>Hi Tamar,
>
>I read your post, much of which I recognize. I hear similar but opposite litanies from associates in the mid-west who quote the Russia-Russia-Russia hoax, the "Good people on both sides" lie and the conversion of the Democrat party from the natural home for the working class to the poodles of the 1%... on and on it goes.
>
>Both sides vilify. Both sides say the other is the ruin of the country. Nobody reaches out. Nobody shows respect.
>

This both-sides-ism is one of the things that got the US to this place, the idea in the media that we should treat all ideas equally and that if we have someone talk about, say, the benefits of vaccines, we must balance that by then giving air to a vaccine denialist.

There is truth in the world. Vaccines stop disease and have made our lives quantifiably longer. Vaccines do not cause autism. But there is a significant fraction of the American public who have chosen to reject reality and cocoon themselves into a world where they only hear what they want to hear. The American right has spent decades building an alternative media world where they reject reality and where they teach their followers that mainstream media (outlets that back up their stories with actual sources and do their best not to proliferate false stories) are not to be trusted, that they can only trust their own media. The result is that a significant number of Americans believe that there is no climate change, that vaccines cause autism, that Obama is a secret Muslim born in Kenya, and many other outlandish things.

As I noted above, the mainstream media's response to being accused of being leftist has been too much both-sides-ism.


>Right now the Democrats have House, Senate and Presidency. This is the chance to sort out healthcare funding, voting integrity and maybe a few of the other important issues that the US still has not managed to improve decades after everybody else.
>
>I wonder whether they will do that, or whether it's more urgent to re-enact The Butter Battle Book by Dr Seuss?
>

It is my hope that the Democrats in the Senate will recognize that they must use the power they have. To do so, the filibuster must be reformed or eliminated. Right now, the most powerful people in the Senate (maybe, in our government) are two Democratic Senators from more conservative states who are refusing to do so. With only the barest of majorities in the Senate, Democrats have not a vote to spare.


>On the topic of anti-Semitism: it's entirely predictable that on hearing your charges, GOP voters will say well done focusing on one slightly wacky Republican while giving repeat offenders in Democrat congress the usual pass. There's that infamous Democrat double standard again, I can easily imagine them saying to each other, reminding each other the liars even called Trump anti-Semitic in his first 6 months until they realized that's silly when his daughter converted and his grandkids are Jewish and he's clearly pro-Israel, so they moved onto their next lie about racism. All in lock step with the corrupted controlled media, naturally.
>

This is nonsense. As I showed you at length in my last message, the GOP has chosen to be the party of white resentment. Yes, sometimes Democrats say something impolitic, but then they typically get push-back not only from Republicans, but within their own party. When Ilhan Omar made an anti-Semitic remark, she was criticized by Democrats, too, and the House voted on a resolution condemning anti-semitism.

In general, Democrats are better about holding their own accountable. Al Franken and Katie Hill had to resign after sex scandals, but Donald Trump got elected President despite dozens of credible allegations against him. Former GOP Senator David Vitter got caught in a famous prostitution scandal and didn't lose his seat. Former GOP Senator John Ensign got caught in an extramarital affair (with an aide) and kept his seat for two more years. GOP Rep. Jim Jordan is implicated as having known and looked away when a team doctor was sexually abusing student wrestlers while he was a coach. Not only hasn't he resigned or been pushed out, he just reelected.

It's not always totally imbalanced. Former GOP Senator Larry Craig resigned quickly after being arrested for soliciting sex from another man in a rest room. (I think the difference between this case and the other Republicans in sex scandals is obvious.) And Democratic Senator Bob Menendez was reelected after charges against him were dropped in an influence-buying scheme. (I was furious that the party didn't push him to retire at his next election. Plenty of good, solid Democrats in New Jersey.)

As for Trump, he is a racist, misogynist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic creep, who is also a con man. He has a long history in this regard, and saying that he can't be anti-Semitic because his grandchildren are Jewish is like saying a person can't be a racist because they have a Black friend. That's nonsense.

>What do I see? I see people with more similarities than differences sitting inside their own battlements full of grievance and certainty that the other side are devils, and then acting surprised when the untended fields go to weed.
>
>On the topic of fascism: frankly I despair. Even an amateur historian like me sees that while the GOP may be big on nationalism, so were all the allies who defeated the fascists in WWII. Much more relevant is control over the media: are we to believe that Trump or his ilk have control over the media! Because in real life, the media was consistently opposed to Trump, confident to attack him at will without fear and to censor him towards the end. If somebody was in lock step with the media, perhaps they are to be found elsewhere. GOP voters will have no difficulty telling you where to look for the party in cahoots with media and censorship. Other attributes of fascism might include corporate power protected, labor power suppressed, rampant cronyism and fraudulent elections. Again, when people may try to point the fingers at GOP voters or Trump and cry "fascist" they really ought to expect even more fingers pointing right back at them.
>

The Republican party has chosen to elevate authoritarianism over democracy. I don't say that lightly. I say it after reading what experts in authoritarianism have to say. Here's one example: https://www.vox.com/21562116/anne-applebaum-twilight-of-democracy-gop-trump-election-fraud-2020-biden-the-ezra-klein-show.

I also note (as Applebaum does) that we are in a moment in the world where right-wing populist authoritarians are gaining power in quite a few countries. What's happening here isn't unlike what's happening in Hungary and Poland and Turkey and the Philippines. We're not as far down that path as those other countries, and I hope that we won't get there, but it's foolish to pretend there aren't a lot of people here who would be (initially) happy if we went that way.

You also keep eliding the fact that one major party has, for decades, tried to keep lots of people from voting rather than adapting their ideas so they can attract more votes.


>What usually happens now is that somebody decides that the above is my own perspective, justifying thundering denouncements and attempts at the online billy club- rather than an effort to show that the other side is just as outraged and filled with moral indignation.
>
>As for your son: if he is only responsible for his own actions rather than for all bad players around him, then why is it acceptable to denounce millions of fellow citizens for the actions of a few who share voting preferences? This is the same question they will be asking- or probably not even asking any more, just rolling their eyes and saying there they go again.

You keep insisting that I'm blaming every Trump voter. I've been really clear about blaming the Republican party, not all of its individual voters. That said, I will denounce anyone who insists that I am less human because I'm a woman, or that Black people deserve less because of their skin color, or that LGBT people are not entitled to full citizenship rights, and so on. Popper's paradox of tolerance says that tolerance can only go so far:

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."

Tamar