This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle hard to thread.

…

This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle hard to thread. No matter how I present it, I’ll offend some thoughtful, decent people.

The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.

The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.

This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.

The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it.

As for those who equate Trump and Joe Biden, that’s false equivalency. Biden has done nothing remotely close to the egregious, anti-American acts of Trump. We can debate the success and mindset of our current president, as we have about most presidents in our lifetimes, but Biden was never a threat to our democracy. Trump is. He is unique among all American presidents for his efforts to keep power at any cost.

  • ZeroCool@slrpnk.netEnglish
    111·
    9 months ago

    Much as it offends some who read us, we will continue to tell the truth about Trump.

    To quote Ben Shapiro if I may… “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” Trump’s a traitor who incited a violent insurrection and continuing to support him after what happened on 1/6 makes you one too.

    • Phoenixz
      167·
      9 months ago

      Don’t quote Ben Shapir, he’s an ass who thinks he debates people very well because he can yell louder. He’s not the type of person you’d want to quote

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
        51·
        9 months ago

        It’s apt in this case, because old Benchy is a massive right wing hypocrite who cares infinitely more about feelings than facts. Using his stupid words against him and his ilk when they do the very thing they bitch about is ok in my book.

      • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
        2·
        9 months ago

        Yeah, but remember that one time he had a zinger against an 18 year old kid at a college Q&A? It’s really been downhill since then for him.

  • squid_slime@lemmy.world
    801·
    9 months ago

    Being British but having to talk american politics ive started looking to Wikipedia for somewhat non bias information, or more so I am able to easily follow the source which often leads to first hand testimonials, court documents and some such information.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack

    I find doing so gives me an advantage when combatting misinformation.

    My uncle who seems to get all his insight from Ben Shapiro or as I say dry muff man, and Russell brand/Howard which ever is doing a pod cast theses days.

    Anyway a lot of the right wing ideologs tend to side on conspiracy, hearsay. So be well informed and hopefully we can pull the working class away from these grifters.

    • GladiusB@lemmy.world
      18·
      9 months ago

      Ben Shapiro is an idiot and not a model American. He says shocking things for ratings and then acts like he’s a victim. He is no different than Howard Stern but on the opposite end of the spectrum.

        • GladiusB@lemmy.world
          71·
          9 months ago

          He was back before Serious XM. People were flipping out for how progressive he was. How he is now? I don’t know. I was picking a known entity that was a shock jock.

          • whoreticulture@lemmy.world
            8·
            9 months ago

            Honestly most of what I know of him is that he seems to to be extremely misogynistic. I guess during the Bush administration you could get away with that and still seem like a raging liberal.

            • Huckledebuck@sh.itjust.works
              1·
              9 months ago

              Stern became big during the Clinton administration. This was when we learned that women were just cum rags.

              Stern pushed that and really nothing else. He only ever stood for misogyny.

  • takeda@lemmy.world
    16·
    9 months ago

    Kind of related: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder book also talks about WW1 and WW2 and a lot of that rings bells. He doesn’t mention trump by name, and frankly it applies to what’s happening in other Western countries as well.

    Highly recommend it, the book is also quite short and to the point.

    If you don’t want a book, he is reading it on his channel: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhZxrogyToZsllfRqQllyuFNbT-ER7TAu

  • PugJesus@kbin.social
    3822·
    9 months ago

    Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter. The people equating the two will loudly proclaim to be leftists while simultaneously saying that Trump wasn’t actually trying to interrupt the certification of Joe Biden, and that Trump actually was trying to STOP the ‘unruly protest’. No amount of arguing can get through to people who have no interests other than smug contrarianism.

    • TehWorld@lemmy.world
      72·
      9 months ago

      It does matter. Minds have to be changed one at a time. A constant drip is better than nothing.

    • Patapon Enjoyer@lemmy.world
      321·
      9 months ago

      I have yet to meet a leftist who doesn’t think Trump is a piece of shit fash nepo baby rapist whose death will be celebrated. And I’m terminally online.

    • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
      292·
      9 months ago

      Learn to tell the difference between leftists and right wing trolls. Anyone can call themselves a leftist. There is no leadership in the leftist movements that have come within a thousand miles of equating Trump and Biden. Biden is an old school right wing corporate Democrat, not fascist Trumpian garbage.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
        145·
        9 months ago

        Hence “loudly proclaim to be leftists”. But many of them aren’t trolls, at least not in the sense of not meaning what they’re saying.

          • Sybil@lemmy.world
            47·
            9 months ago

            Mussolini would disagree, as well as any of the anarchist or communists he stabbed in the back.

        • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
          3·
          9 months ago

          Are you saying that Biden is fascist, or that he isn’t a right wing corporatist? If Biden is fascist, what is Trump? Neoliberalism is on the far left (or centrist) side of right wing corporatism, and fascism is the far right side.

          Neoliberalism thinks power comes from meritocracy, and Fascism thinks it comes from moral superiority. The first is rooted in the merchant class, and the other with the divine right of kings. That’s why fascists turn on Jews so often, because they associate Jews with wealth and Christians with royalty or ecclesiastical power.

          • Sybil@lemmy.world
            13·
            9 months ago

            Mussolini made no such distinction. mechanized military states meet all the hallmarks of fascism: primacy of the state, and alignment of institutions with the interest of the state.

            • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
              1·
              9 months ago

              Neoliberalism is better described as alignment of the state with the interests of institutions. It’s almost worse, except that the interests of different institutions aren’t all aligned.

              • Sybil@lemmy.world
                13·
                9 months ago

                the state still has primacy, and the corporations are both chartered by the state and are subject to capricious prosecution for a myriad of laws if they threaten the power of the state.

                • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
                  1·
                  9 months ago

                  US corporations don’t seem particularly threatened by the state. Look how much trouble the all powerful state has had prosecuting just one obviously guilty as hell oligarch with a tiny fraction of the wealth controlled by the big corporations.

    • RainfallSonata@lemmy.world
      214·
      9 months ago

      Anyone who claims to be leftist and doesn’t think trump committed insurrection is trolling you. Believing Biden is just as bad is another matter entirely.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
        102·
        9 months ago

        https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/927705/Please-for-the-love-of-God-VOTE#entry-comment-5928401

        You see this kind of comment intermittently from certain kinds of self-proclaimed leftists, where they parrot Trumpian claims about how he was actually trying to STOP the insurrection and is Totally Innocent and therefore it’s Not A Big Deal if he wins again. Anything to feel better about helping him win against the filthy neolib Biden.

        Believing Biden is just as bad is another matter entirely.

        … is it? Because last I checked, there was a big difference between “Tried to overthrow a democratic process” and “Did not try to do so”.

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
        141·
        9 months ago

        I think people have a hard time encountering criticism of Biden without reading into it some sort of comparative statement that is not usually intended. I have personally encountered this many times. I can even go out of my way to say things like “of course Trump is much worse” in various levels of detail and yet, without fail, someone will come along and say that by not offering unquestioning support to Biden I’m a secret Trump supporter trying to undermine Biden or some other wild accusation. I believe this type of interaction is most responsible for perpetuating the idea that people believe the two men are similar. By contrast I rarely see that opinion offered directly.

        • Digitalprimate@lemmy.worldEnglish
          111·
          9 months ago

          Not so much as a secret Trump supporter as helping to muddy the waters. There are many, many valid criticisms to make of Biden (and even more things to validly praise, oddly enough never covered in the press…)

          I think the problem people have with criticism, valid or otherwise, is that this is no time to raise any doubt whatsoever about who should be president next. Yes, that’s a propagandist’s position. It’s also the only morally and practically correct one given the existential challenge we face.

            • Wrench@lemmy.world
              8·
              9 months ago

              2016 was not long ago. “Valid dissent” is what successfully disenfranchised enough voters to give us Trump, which we will spend a lifetime recovering from.

              You people have a very short memory.

              • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
                24·
                9 months ago

                Like I said: No dissent in an election cycle.

                And the neat part is that election cycles don’t ever stop.

                So we have zero dissent.

                Yay democracy.

                Also: What you mean “you people?” That sounds like you’re being needlessly divisive, trying to paint progressives as disloyal.

                I bet you’re one of those IRA agents infiltrating message boards.

                • Wrench@lemmy.world
                  4·
                  9 months ago

                  And you sound like someone who would be complicit with electing Hitler pre-WW2 because his political rivals weren’t perfect matches to your ideals.

                  Wake the fuck up. You get “divisive” replies from people like me because we’re tired of your intellectually dishonest “what, I can’t voice dissent?” when democracy is actually in major jeopardy this very moment. This isn’t some hypothetical.

                  You whine about people shutting down your bullshit because we’re fed up with it. But the other side is literally facism that would likely evolve into actual imprisonment for “voicing dissent”.

                  And that’s not hyperbole. Dictatorships around the world currently do that. Trumps own lawyers argued that the sitting president cannot be guilty of any crimes, that they can literally assassinate rivals.

                  Again, that is not hyperbole. That is fact.

  • PhAzE
    4·
    9 months ago

    There are two sides of a fact. One side is the fact, the other side is the spin. Spinster work had to make the spin look like fact and bend the opinions of those who can’t separate fact from fiction.

    One side is based on evidence, while the other is based on conjecture and opinion.

  • Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world
    1534·
    9 months ago

    Trump is the best thing to ever happen for the mainstream media. They don’t have to report on much else but his shenanigans.

    Less news stories about building housing

    Less news stories about the abysmal Healthcare scamcare system.

    Less news stories about a digital bill of rights

    Less news stories about empowering worker co-ops and other labor movements.

    Trump spam all day.

      • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
        3·
        9 months ago

        Imagine trying to explain to Benjamin Franklin that yellow journalist super star will get elected and then sell classified documents to our biggest enemies for only his gain.

    • ceiphas@lemmy.world
      149·
      9 months ago

      But the underlying problem is, you could literally elect a can of beans into the oval office, and it would do a better job than donald “dictator on day one only” trump. So there is no pressure on biden to even move… The lines are drawn between a fascist and a corporate shill. Choose your poison, Americans

      • ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world
        22·
        9 months ago

        The difference though is the most important. We can change our minds and vote someone else in after Biden. If we elect Trump he will do his best to completely dismantle our democracy, something he almost accomplished the first time.

      • Djtecha@lemm.ee
        171·
        9 months ago

        For a corporate shill he is really helping out the union movement. I would say that here’s more for workers rights then Obama is. And with less of the drone strikes. I think he could do more sure, but I don’t see this guy going full corporate stooge and I feel like it’s a knee-jerk reaction to claim he is.