mtutiger

I couldn't imagine having this little self-respect lol

"That's just political rhetoric"

Threads like this are case in point why nothing will change. We all see the problem, we all know what it is. But partisans like this guy are ultimately incapable of looking inward.

I agree

It was this that I saw last night that I was chewing on when making this post. I thought it was profound and stated something I believe in my heart in a really succinct way. Social media is a huge problem in this.... when you deal with people face to face, it's mostly easier to get along and see other perspectives. And to treat them with dignity. These apps have proven how easy it is to sit behind your avatar and sling vile **** at one another. Not to mention how they often decrease actual face time with real human beings.... I'm as guilty of this as anyone, some of it is having young kids and not having as much time for extracurriculars in life (like joining a bowling league or softball). But it's easy to make *this* your reality instead of everything going on around yourself and too many of us, particularly younger people, are doing just that.

Yep.... but this is largely just treated as table stakes, which is a big problem with where we are. Nobody really seems to want to engage with this, certainly not in elite media in year of our Lord 2024. Not as bad as the picture above obviously, but nobody wants to engage with how normalized it is for people to drive by a house with people literally flying flags that say "**** Biden".... (I'm just thankful my boy is five years old and cannot read the word yet). It's protected speech, but it's still a poor reflection of where we find ourselves as Americans. As an aside, whenever this conversation about "civility" has come up over the years in our politics, there has often been, in reference to Trump's role in where we are, a refrain that "he is the symptom, but not the disease." Which is not entirely wrong, but ultimately lets him off the hook and is, in effect, an excuse; it infantilizes him and treats him as not having agency in the things that he says, does, shares, etc. As a larger society, I think we all see the problem... I interact with people with a number of perspectives in my day to day life politically and, despite getting on more or less civilly in day to day life, most seem unhappy with where we find ourselves in the bigger picture. I don't care who they may support politically, I don't think the average person wants or likes political violence. But in order to actually get somewhere in bringing more civility to our larger political discussion, that would require that all parties put their cards on the table, deal in good faith, and make adjustments to the way we treat one another. Treating people with more dignity at the very least, despite whatever significant disagreements on policy. And I don't think that will ever happen, at least so long as Donald Trump is a force in our politics. He may bring out the worst in us, and that may be our collective responsibility, but he has agency as well and he knows what he's doing. I'm just tired of the excuses for it.

He saying the right things right now... Its what he might saying a week from now that gives reason for concern

The RNC starts tomorrow, so the rhetoric coming out of there is likely to be newsworthy unfortunately

The guy is 20 years old - political partisans are going to want to hang on every biographical detail that supports whatever their conclusion is, but the reality is twofold: 1.) At that age, political views can be very fluid 2.) There is a possibility or even likelihood that is enhanced by the contradiction here (Registered R with an ActBlue donation in his past) that this is just a random nutjob with an AR-15 The politicization of this is really disappointing but unsurprising in our toxic political culture

Totally, it's the right thing to say and do.... and it's an easy call. The asymmetry in expectations between the two sides and what is expected of them is a little hard to ignore though, so I get Rob's frustration.

It's all so disingenuous when you see how apocalyptic and violent the rhetoric can be from their own side as well. Obviously this is a horrible event and should not have happened. We do not want to live in a world where political violence is the norm. But I worry a lot about a toxic political culture in this country that has led to a break down of civility in how we disagree... And this event, awful as it is, is just downstream IMO

Deeply deeply irresponsible statement from soon-to-be VP nominee

This raises questions as to whether Biden can win the coveted Papa Roach endorsement

I understand that some will cast doubts on this given who is sharing it, but it's still coming from Heritage Foundation's lips....

Meanwhile, on the heels of Donald Trump calling Milwaukee a horrible city....

Would be far more beneficial than nebulous proposals on eliminating taxes on tips, but will get less ink most likely.

That's a big part of what he did tonight in his remarks that feels like should have been done earlier, unrelated to any issues as to his age: talking about what he will do in the next term. Even before the debate, that was my biggest problem with this campaign.... the two sentence sales pitch. It hadn't landed to-date, but we started to see it come out tonight. I think we need to see a lot more of it going forward if he intends on sticking this out.

Love it... Keep going at this line

He should feel free to add Elon Musk and Jamie Dimon to this line in future rallies

Biden's bull case is Harry Truman in 1948... And the clips tonight are the first time I've seen a glimmer of that level of fight

And it's substantive... Real world outcomes that are likely to happen if Trump were to win, regardless of who the nominee is. At some level, that stuff should matter right? It seems like it's gaining traction organically, but that has been in spite of a media that seems more focused on style over substance

I don't profess to speak for the median person out in the country, but I've alluded to this throughout this thread since the debate: I think people can have serious reservations about Biden and his ability to move forward while also looking at the reaction to it from the media and many folks and see it as combinations of self-flaggelating, not productive or even unfair (especially given how people are just throwing around terms like "dementia" or "Parkinsons" without any real reason). And it's one thing when Trump's campaign or his supporters do it, but when you have actual professionals drawing paychecks from the NYT or the Washington Post doing it, and promoting their brand off of it (*cough* Astead Herndon), it's hard not to feel there isn't an agenda involved. It really pisses me off.... I just don't think collectively, in the age of social media, we are able to process this with the seriousness it deserves. MC's post above, showing his emails from the NYT, is a perfect example.

I need to see more evidence, but if we've learned anything about this latest era of politics, "feeding frenzies" can often lead to backlash the longer and longer they go on.

The simple answer is that the nomination hasn't actually happened yet.... if Biden were to drop out, he would release his delegates and endorse Kamala Harris, and the Lions share of said delegates would vote for her. There are no ballot access issues as there is, technically, no nominee. There's a reason the media uses the term "presumptive nominee" until the actual Convention, because that is when the actual nomination is conferred.

It was never good enough for a lot of the critics to just take what we saw at face value at that debate, an old man who brought forward questions as to whether he has the energy to do this, to finish this campaign and beat Donald Trump. It had to turn into "he's got dementia", "he's hiding Parkinson's", "there was a CONSPIRACY to cover it UP!".... I expect that stuff from Trump's campaign, but there are a lot of people in media engaging in this sort of talk, and it reflects *very* poorly IMO.