I could charitably infer that Raddatz was intentionally setting up a strawman of Biden encouraging hate speech because what he said would inflame the bigots knowing full well that nonsense was easy enough to knock down, but you know what is so much better?
Not doing things like that. Not framing things in the way that the fascists' feelings are centered. You can just talk about the words Biden said without framing in in the terms of how the people he was talking about would react to that, because it is already established that they are fucking kerosine-dipped fuses in a world full of lit candles.
You can talk about the rise of white supremacist and right wing domestic terrorism.
You can acknowledge that election denial and political violence are choices, not identities, and that Biden is decrying the tactics and the people who choose those tactics, not the people who just happen to be conservative or Republican. You can center facts over people who believe disinfo.
The threat of disinformation and the demonization of political enemies by people of a certain side is an observable fact. Posing a question in this way legitimizes the idea that Biden isn't supposed to mention the rattlesnake in the bedroom. It also puts another arrow in the demonization quiver.
We are just supposed to sleep with a rattlesnake in the bedroom. Pointing it out would be a disturbance. And trying to remove it might make the rattlesnake mad. We are all just going to step around the rattlesnake. And it's clutch of eggs. And the hole it made for its brethren to creep through into our bedroom. We are demons if we have anything to say about poisonous snake lethality or the dangers thereof or the potential removal of same. Imagine if instead of "rattlesnake" we substituted the name of any marginalized entity that was not actively harmful or venomous, huh? (But of course, that makes no sense. What if I was hit with a pillow is not the same as what if I was hit with an anvil. What if I swatted a mosquito and what if I called a swat team on a neighbor are also not the same.)
We don't have time for this. Democracy depends on saying things that are true, not cleverly (??!?!?) pretending Biden calling out something real is somehow his fault for noticing, not the fault of the people massing for potential violence (based on their own words and previous deeds). Responsible journalism informs the public, it doesn't dazzle them with false equivalence or try to remove the sting of our fucked-up reality with sleight of tongue.
Bottoms' handled the question well, but it didn't have to get posed that way. We don't have time for this. We need to confront reality directly and stop both-sidesing. So much really depends on it. Of course Biden pointing out lies and hate is not the same as creating lies and hate. What sophistry!
There is only so much airtime in the world for facts--use them smartly! This was trifling.
UPDATE: Like literally why are people in the mainstream press like this when demagogues and fascists really hate the free press? Why?
This isn't right at all.Today in "neither our media nor our political system is designed to deal with a far right authoritarian party"
— Mark Copelovitch (@mcopelov) September 4, 2022
Truly, congrats everyone. It takes concerted effort to fail this epically & completely. pic.twitter.com/hRjON4d41m
2 comments:
That "rattlesnake in the bedroom" is one scintillating metaphor Ms. Strangely. Nice work~
I thought it dove-tailed with Trump's recitation of "the Snake" poem, in that the right wing knew what he was when they picked him up, and they haven't put him down yet. And the happy for clicks and views media isn't in a hurry to drop him either. Despite the damage being done.
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