What saddens me is the lack of sympathy for Pelosi and her husband expressed by her Republican colleagues, no small number of whom have been happy to label Pelosi as a traitor. Instead, they remained and remain silent and thus complicit with the Trumps and Musks of this world. I'd bet that if you took a poll of Republicans a solid majority would believe that the attack on Pelosi was a false flag operation or one of the other conspiracy theories floating around the rightwing media sphere. That's downright frightening.
The most dispiriting aspect of this story, your reasonable analysis, and all the rest of the things in the current landscape, is that I can’t say how we come back from all this.
Even the scenario where Trump is soundly beaten at the polls: does that really walk us back to the normal levels of unhealthy that our political system used to have?
I’m not so sure that our conditioned doubling down habit-- ingrained across our political spectrum-- is ever going away.
My reflexive response to Erickson is that the GOP as an institution seems to be leaning into the violent crazies. I live in Georgia’s 14th and Marjorie Greene has militia members provide “security” for her at events and sometimes in and around town. It’s very jarring to see far right militia guys with assault rifles just casually a part of the scene around here. If that side of the aisle wants to live like a third rate society, I would say they are dehumanizing themselves and I’m not the bad guy for noticing it.
The reaction to the attack on Paul Pelosi has been as I expected, which is why I'm chronically depressed.
I don't think some on the centre-Right need the press' promoting a 'this is a fruit of Rightist nuttery' narrative to push back against such, as they are still sane and reality-connected enough to notice that is actually is the case, but too uncomfortable with the fact not to. If my beloved brother knocked-over a bank, I might have to stop myself from initiating a 'Who are the _real_ thieves?' feint, even in the absence of an article piunting-out that he tended to do that sort of thing.
As for the Homeland Security initiative, I both am concerned about what they might pull, but also think that they or their equivalent had best pay attention to 'social media' (scare-quotes because I believe it net-degrades society), given (e.g.) the Facebook-induced and -coördinated massacres of Muslims in Sri Lanka and of Hindus in Bangladesh.
I think you're being a little too generous with the Ericksons and their laments about bias. There's a little truth there, but just a little (most evident in the coverage of the BLM violence). There is a question of proportion to consider -- who commits more politically driven violent acts? Who goes out of their way to avoid condemning them, in fact comes close to condoning them. I don't remember Dems refusing to condemn or both-sidesing the Scalise shooter or posting suggestive online political images with guns and barely ambiguous violent text.
Wouldn't a good start be for Dems to respond to these sorts of incidents as follows: "We condemn this heinous act of violence regardless of the political affiliation of the victim. We thank our friends across the aisle for the public statements so many have made in condemning this atrocity and we stand united with them and the entire country in our unwavering commitment to protecting the safety and well-being of all Americans, without exception." Whether it's the Dems' responsibility to make the magnanimous gesture is not the point; the question is would it help? Or would R's simply find a new way to attack this (calling it out for hypocrisy, etc.) while running the end-game of new conspiracies?
Pardon my cynicism, but Erickson's twitter thread, along with those on the right who immediately claimed the MSM didn't take left-wing violence as seriously as right-wing violence, are themselves attempting to deflect the issue of right wing violence right in front of us. I take no second chair to criticizing the MSM--hell I made a documentary about how the "real news" set the conditions for "fake news--but I think you're first inclination of agreeing with this deflection is very misguided. Because if Erickson and those on the right who immediately brought up the whataboutism of MSM where indeed sincere actors, they would have first focused on denouncing the violence before them, before denouncing the MSM. But they didn't. Nor did they condemn the made up "news" on the right. So to acquiesce to their point (which is arguable at best--as the Dems roundly condemned the violence and the Scalsie shooting was well covered), which they used to deflect and not enlighten people, is regrettable. BTW, here is a 2 minute trailer to my film. I'm not friend of MSM. https://youtu.be/uGpdxwn_pdg
What saddens me is the lack of sympathy for Pelosi and her husband expressed by her Republican colleagues, no small number of whom have been happy to label Pelosi as a traitor. Instead, they remained and remain silent and thus complicit with the Trumps and Musks of this world. I'd bet that if you took a poll of Republicans a solid majority would believe that the attack on Pelosi was a false flag operation or one of the other conspiracy theories floating around the rightwing media sphere. That's downright frightening.
The most dispiriting aspect of this story, your reasonable analysis, and all the rest of the things in the current landscape, is that I can’t say how we come back from all this.
Even the scenario where Trump is soundly beaten at the polls: does that really walk us back to the normal levels of unhealthy that our political system used to have?
I’m not so sure that our conditioned doubling down habit-- ingrained across our political spectrum-- is ever going away.
War? Probably something of that magnitude by necessity.
My reflexive response to Erickson is that the GOP as an institution seems to be leaning into the violent crazies. I live in Georgia’s 14th and Marjorie Greene has militia members provide “security” for her at events and sometimes in and around town. It’s very jarring to see far right militia guys with assault rifles just casually a part of the scene around here. If that side of the aisle wants to live like a third rate society, I would say they are dehumanizing themselves and I’m not the bad guy for noticing it.
The reaction to the attack on Paul Pelosi has been as I expected, which is why I'm chronically depressed.
I don't think some on the centre-Right need the press' promoting a 'this is a fruit of Rightist nuttery' narrative to push back against such, as they are still sane and reality-connected enough to notice that is actually is the case, but too uncomfortable with the fact not to. If my beloved brother knocked-over a bank, I might have to stop myself from initiating a 'Who are the _real_ thieves?' feint, even in the absence of an article piunting-out that he tended to do that sort of thing.
As for the Homeland Security initiative, I both am concerned about what they might pull, but also think that they or their equivalent had best pay attention to 'social media' (scare-quotes because I believe it net-degrades society), given (e.g.) the Facebook-induced and -coördinated massacres of Muslims in Sri Lanka and of Hindus in Bangladesh.
I think you're being a little too generous with the Ericksons and their laments about bias. There's a little truth there, but just a little (most evident in the coverage of the BLM violence). There is a question of proportion to consider -- who commits more politically driven violent acts? Who goes out of their way to avoid condemning them, in fact comes close to condoning them. I don't remember Dems refusing to condemn or both-sidesing the Scalise shooter or posting suggestive online political images with guns and barely ambiguous violent text.
Both sides may be bad, but one is clearly badder.
Wouldn't a good start be for Dems to respond to these sorts of incidents as follows: "We condemn this heinous act of violence regardless of the political affiliation of the victim. We thank our friends across the aisle for the public statements so many have made in condemning this atrocity and we stand united with them and the entire country in our unwavering commitment to protecting the safety and well-being of all Americans, without exception." Whether it's the Dems' responsibility to make the magnanimous gesture is not the point; the question is would it help? Or would R's simply find a new way to attack this (calling it out for hypocrisy, etc.) while running the end-game of new conspiracies?
Pardon my cynicism, but Erickson's twitter thread, along with those on the right who immediately claimed the MSM didn't take left-wing violence as seriously as right-wing violence, are themselves attempting to deflect the issue of right wing violence right in front of us. I take no second chair to criticizing the MSM--hell I made a documentary about how the "real news" set the conditions for "fake news--but I think you're first inclination of agreeing with this deflection is very misguided. Because if Erickson and those on the right who immediately brought up the whataboutism of MSM where indeed sincere actors, they would have first focused on denouncing the violence before them, before denouncing the MSM. But they didn't. Nor did they condemn the made up "news" on the right. So to acquiesce to their point (which is arguable at best--as the Dems roundly condemned the violence and the Scalsie shooting was well covered), which they used to deflect and not enlighten people, is regrettable. BTW, here is a 2 minute trailer to my film. I'm not friend of MSM. https://youtu.be/uGpdxwn_pdg