2020 US Election (Part Two)
- Thread starter Lexicus
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I'm not dehumanising anybody. Do you see me defending the Black Hebrew Israelites? Or the death threats received? I'm pointing out that if there is a victim in this situation, he is not a singular example of it.
As for the PR firm, well, that's all I can get on public record - that his parents hired one. They helped craft his statements. That's not just "protection", that's damage control. I'd have loved to have seen other individuals enjoy that kind of benefit during that incident. That's the problem here. You're painting someone who a) had their family lawsuit dismissed and b) had more personal protection than most others involved in the incident as nothing but a victim.
The system did not fail him. If you make the case that he did, I would contend that at the very least, the system did not just fail him, which is why I pointed out that him and him alone being a speaker at this event does not present a balanced view on the subject. What about his classmates? What about Phillips?
If I'm falling for a classic case of dehumanisation, you're falling for a constructed narrative. The truth is often not at one of either of those extremesRegardless of my agreement with the teenager, or the incident, a lot of public behaviour was uncalled for. But comparing his case to the bombing of Hiroshima is perhaps not the nuanced comparison you're looking for, here. That denies his agency and involvement in the incident, nevermind anything else (really, it's just a distasteful comparison in general). That denies the fact that the law found little in the way of victimisation by the lawsuits that people love to hold up as evidence. You can call him a victim if you want, but please do not enforce that people share your opinion, by framing it as they're falling for something nefarious simply because they have a different interpretation of the situation.
I picked on this because you attributed it to the "outrage machine". It's a way of delegitimising actual criticism, and I dislike it. The boy decided to get up close and personal with a protestor, and a Native American at that. He wore a MAGA hat. Which there was a huge, generally-circular thread about. In hindsight, an effective counterargument would've been "are people judged for wearing a BLM shirt", and hey, yes, they are. People will draw political conclusions from the wearing of specific slogans. From this comes legitimate - not manufactured - criticism. The fact that manufactured outrage for the sake of media clicks also happened should not invalidate the existence of actual criticism, nor holding the boy to it in the first place. And yet we have the conflation of this kid, this speaker at a political convention, and victimhood based on the outsized attention received due to the virality of social media. One is not the other. And if being harassed on social media is a qualifier to hear someone's opinions on the state of the world, I have a long list of progressives that I'm sure would be welcomed into said convention
I don't do this to play down the scale and manner of the harassment. I do this because that seems to apparently be the driving force in his role as a victim in this situation, and thus your approval of his inclusion. That, and I know of enough people who have been through a similar or even greater level of harassment, for a longer period of time.
Sandmann is still just a kid, it is a very bad idea to have media attack so young a person.
For the same reason - or similar - it is a very bad idea to have him speak at the republican convention. But such crap happens - after all the US is the land of reality tv.
Reality non-tv is that the political debate is not just of low level, but of dangerous level, and this isn't likely to change for the better. Saying crap and being a half-wit (or being an almost half-wit pretending you are a half-wit, convincing yourself you now are not almost one) is a multi-million dollar business, and with youtube that wealth is tricked down to virtually anyone who has time to make political videos and shout their garbage. This is here to stay.
Patine
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Ah yes, the poor victim, the boy whose parents hired a PR firm to handle his public statements. Whose family-instigated lawsuit against the Washington Post was dismissed because WaPo didn't actually say he was racist. They had to amend the complaint for it to get anywhere.
Meanwhile, the other man in the situation was demeaned from here (in OT) to kingdom come, with everybody seemingly desperate to dig up dirt on his life. Personally, I wouldn't trust the boy that had a PR firm crafting his statements for him either. Doesn't speak of the useful things he might have to say
I get it, it's easy to react against what you call the outrage machine. But here it seems kneejerk, rather than because of the validity of the events themselves, which are also significantly ideologically-biased to be enough of a tangent in of itself. If Sandmann is a worthy speaker, so is whoever represents the Washington Post, or perhaps Phillips himself. But that isn't the case, the perspective here is purely because of the "outrage machine", and how the "media targets conservatives". I can guarantee that much. If Sandmann does mature into a person whose accounts are worth hearing, being embedded in this kind of function isn't going to help that, in my opinion.
I was not actually aware of this incident when it happened, nor, indeed, until the RNC speakers were announced. I certainly was not participating on any nasty thread on this OT forum about it at that time. However, it seems now, do the deteriorative quality of the cesspool that is American media, I'm finding it VERY difficult (unaccomplished, so far) to get a statement of the event that is actually in a format of what actually HAPPENED, without being a vitriolic screed by one ideological/partisan branch or the other turning into an incendiary opinion piece, as is usually the case with American news media stories.
Lexicus
Deity
Cut the crap. He's no innocent little boy, he's speaking at the Republican Convention for god's sake. That shows he's either a real Nazi or a serious grifter - you can decide which one is worse.
sophie
Break My Heart
I like your improvised comedie/tragedie emojis
The folks in the Biden camp keep talking about how important it is to get a "mandate" ie decisive victory so that Trump can't refuse to leave office...
Yeah, that's not happening.
Biden will do well to thank his lucky stars if he manages to squeak in by the skin of his teeth. The "result" that seems most likely to me at this point, is that election night, Trump is comfortably ahead, because the red states (and counties) will have much higher amounts of in-person voting going on. But there won't be enough electoral votes to declare Trump the winner. Then, over the course of the week, as the mail-in votes start getting counted, Biden will catch up... and then all hell is gonna break lose... the recriminations, lawsuits, injunctions, the wails of vote rigging and voter fraud, "I told you so" and so on... its going to be a trainwreck total disaster fiasco of a mess.
This is going to make the 2000 election look like a knitting circle.
Berzerker
Deity
Now why would his parents see the need to hire a PR firm? Oh yeah, because political partisans were smearing him and he was getting death threats and calls to ruin his life. What would you do if that was your kid? Let it happen without defending him?
Phillips didn't tell the truth, the kid did and we have the evidence on video.
The kneejerk response was all those people who thought the kid walked up to him. Some of those people admitted they jumped the gun after watching a longer version of the incident and saw the kid was just standing there minding his own business waiting for a bus.
The Washington Post and Phillips lied
What exactly did Sandmann say that was contradicted by the video? One reason people criticized Phillips is because the video did contradict him.
And he was white... But the boy didn't do anything, Phillips walked up to him and banged a drum next to his face for a few minutes. As others around him began debating history he turned to his classmate and cautioned him to stop. Sounds like you never saw the video showing what happened before Phillips and Sandmann were 'toe to toe', for some reason you seem to think the kid walked up to him.
Berzerker
Deity
another body language expert... he's on a list of people speaking at the convention and some folk think he's scum...or thereabouts. So he's in the fresh news.
Ok, so I guess people deserve to have their life ended at 16 or how old he is.
Clearly Biden is a good candidate and Biden/Kamala is a good ticket. It's just that Trump is so awesome that they cannot do any better.
At this point, there's just the (not very rational) hope this won't be a repeat of 2016.
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Kyriakos, I was going to reply, but "life ended", c'mon. The entire context of this is being invited to be a speaker at the Republican convention
But yeah, cheap shot. Plenty of people do the same, it's the principle of the explotation that matters. I understand your point. But see how comments in this thread polarise reaction along ideological lines! Look how easily they discard a truth in favour of what they've chosen. I couldn't have paid to see that happen (ironically r.e. the media).
If you believe that later he may have some insight, fair enough. I still disagree, not least because his circumstances are so different so Lewinski's (as she was the earlier comparison), but more because of what I said before - what he went through is not unique. Unless he dedicates his life towards understanding and deconstructing that social phenomenon, there are people now who are doing that work. Who have done that work.
Maybe he could do similarly. I doubt it, but I don't knock the possibility despite how remote I think it is. I just think you're missing people in the meantime that are delivering the same message - that one you're waiting to hear. That's all.
I mean, this is a cheap shot and I mean it well, but "we" is doing a lot of work here. I do my best to not give various media the benefit of my clicks
But yeah, cheap shot. Plenty of people do the same, it's the principle of the explotation that matters. I understand your point. But see how comments in this thread polarise reaction along ideological lines! Look how easily they discard a truth in favour of what they've chosen. I couldn't have paid to see that happen (ironically r.e. the media
).If you believe that later he may have some insight, fair enough. I still disagree, not least because his circumstances are so different so Lewinski's (as she was the earlier comparison), but more because of what I said before - what he went through is not unique. Unless he dedicates his life towards understanding and deconstructing that social phenomenon, there are people now who are doing that work. Who have done that work.
Maybe he could do similarly. I doubt it, but I don't knock the possibility despite how remote I think it is. I just think you're missing people in the meantime that are delivering the same message - that one you're waiting to hear. That's all.
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EnglishEdward
Deity
I must be missing something, because if those percentages are against the Donald, they would seem to imply
that if the Donald can manage the same swing against Joe as he did against Hilary, he is home and dry.
Lexicus
Deity
Do you think it is dehumanizing to suggest that someone is not morally responsible for their own actions?
He is a kid. It doesn't matter what he thinks now. Do I imagine he will be better later on? Maybe he won't, but being thrown into the spotlight in this crapfest certainly won't help him at all. To be clear: I don't care about his political views - why would I care what any teen thinks on this...
In fact now it will be massively more difficult for him to be anything less sunk in cheap politics, so he already has lost (though at least he got paid enough millions of dollars to solve financial issues - or solve his parents' ones anyway).
Serious Kyriakos, come on. He embraced the spotlight when this all went down. He went on talk shows. I get the general point you're making, but I feel like you're a bit too disassociated on this one.
I kinda-missed this gem, but it's such a perfect encapsulation of "we need to not alienate people, except when I'm doing the alienating" that it's timeless
Lexicus
Deity
why indeed
I am not sure what you mean, guys. All I am saying is that no one should pay attention to a teen lost in the spotlight.
That the republican party invited him to speak in the convention is no shocker when one looks at all the other clowns speaking there.
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Given @Gorbles said the kid went on to various talkshows etc, yes, he seems to be all in now. But I still don't feel like forgetting how old he is. I mean one might as well accuse Trump's son of being a ridiculous clown and kneejerk pro-Trump, but I view this as missing the point. Being angry at children isn't very productive - they didn't cause this mess and are arguably not autonomous either.
That the republican party invited him to speak in the convention is no shocker when one looks at all the other clowns speaking there.
And edit:
Given @Gorbles said the kid went on to various talkshows etc, yes, he seems to be all in now. But I still don't feel like forgetting how old he is. I mean one might as well accuse Trump's son of being a ridiculous clown and kneejerk pro-Trump, but I view this as missing the point. Being angry at children isn't very productive - they didn't cause this mess and are arguably not autonomous either.
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Lexicus
Deity
I just hope he doesn't end up like those poor Hitlerjugend kids defending Berlin
Trump's family is from the fatherland. I am sure they were communist at the time.
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