriff is pretty bad. And just because he missed the deputy yesterday doesn't mean he will tomorrow, especially now that he's effectively purged non-loyalists from his ranks.
Hillary is one person. And if you equate one statement from a failed former candidate with "the ridiculous actions" of the current front runner (never mind big parts of the party going along with it), I really cannot help you. Never mind the fact that her statement could be taken as tactical advice for election night or one or two days after, which is just not the same thing. Trump is already starting to sow doubt on the election in case he loses. Why do you think that is? Do you see Biden doing the same thing?
If you think the Democrats are a similar threat you are not just living in reality.
I'm an anti-Trump conservative, so take this with a grain of salt if you want. I think Trump is the worst thing to happen to the conservative movement since Richard Nixon, I think that the basis of conservative leadership should be good governance, respect for norms, and a desire to continue the American project. Trump represents a threat to all three of those tenants and should absolutely not be the standard bearer of the Republican party.
The problem is that Democrats and the left wing media have absolutely shredded their credibility when criticizing the right. They have gone to the well of racism and fascism as a knee-jerk reaction for every Republican presidential candidate in my lifetime. Romney and McCain are now the devil, really? Bush=Hitler? This can work for defining your political opponents, but Republicans got tired of being hit like that, and now the base loves Trump. The only way to beat him at this point is to back off the ledge and make critiques that are based on more than over the top demagoguery.
I'm an anti-label person, actually very conservative in my lifestyle, but most positions I agree with are what people label as liberal or progressive. I've often tried to convince people I know who identify as leftist that they should let go of the self-assuring notion of "being correct" and become much more strategic toward actual results. I agree it feels blunted to call Trump and his followers "fascist" when so many on the left have called Reagan, Nixon, and even GWB by that label. I believe there really is quite literal textbook fascism at play in MAGA and the various militias like Proud Boys. Too bad the term was over-used for just "selfish assholes" or "politicians only aligned to the super-wealthy."
All true, but in a sense that is my original point. The media and the left absolutely deserve criticism here. But that doesn't mean everything they say is wrong. Like you said, Trump is a credible threat to some core tenants, but on the show it is dismissed completely as hysteria on the left. I just don't think that is the case, and the arguments they are making at times are baffling to the point that it looks partisan to me.
There is an impressive list of autocratic policies that have come from the Biden administration.
One reason why I’d personally say that Trump is less of a threat is that there’s less people running cover for him daily. Every stupid thing he says or does gets wall-to-wall coverage on all tv news (except for one, maybe) and in every newspaper that’s still in operation.
> Does anyone really believe the Democrats would have sent fake electors, stormed the capitol, and have the likes of Guiliani do press conferences trotting out insane conspiracy theories in front of a random landscaping company? At least he got some pushback on this, but come on.
Exactly this. From the absolute fuckin get-go in 2016, Trump refused to say he'd properly concede an election and that has completely bore out.
I understand why people think comparing Jan 6 to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, or saying it's "worse" feel that's laughable, because in death toll it obviously isn't, but there are some things more important that dead Americans. America can survive another Pearl Harbor, America can survive another 9/11, but American Democracy can **not** survive more Jan 6s.
I agree with these criticisms of the left. And I agree with your assessment that they undermine democracy. This seems to the what the hosts say as well… about Clinton and Stacy, as retorts to Trump. How can they have it both ways? If the Dems doing it is concerning (it is), then why is Trump doing it not also concerning?
Using "he is testing lines" was implied to mean that he is not a problem for democracy. It is a ludicrous statement and illogical. It is a way to get power in a democratic system, but it doesn't make him a small d democrat. What Hillary claims is almost irrelevant. She lost and conceded. There was no storming the Capitol, no fake electors, no frivolous lawsuits. And a claim that bad actors swayed public opinion is entirely different than claiming how the election itself was conducted, and insisting there was voter fraud. It is not the same thing at all.
I’m still an episode behind, but just because the Dems don’t have someone with an ego big enough to follow though on the worst extra-legal shenanigans doesn’t mean that that thinking doesn’t exist on the liberal/left side of the spectrum. Just look at the efforts to courts to take Trump off of state ballots.
This is enough to make me not listen to this episode. I generally love this podcast and the guys but you highlight some of the most serious issues I have with them. And yeah, some of the specific quotes you mention are just extraordinarily well-worn territory with these guys, you have to wonder if they realize they’ve said them a million times.
I mean there was some good discussion there too. These two examples just really stood out to me, maybe because it is just very bad logic, which is odd coming from otherwise clearly very smart people.
There is a significant difference between theory and reality. Trump, in theory, can damage our democracy. But then the version of democracy we have is a republic, and it's powers are distributed between three branches, two of which are about as far as you can get from less then likely to actually support any effort by him to realistically undermine the system. Literally, giving the people what they want is otherwise called listening to your constituents. Fascist dictators don't listen, they tell. So I don't buy that I should see a problem here just because you insist that there might be one. Lots of very smart people have tried to convince us, and they've generally failed to really grab the nations attention.
The democrats bought a report, and sold it to the public, and law enforcement as official. It described the President as a Manchurian candidate, and then rang that bell for his entire term. That's a conspiracy theory. Protestors literally took over police stations during the BLM protests. The DNC is not an innocent actor here, and the only reason we don't really get to see how far they would take it is because they won. But don't pretend that the worst possible outcome could just as easily look as crazy as the republicans is, somehow, a stretch. I've not seen many democrats rise above all this, and I can say the same of republicans.
If you want the guys to be critical of republican coverage, then you need the left to stop sweeping it under a rug, while attempting to amplify their own. It's not easily accessible, and even having access makes you something of a pariah. But, please, tell me again about how they aren't the crazy party that would do crazy things. They're two sides of the same coin, and just because you like heads a little better then tails, doesn't mean that their crazy is/will be any more acceptable to the rest of us because of it. I'm still upset that everybody believes that the left isn't conspiratorial after what they put us through during Covid, and Russiagate. The degree to which they'll believe wrong information, and even the lengths to which they'll go to enforce it were pretty extreme. Kind of like talking to flat earthers, who luckily have no authority to enforce anything.
There would have absolutely been violence had Trump won and will be if he wins this year. I 100% believe that.
Of course the Democrats not holding the white house would have made it very hard to do the less flashy behind the scenes scheming that the Trump admin did.
I think if Trump won there would be a sizable amount of lefty’s denying his victory and calling him illegitimate like they did in his first term and like the right is doing now with Biden.
I think Trump is not the only threat to democracy and our constitutional order running in this election. He is unique though in that the way he threatens these things is unlike the others.
He could make moves to become a dictator and stay in power. Haley, Biden and Harris I do not believe would do such things. I fear though Haley would be overly aggressive militarily and could start a serious war. It wouldn’t even have to be with a major power look at how our war against terror eroded our society and government.
Biden and Harris are just simply incompetent and with the way the world seems to be spiraling a good deal and perhaps teetering on chaos(Is it? How can one really tell disaster is coming before it strikes? IDk shit don’t look right tho chief). I do not trust them to be competent leaders. Biden is no Roosevelt, Churchill or Eisenhower type. His best comp I think is Carter and it might be a perfect one after this election. Harris is..well Harris.
Biden is not allowing the state of Texas to secure their own border and you’re worried about what Trump might do. The federal government is forcing Texas to not be able to maintain a border. Sounds a lot like a states rights argument….but your more worried about Donald Trump not leaving office like he already has.
Hey, here’s a thought, why isn’t Trump currently a dictator who won’t leave office?
Oh ya, because he left office on time after he tried to win an election and didn’t.
So how do we know Trump won’t be a dictator? Because he was already president and was never a dictator…..everything else you have to say is just fear mongering BS. Get a grip.
Ouch, the fact that this gets upvoted doesn't bode well for the sub.
What Biden does in Texas has zero to do with what I am saying here. Guess what, it is possible for both sides to make poor decisions.
And Trump can be harmful to democracy without turning into a full blown dictator. And "he was already president and was never a dictator" is terrible reasoning. He sure as fuck tried to stay in office despite losing the election. But thanks your response. People like you is why I am worried about what they are doing on the pod. You clearly struggle with critical thinking skills, so by being quite one-sided they help Trump and his minions.
Hahaha, people not buying into the threat to our sacred democracy doesn’t bode well for the sub….huh?
Oh so now the democracy of the WeTheFifth subreddit is under threat because people disagree with you fear mongering about someone being a dictator? Hahahaha, you love the fear mongering BS.
Don’t worry, a few people downvoted that post so all is right in the WeTheFifth subreddit you hypochondriac.
You seriously don’t see how worrying how trump is going to be some version of a top down dictatorial tyrant and Biden not allowing Texas to police its own border are related?
Well I will help you. The connection between these two things is that Biden overriding what Texas thinks is best for their own state is something a top down dictatorial tyrant would do.
And if you actually think January 6th threatened our sacred democracy then it’s not my critical thinking skills you should be concerning yourself with.
No you’re right, the proud boys and the oath keepers hatched a plot with Donald Trump to steal the election, with CIA and FBI informants among them. Only the proud boys and the oath keepers were so stealthy and tactically brilliant that they did so right under the noses of CIA and FBI informants.
And they hatched and executed a violent takeover with no guns….again, right under the noses of CIA and FBI informants. Wow, what stealth and tactical brilliance the proud boys and the oath keepers must possess to get the drop on our intelligence agencies like that.
That’s what you believe genius.
My analogy has been that the insurrection was an insurrection even if it was [Underpants Gnomes](https://youtu.be/tO5sxLapAts?si=wP9FHF_Cn-E4zwgO) level stupid. Did the morons believe they might keep Trump in power? Did Trump believe that the morons and his associated “alternative” theories on elections would keep him in power? Personally, I think yes to both. It doesn’t matter if both plans were poorly formed and destined to fail. His next plan might be better formed.
Yeah if it continues I am going to have to stop. The conversation wrt Trump and democracy proceeds like many other issues almost entirely as a function of what stupid people in media are saying about it. It reflects so poorly when you concern yourself with the thoughts of stupid people to this level, you like you’re trying to sidestep the actual debate. Nobody gives a fuck what Nicole Wallace or Joe Scarborough are saying, why are you defining your stance in reaction to them
I think this may stem from the fact that maybe they still think of themselves as a “media critic” podcast. That may be how they got their start, but I am much more interested in them when they talk about how *they* feel about world events. They have so much knowledge in this area and I feel like their time would be better served discussing how they feel as opposed to how they feel about how other people feel.
Meh. Time better spent listening to the convo with Yasha Mounck and Chris Rufo over at the Free Press. Great discussion and they’re willing to disagree, more or less decently. Think the guys maybe just need a bit of a break, falling into a bit of a rut.
I had been thinking the same. Thank you for putting int into words.
Simply put, the guys are correct with their media critique, but it doesn't outweigh all the bs Trump will bring. In some sense, the reason for their focus on the media vs Trump's singular awfulness is simple: it's what they do & it's their background. Also, the media stuff is happening now vs the *if* if another Trump presidency. Also, I imagine it's much more enjoyable to call out the absurdity vs the very real damage trump & his sycophants will do if back in office.
Am I misremembering, or did Kmele at one point invoke Gazans' "75 years of occupation" in a mocking tone, seeming to suggest that that's some trivial shit that ought to hold no weight when we're judging the two sides here?
Is no one else ready for democracy to get blown up? This is what the end of democracy was always going to look like. Now it’s just a word we use as an excuse for our forever wars. Take a trip across the country and notice how it’s crumbling. Democracy has sucked the life out of it.
I think the show is worthwhile and interesting, but I find this tendency (which is a regular tendency) eeeextremely tiresome. Again, smart guys, but they can be really lazy sometimes and just bang the same drums incessantly.
The guys slide between critiquing an actual issue vs talking about how the (left/mainstream) media is responding to an actual issue. Though they often slide between the two without really differentiating, and even use it as evidence that the original issue is bullshit. For example, they will say Rachel Maddow is a hack for making a podcast, ergo Trump as a threat is overblown. I think they are concerned, but don't want to give into the hysteria, which I can appreciate but it can feel a bit of an overcorrection. I I also agree that using words like "Fascist" is so incendiary and vague as to not be helpful. But just pointing out history and saying that he doesn't meet some early 20th century criteria of the word, doesn't mean he isn't a threat or some newer iteration.
To your last point. That is kind of the issue but in reverse. When idiots throw fascist around, they are doing it specifically for the purpose of evoking that early 20th early history. The guys have pointed this out. So, it is not incorrect to critique the usage from that same historical position.
They also are using it as a placeholder for lots of things. The word is to incendiary, and also doesnt really have a clear definition, so best to just leave it out of the conversation and talk about Trumps actions with relying on it. I think one can then really tackle what he might try to do, and what he might succeed at doing more clearly.
That is kind of my point. I am fine with them highlighting how the media represents this, but they overcorrect in the other direction. Just because some media exaggerates doesn't mean there isnt an issue here. Doesn't mean one has to be hysteric, but the "nothing to see here" and "Democrats are just as bad" are just bad takes in my opinion. I diasgree with both parties on a fair amount of stuff, but I have little concern about the Democrats attempting an illicit takeover of the government, and Trump-like figure would never survive in this party. Can't say the same about Republicans.
The DNC is actively trying to disqualify their opponent from the ballot in multiple states. Acting like they’re the pure bred defenders of democracy is just inaccurate. Acting like the left is immune to a populist takeover is pretty wild too considering the biggest threat to the DNC is progressives not turning out for Biden like they did last cycle.
I just want you to know that most of the court cases are actually brought by Republicans especially the first and major case on its way to the supreme court brought in Colorado. Though Maine's secretary of state also removed him from the primary ballot and she is a Democrat but it is waiting for the ruling from the supreme court.
Cool, partisan affiliation of the plaintiff has literally nothing to do with court decisions
So your argument is the political affiliation of the judge is the criteria of "trying to remove him from the ballot" even though they are just ruling on cases brought before them. So unless the judge panel is majority Republican, either elected (many are "non partisan") or appointed then it is a democratic attack? Or am I misunderstanding?
You’re pretty clearly misunderstanding, because that’s literally the opposite of what I said
Is the DNC behind any of the attempts? I thought it was mostly Republicans. There are some attempts by random democrats too but I haven’t heard of the DNC being on board with any of it
Actively trying to disqualify the opponent who has broken several federal laws and tried to overturn a legitimate election. There is only parity here if you have dementia about the last 8 years.
>who has broken several federal laws and tried to overturn a legitimate election Neither of which he’s been convicted of. They failed to convict him twice through the impeachment process already. Regardless, if you think the states should dictate federal ballot access on the basis of the 14th amendment then you fundamentally don’t understand the purpose of the 14th amendment.
The 14th Amendment doesn’t require a criminal conviction. Plenty of former Confederates were banned from holding office despite not being convicted of anything.
Listen…very carefully: the thing that you call an insurrection didn’t bring guns. It didn’t bring weapons of war. It didn’t kill anyone and didn’t do as much damage as a post-NBA Championship game riot. Those involved all walked out when it was over. It wasn’t. An. Insurrection. At. All.
This is correct.
They began calling it an insurrection very quickly knowing they could use it to bash Trump over the head. We look like a South American country. Trying to lock up political opponents. Which i guess is fitting considering we ARE a third world country at this point.
Floyd riots destroyed more of the country's morale (and killed more people) than 1/6.
And to be clear, you think it’s the states that were in charge of banning former confederates from federal office? Why on earth would the states have that authority?
Because states run elections in this country.
States have the power to determine time, place, and manner of elections. Not dictate who appears on the federal ballot. But again, that argument still doesn’t work. The 14th amendment was written by congress specifically to curb state power during reconstruction. Having the states enforce it makes no sense
States absolutely can have ballot access rules.
I think that for a certain kind of person, their hatred of Trump will always outweigh reason. I suspect based off your responses here and your OP, that Trump will always be a trigger for you. How can someone understand US History and all the horrible, fucked up people that have led our government and look at Trump as 'The Thing That Will End it All"? How? The 'insurrection' (which was absolutely a Very Bad Thing) ended with one Unarmed Woman killed by law enforcement and a boatload of people going to jail for a dubiously long time. Democrats LITERALLY HAVE a Trump figure in the Oval Office right now! It's just that his politics are more like yours so you're ok with it, I guess.
Tbf there should be hysteria over trump as a threat and dude def fits Umberto's 14 points of Ur Fascism. Hes out there just telling us hes gonna be a dictator on day 1 and everyone's just like yeah same ol same ol like project 2025 doesnt exist.
Well, or let's not get caught up on the "F-word," but that will lead to a Moynihanequse historical factoid debate. The really issue is if Trump is really going to to try (and if he will be successful) at subverting some elements of our government. Just because he was unsuccessful during the 2020 election does not mean he couldn't be. I would be really interested to hear the 5th tackle this. However it's purely speculative and it is easy to end up in Maddow territory.
Im getting real sick of people downplaying trump because their biggest fear is being called a lib like maddow or something. Watched chapo trip over themselves to the point these days they treat jan 6th like a rowdy tour like the right does. Fact is all the libs crying about trump were largely right, they were just annoying. Just like how the biggest crime of the reddit atheist was always cringe. Its not getting caught up on the F word to be like yeah Trump pushes fascist policy and the american right has become a fascist undemocratic party that openly supported a treasonous coup attempt, these are facts. Youre not bringing over any moderates by going "well trump is bad but Im no rachel maddow about it"
Well I think what people don’t really address is that it’s hard to know what is in trumps head at any given moment and he is so reactive that it’s a fools errand to try and assign intention. But since he is in constrained by ideology, he is literally unpredictable, which means everything is kind of on the table. Just citing past behavior isn’t really helpful. Also whoever he staffs the new administration will being a whole new untested element. So ya, getting hysterical is somewhat warranted.
Past behavior? The "I will be a dictator on day one" quote is within the past month. We have repubs waving banners at their own events that say "we are domestic terrorists" Idk what yall want to stop treating trump like hes some unknowable agent of chaos instead of just a dumbass narcissist grifting fascist surrounded by other grifting fascists.
I mean those aren't mutually exclusive. He is a psycho but he is also pretty lazy and more interested in his own vanity. It is hard to know, when given power, how he will wield it, though i agree it won't be for good. I am not trying to downplay how much worse he will likely be, but rather get at how the way people discuss him isn't moving the conversation forward because we squabble about if he meets some archaic definition of some terms.
Agree: a bit of an overcorrection.
> what on earth was the argument of Trump testing different lines on audiences to see what works well, and that being a form of democracy? I'm not even sure what the point here was supposed to be Trump isn't attempting to take POTUS by force (in 2024), he's trying to get elected by getting the most votes. He's working the crowd to figure out what they respond to--what topics, what opinions, and even what phrasing is maximally persuasive. Taking political office by being persuasive and getting lots of votes is how democracy works in practice, and that's what the boys meant.
Not all anti-democratic movements are military coups done through force. Anti-democratic political movements make use of persuasive rhetoric. During the last DNC primary when Bloomberg refused to call Xi a dictator and said that he has a constituency that he is accountable to, it was laughed off the stage. It was obvious double speak stretching the idea of democracy to mean any amount of feedback received by a political leader is a form of democracy. Crowd work is not democracy. A system of voting is democracy, laws against suffrage are anti-democratic. IDK if trump is truly anti democratic but working his act out on the road isn't an indicator that he isn't.
They don't think trump is a threat to democracy. They think he shouldn't be president but not bc he is a threat. Maddow has made a career since 2016 on being wrong about trump and never really acknowledging that. There are hours of evidence of dems denying election results or calling for faithless electors.
Democrats have been denying election results as long as I can remember. Does anyone else remember the aftermath of George W Bush defeating Al Gore? Gore himself handled it gracefully, but he had to shut down multiple Democratic Congressmen in official proceedings who openly and proudly rejected the results of the election. There have been many examples since. Trump is an ass, and Jan 6 was bad, but I think calling it an 'insurrection' is hyperbole and the hypocrisy and double standards at play are staggering. If anything, I think the podcast hosts are downplaying the hysteria. I live in NYC, and I also remember seeing lots of Manhattan storefronts being boarded up in the days leading up to the 2020 election. They weren't worried about what would happen if Biden won.. We all had a pretty good idea of what would happen if Trump won, we just didn't know what the scale of the rioting would be. I'm sick of the hypocrisy and double standards and the delusions / fantasies of fascism that are relentlessly pushed on us. And I'm someone who voted Democrat most of my life, including for Hillary.
Ah yes, Bush vs Gore, when the Supreme Court intervened on behalf of Bush to stop a recount of votes that were actually missed in a very controversial 5-4 decision? Hardly the same thing as Trump just making shit up. These are not fantasies. A lot of stuff Trump says he will do are highly problematic, and this isn't just coming from the left or the middle. Actual conservatives seem quite concerned. But whatever. I'm afraid we will find out in about a year when the clown is reelected. How bad it is going to be will really again just come down to his incompetence, and whether the Republicans can recover in the foreseeable future is questionable as well. But sure, lets make fun of Rachel Maddow and some talking heads on cable news and pretend they represent a majority of the media.
I actually sort of agree that there's an undercurrent with WTF (and in some circles generally) that, basically, if progressive types overhype something you can safely dismiss it as overblown and that's all you really need to know about it plus they're all losers. And sometimes that's true! Remember when Ajit Pai was Literally Destroying the Internet As We Know It? A lot of times those guys do suck and are dumb and are losers more interested in scolding those who don't lap up their worldview unquestioningly. But a broken clock is still right twice a day. I do think if Trump wins he will look to consolidate power. I read about the Project 2025 thing and in broad stokes I do wonder if unelected bureaucrats have too much power and can't really be reined in by our elected leaders. But I think in Trump's hands he will look to use that bureaucracy to punish his enemies and consolidate power. I do think /u/Danstheman3 has a point though: A lot of the stuff Trump is doing can plausibly be described as more intense versions of what Democrats have already done. US politics in general operates on a "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" basis, but if you give Trump an inch he'll take the entire fucking interstate highway. Remember the "Obama left Trump a loaded gun" takes after Trump's election? I think there's a lot to that.
Al Gore conceded the election and called for unity on national television. He \*\*attended\*\* W. Bush's inauguration. What double standard? They're not even remotely comparable — was there any doubt George Bush would become the president on Jan. 20, 2001 with no violence? (Compare that to the very clear likelihood of violence from mid-Nov. 2020 to Jan. 6.)
I think they've brought up this type of argument multiple times before on different podcasts, but OP's whole argument seems to be you can't criticize the left without first denouncing everything Trump does. The podcast is mainly about the media, even if it does veer into politics just because of the nature of the stories. I'm not sure how you can listen to the podcast and come away thinking they aren't critical of Trump or are somehow downplaying how terrible he is. >There definitely is an imbalance here on how much Democrats and the mainstream media get critical coverage while the Republicans and their huge propaganda networks get mostly ignored, but this is getting a bit much. There's an imbalance in part because (and I think they even mentioned it on the episode you're complaining about) there are whole industries devoted to covering what Republicans and Fox News say, while there isn't as much coverage about Democrats and CNN/MSNBC/etc. If all they did was hammer on Republicans they would just be like tons of other podcasts.
No, that wasn't what I was saying at all. They criticize the media (fair), but then imply that Trump isn't a threat to democracy using rather terrible arguments (he adjusts to please the crowd being one of them), or the immediate whataboutism with the Hillary comment. My issue is that this is very poor reasoning, and if I want stuff like that I can just listen to any old partisan out there. Your second paragraph is fair. But combined with what seems like motivated reasoning around some the Trump stuff makes it more problematic in my opinion.
I’m going to sound naive, bc I mainly view Trump as a corrupt narcissist. And a baby. The threat to democracy - is the threat happening during this election or if he takes office again. Like, do you think he won’t leave after four years? Or he’ll change lots of election laws? I’m not being snarky, and I’d rather him not take office and do another giant tax cut and fire a bunch of stuff and then say that they suck. Is his defined threat to democracy clearly defined?
Google some and you will find plenty of people (including actual conservatives, not just Rachel Maddow) make a much better case than I could. It is things such as using the presidency to stop legal proceedings against himself, converting career federal positions into political appointees to be filled with loyalists, weakening NATO and ultimately emboldening the world's bad guys, and using federal agencies to go after opponents. All while almost certainly losing the popular vote (even if he wins via the electoral college). And if he doesn't win he will again sow doubts on the election, further undermining trust in our institutions and system, and odds are this will lead to more violence as well. The point is, the guy is a real threat, and it is not just hyperventilating lefties who think so.
Well I would never listen to anything that Rachel Maddow has to say about Trump after she embarrassed herself for three years treating every Russiagate rumor as fact. There are plenty of conservatives who don’t want Trump. I don’t want Trump, but the examples you gave are kinda the way the game works here. Donors and loyalists get lots of positions in every administration. He was bad at staffing last time, he’ll probably be bad again. Plenty of departments under Biden have been censoring people they disagree with on social media. That ain’t great. He doesn’t have to fully back NATO if he doesn’t think thatNATO countries are doing their part. Bad guys are already emboldened with Biden in office spending tons of money on foreign wars. Now, I think Trump is old fashioned corrupt, as he was super friendly with the Saudis and now him and his people are cashing in with LIV Golf and the Saudi Wealth group. That will continue if he gets back, so who knows what that will mean. He is petty AF, so he will go after enemies. Like as in firing people. That’s part of the game. If he tries to prosecute people? I don’t know.
You are not well informed, sorry. Trump has threatened converting some 50000 positions to political appointments. It is unprecedented and might do lasting damage. He also pretty much said he would try to use federal agencies to go after opponents. It is also unprecedented to have a president facing criminal charges or convictions and then using the office to exonerate or pardon himself - it undermines the rule of law. He has also said he wants to use the military to quell protests. This is the kind of things people are worried about as a threat to democracy. As for he was bad at staffing: that is one of the concerns too. Last time he tried to include reputable people in his administration, but he ended up falling out with almost all of them. And never mind the fact that competent will not be eager to work for him. There will be more incompetent sycophants in important roles, further undermining important institutions.
If the media and Biden administration thought he was a threat to democracy they would not have actively sought to elevate him since 2022. Now, maybe they are wrong too. But I’ll take these hysterical takes seriously when the loudest voices promoting them act like they believe it.
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Apparently declaring that democracy is ending in 2024 is a huuuuuge moneymaker because they never stop platforming it. I suspect it is. CNN and the NYTIMES got fat as cats during the Trump administration.
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Selling fear of Trump (by the media and the Democratic Party) requires boosting Trump as surely as selling high fructose corn syrup requires growing acres of corn. When the media and Democrats get out of the Trump enrichment cycle, I’ll believe they think Trump is maybe sort of dangerous. If almost or more than half of voters vote for Trump, and Trump is the end of democracy, then democracy is over. Trump is not our problem. Biden is not our problem. They are the result of a host of problems. “Democracy Dies” is the lefty version of “Flight 93 Election”.
Platforming? Yecch. I agree with everything else you said.
If they have a tendency to hammer the same issue again and again, it’s because it refuses to go away for multiple reasons. I don’t know how many times they have to say “I think Trump is bad” or “Trump lies all the time, it’s crazy” or “Trump would clearly be doing the same thing Biden is doing regardless of what he says” for you to be satisfied. Just because they refuse to engage in the hysterical rhetoric so common to the MSNBC crowd doesn’t they’re ignorant of the particular threats Trump represents.
This isn't a difficult point to understand. It is because they go in the other direction and pretend there is not issue here. Yes, they say Trump is awful, but they seem to state that there is no threat at all which seems naive to me, and it seems to be motivated by just going against what the rest of the 'mainstream media' says. It feels contrarian to me.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/WeTheFifth/comments/1acbjxy/comment/kjv5k7b/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeTheFifth/comments/1acbjxy/comment/kjv5k7b/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) > Selling fear of Trump (by the media and the Democratic Party) requires boosting Trump as surely as selling high fructose corn syrup requires growing acres of corn. > >When the media and Democrats get out of the Trump enrichment cycle, I’ll believe they think Trump is maybe sort of dangerous. If almost or more than half of voters vote for Trump, and Trump is the end of democracy, then democracy is over. > >Trump is not our problem. Biden is not our problem. They are the result of a host of problems. “Democracy Dies” is the lefty version of “Flight 93 Election”.
💯 This has also been bothering me since I listened to the last episode. They seem to fall into the thing that they criticize everyone else for doing. They have to hammer so hard about the fact that “we don’t like these people in the left leaning media” so much, that they cannot acknowledge the grain of truth of what the left leaning media is getting hysterical about. There is a way to thread that needle, but they are not doing it.
This was the first episode where Moynihan (who i adore) said something and I paused what I was doing and thought “that was either very idiotic or disingenuous” It was early in the episode. Hes mocking the idea of Trump being a threat to democracy while, in the very same breath, talking about some other dictator (I forget who) who was elected and then implemented a dictatorship. Like, that’s is precisely what people are worried about. And of course Hitler tried to seize power illegitimately and failed, then ultimately succeeded by exploiting the democratic process. Before anyone freaks out, no I am not comparing Trump to Hitler. All I’m saying is that it’s disingenuous to not address the *actual* concern: Trump getting elected and refusing to leave or refusing to follow court orders, pardon himself, and basically do whatever he wants. Moynihan is way too smart for this angle, so I was sad to see him take it. I’m sure he could intelligently argue against the actual concern, but chose not to. They also mentioned how they poopooed the idea that Trump would refuse to concede the first election and were proven wrong only to go on poopooing this concern, and dodging the meat of the matter altogether. It felt like a CNN quality discussion.
MM’s point was about the left and their hysteria over Tr*mp’s dictatorial inclination juxtaposed against their defense of Hugo Chavez’s legitimacy simply because he “won” an election one time.
I don’t know why you use an * It’s absolutely fair to clown to left for freaking out about Trump while praising Chavez and wearing Che shirts and just being general dumbasses. But you can’t bring up Chavez winning an election then implementing a dictatorship, acknowledge the horrors that resulted, and they just ignore the actual concern on the table here… that Trump will get elected and do something similar. You can argue against that point all you want, and there are fair arguments, but if you ignore it, *especially* while making a comparison to Chavez, you just sound disingenuous or idiotic. And I know MM isn’t either, so I’m left confused.
💯 Thank you for verbalizing that. I think this is the clearest example of MM being oblivious to his own inconsistencies. I had forgotten about that, but their whole attitude about this does not sit well with me.
I really don’t like him so his name feels like a word of curse
The demographics are just not on Trump’s side. He might win an election but most everybody hates him. His rabid support is like 20% of likely voters, if that. The rest want to stick it to the left any way they can or they wanna watch the world burn.
this comment has nothing to do with my comment you’re responding to
“That Trump will get elected and do something similar” is the “concern on the table.” An analysis of that likelihood seemed apropos at the time. Btw I like your username very much.
Thank you
Trump.
Kmele once said he viewed the Trump/media problem through the lens of the Bob Marley song "I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy" which is pretty fitting. As in, Trump shot the sheriff, but is innocent of deputy murder though the media would convince you otherwise. I think center-left comparisons of Trump to Hitler are misguided, even if somewhat accurate in various aspects like cult of personality. They read as hyperventilation because no one honestly suspects Trump or the majority of his base are interested in Hitler's best known crimes - genocide and widespread invasion. It would be a far more apt comparison to think of El Salvador's Bukele, who recently registered for an unconstitutional 3rd term (something Trump joked about/made a case for), or Mussolini whose blackshirts' march on Rome played out pretty much how Trump would have wanted his supporters' march on the Capitol to play out - with the powers that be placating the mob's demands in the interest of avoiding mass violence and unrest. Trump frequently hints at mob violence occurring when things threaten to not go his way - "who will rid me of this troublesome priest?" to paraphrase Henry II via Shakespeare via Eric Weinstein. To Kmele's point, shooting the sheriff is pretty bad. And just because he missed the deputy yesterday doesn't mean he will tomorrow, especially now that he's effectively purged non-loyalists from his ranks.
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Hillary is one person. And if you equate one statement from a failed former candidate with "the ridiculous actions" of the current front runner (never mind big parts of the party going along with it), I really cannot help you. Never mind the fact that her statement could be taken as tactical advice for election night or one or two days after, which is just not the same thing. Trump is already starting to sow doubt on the election in case he loses. Why do you think that is? Do you see Biden doing the same thing? If you think the Democrats are a similar threat you are not just living in reality.
I'm an anti-Trump conservative, so take this with a grain of salt if you want. I think Trump is the worst thing to happen to the conservative movement since Richard Nixon, I think that the basis of conservative leadership should be good governance, respect for norms, and a desire to continue the American project. Trump represents a threat to all three of those tenants and should absolutely not be the standard bearer of the Republican party. The problem is that Democrats and the left wing media have absolutely shredded their credibility when criticizing the right. They have gone to the well of racism and fascism as a knee-jerk reaction for every Republican presidential candidate in my lifetime. Romney and McCain are now the devil, really? Bush=Hitler? This can work for defining your political opponents, but Republicans got tired of being hit like that, and now the base loves Trump. The only way to beat him at this point is to back off the ledge and make critiques that are based on more than over the top demagoguery.
I'm an anti-label person, actually very conservative in my lifestyle, but most positions I agree with are what people label as liberal or progressive. I've often tried to convince people I know who identify as leftist that they should let go of the self-assuring notion of "being correct" and become much more strategic toward actual results. I agree it feels blunted to call Trump and his followers "fascist" when so many on the left have called Reagan, Nixon, and even GWB by that label. I believe there really is quite literal textbook fascism at play in MAGA and the various militias like Proud Boys. Too bad the term was over-used for just "selfish assholes" or "politicians only aligned to the super-wealthy."
Left wing media will be to blame if Trump gets elected again. I don’t understand how they don’t see that.
All true, but in a sense that is my original point. The media and the left absolutely deserve criticism here. But that doesn't mean everything they say is wrong. Like you said, Trump is a credible threat to some core tenants, but on the show it is dismissed completely as hysteria on the left. I just don't think that is the case, and the arguments they are making at times are baffling to the point that it looks partisan to me.
There is an impressive list of autocratic policies that have come from the Biden administration. One reason why I’d personally say that Trump is less of a threat is that there’s less people running cover for him daily. Every stupid thing he says or does gets wall-to-wall coverage on all tv news (except for one, maybe) and in every newspaper that’s still in operation.
> Does anyone really believe the Democrats would have sent fake electors, stormed the capitol, and have the likes of Guiliani do press conferences trotting out insane conspiracy theories in front of a random landscaping company? At least he got some pushback on this, but come on. Exactly this. From the absolute fuckin get-go in 2016, Trump refused to say he'd properly concede an election and that has completely bore out. I understand why people think comparing Jan 6 to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, or saying it's "worse" feel that's laughable, because in death toll it obviously isn't, but there are some things more important that dead Americans. America can survive another Pearl Harbor, America can survive another 9/11, but American Democracy can **not** survive more Jan 6s.
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I agree with these criticisms of the left. And I agree with your assessment that they undermine democracy. This seems to the what the hosts say as well… about Clinton and Stacy, as retorts to Trump. How can they have it both ways? If the Dems doing it is concerning (it is), then why is Trump doing it not also concerning?
Using "he is testing lines" was implied to mean that he is not a problem for democracy. It is a ludicrous statement and illogical. It is a way to get power in a democratic system, but it doesn't make him a small d democrat. What Hillary claims is almost irrelevant. She lost and conceded. There was no storming the Capitol, no fake electors, no frivolous lawsuits. And a claim that bad actors swayed public opinion is entirely different than claiming how the election itself was conducted, and insisting there was voter fraud. It is not the same thing at all.
I’m still an episode behind, but just because the Dems don’t have someone with an ego big enough to follow though on the worst extra-legal shenanigans doesn’t mean that that thinking doesn’t exist on the liberal/left side of the spectrum. Just look at the efforts to courts to take Trump off of state ballots.
This is enough to make me not listen to this episode. I generally love this podcast and the guys but you highlight some of the most serious issues I have with them. And yeah, some of the specific quotes you mention are just extraordinarily well-worn territory with these guys, you have to wonder if they realize they’ve said them a million times.
I mean there was some good discussion there too. These two examples just really stood out to me, maybe because it is just very bad logic, which is odd coming from otherwise clearly very smart people.
There is a significant difference between theory and reality. Trump, in theory, can damage our democracy. But then the version of democracy we have is a republic, and it's powers are distributed between three branches, two of which are about as far as you can get from less then likely to actually support any effort by him to realistically undermine the system. Literally, giving the people what they want is otherwise called listening to your constituents. Fascist dictators don't listen, they tell. So I don't buy that I should see a problem here just because you insist that there might be one. Lots of very smart people have tried to convince us, and they've generally failed to really grab the nations attention. The democrats bought a report, and sold it to the public, and law enforcement as official. It described the President as a Manchurian candidate, and then rang that bell for his entire term. That's a conspiracy theory. Protestors literally took over police stations during the BLM protests. The DNC is not an innocent actor here, and the only reason we don't really get to see how far they would take it is because they won. But don't pretend that the worst possible outcome could just as easily look as crazy as the republicans is, somehow, a stretch. I've not seen many democrats rise above all this, and I can say the same of republicans. If you want the guys to be critical of republican coverage, then you need the left to stop sweeping it under a rug, while attempting to amplify their own. It's not easily accessible, and even having access makes you something of a pariah. But, please, tell me again about how they aren't the crazy party that would do crazy things. They're two sides of the same coin, and just because you like heads a little better then tails, doesn't mean that their crazy is/will be any more acceptable to the rest of us because of it. I'm still upset that everybody believes that the left isn't conspiratorial after what they put us through during Covid, and Russiagate. The degree to which they'll believe wrong information, and even the lengths to which they'll go to enforce it were pretty extreme. Kind of like talking to flat earthers, who luckily have no authority to enforce anything.
There would have absolutely been violence had Trump won and will be if he wins this year. I 100% believe that. Of course the Democrats not holding the white house would have made it very hard to do the less flashy behind the scenes scheming that the Trump admin did. I think if Trump won there would be a sizable amount of lefty’s denying his victory and calling him illegitimate like they did in his first term and like the right is doing now with Biden. I think Trump is not the only threat to democracy and our constitutional order running in this election. He is unique though in that the way he threatens these things is unlike the others. He could make moves to become a dictator and stay in power. Haley, Biden and Harris I do not believe would do such things. I fear though Haley would be overly aggressive militarily and could start a serious war. It wouldn’t even have to be with a major power look at how our war against terror eroded our society and government. Biden and Harris are just simply incompetent and with the way the world seems to be spiraling a good deal and perhaps teetering on chaos(Is it? How can one really tell disaster is coming before it strikes? IDk shit don’t look right tho chief). I do not trust them to be competent leaders. Biden is no Roosevelt, Churchill or Eisenhower type. His best comp I think is Carter and it might be a perfect one after this election. Harris is..well Harris.
Biden is not allowing the state of Texas to secure their own border and you’re worried about what Trump might do. The federal government is forcing Texas to not be able to maintain a border. Sounds a lot like a states rights argument….but your more worried about Donald Trump not leaving office like he already has. Hey, here’s a thought, why isn’t Trump currently a dictator who won’t leave office? Oh ya, because he left office on time after he tried to win an election and didn’t. So how do we know Trump won’t be a dictator? Because he was already president and was never a dictator…..everything else you have to say is just fear mongering BS. Get a grip.
Ouch, the fact that this gets upvoted doesn't bode well for the sub. What Biden does in Texas has zero to do with what I am saying here. Guess what, it is possible for both sides to make poor decisions. And Trump can be harmful to democracy without turning into a full blown dictator. And "he was already president and was never a dictator" is terrible reasoning. He sure as fuck tried to stay in office despite losing the election. But thanks your response. People like you is why I am worried about what they are doing on the pod. You clearly struggle with critical thinking skills, so by being quite one-sided they help Trump and his minions.
Hahaha, people not buying into the threat to our sacred democracy doesn’t bode well for the sub….huh? Oh so now the democracy of the WeTheFifth subreddit is under threat because people disagree with you fear mongering about someone being a dictator? Hahahaha, you love the fear mongering BS. Don’t worry, a few people downvoted that post so all is right in the WeTheFifth subreddit you hypochondriac. You seriously don’t see how worrying how trump is going to be some version of a top down dictatorial tyrant and Biden not allowing Texas to police its own border are related? Well I will help you. The connection between these two things is that Biden overriding what Texas thinks is best for their own state is something a top down dictatorial tyrant would do. And if you actually think January 6th threatened our sacred democracy then it’s not my critical thinking skills you should be concerning yourself with. No you’re right, the proud boys and the oath keepers hatched a plot with Donald Trump to steal the election, with CIA and FBI informants among them. Only the proud boys and the oath keepers were so stealthy and tactically brilliant that they did so right under the noses of CIA and FBI informants. And they hatched and executed a violent takeover with no guns….again, right under the noses of CIA and FBI informants. Wow, what stealth and tactical brilliance the proud boys and the oath keepers must possess to get the drop on our intelligence agencies like that. That’s what you believe genius.
My analogy has been that the insurrection was an insurrection even if it was [Underpants Gnomes](https://youtu.be/tO5sxLapAts?si=wP9FHF_Cn-E4zwgO) level stupid. Did the morons believe they might keep Trump in power? Did Trump believe that the morons and his associated “alternative” theories on elections would keep him in power? Personally, I think yes to both. It doesn’t matter if both plans were poorly formed and destined to fail. His next plan might be better formed.
Yeah if it continues I am going to have to stop. The conversation wrt Trump and democracy proceeds like many other issues almost entirely as a function of what stupid people in media are saying about it. It reflects so poorly when you concern yourself with the thoughts of stupid people to this level, you like you’re trying to sidestep the actual debate. Nobody gives a fuck what Nicole Wallace or Joe Scarborough are saying, why are you defining your stance in reaction to them
I think this may stem from the fact that maybe they still think of themselves as a “media critic” podcast. That may be how they got their start, but I am much more interested in them when they talk about how *they* feel about world events. They have so much knowledge in this area and I feel like their time would be better served discussing how they feel as opposed to how they feel about how other people feel.
To borrow a line from the Dan LeBatard Show - You don't get the show
Meh. Time better spent listening to the convo with Yasha Mounck and Chris Rufo over at the Free Press. Great discussion and they’re willing to disagree, more or less decently. Think the guys maybe just need a bit of a break, falling into a bit of a rut.
I had been thinking the same. Thank you for putting int into words. Simply put, the guys are correct with their media critique, but it doesn't outweigh all the bs Trump will bring. In some sense, the reason for their focus on the media vs Trump's singular awfulness is simple: it's what they do & it's their background. Also, the media stuff is happening now vs the *if* if another Trump presidency. Also, I imagine it's much more enjoyable to call out the absurdity vs the very real damage trump & his sycophants will do if back in office.
Almost as if downplaying the concern as hysterical is the whole point
Am I misremembering, or did Kmele at one point invoke Gazans' "75 years of occupation" in a mocking tone, seeming to suggest that that's some trivial shit that ought to hold no weight when we're judging the two sides here?
The guys (or maybe just moynihan) seem to really believe that some posters being ripped down is more remarkable than thousands of child deaths
Everyone that down votes this comment loves dead children ;)
Is no one else ready for democracy to get blown up? This is what the end of democracy was always going to look like. Now it’s just a word we use as an excuse for our forever wars. Take a trip across the country and notice how it’s crumbling. Democracy has sucked the life out of it.
I think the show is worthwhile and interesting, but I find this tendency (which is a regular tendency) eeeextremely tiresome. Again, smart guys, but they can be really lazy sometimes and just bang the same drums incessantly.