Clown Car V: 2020 version!
- Thread starter Estebonrober
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hobbsyoyo
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Maybe when all the Trump judges retire we can have something like that.
Lexicus
Deity
If we ever get the votes in Congress we should get rid of all the judges Trump appointed.
What do you mean, ‘info’?
Socrates99
Bottoms up!
I know right? Its insane. Name an MSNBC or CNN anti Obama voice...hard right? Now name a Fox anti trump voice...holy horsehocky its easy!!!!
That alone is a goddamn travesty from a progressive POV. No joke, look up Glenn Greenwald, I guarantee there's more Fox clips than MSNBC and CNN combined.
Its probably inadvertent since they can use progressives against the Democrat party in general and since tucker's combo of antiwar and racism appeals to certain portions of the rightwing base. Unfortunately those contribute to an overall more varied voice at Fox than you will ever get from the other two networks.
I'm saying this while still pointing out that Fox is awful overall. It's just a testament to how wretched the two "lefty" networks are.
I watch/listen to all three... It's not, and the claim that it is amounts to just another version of the insidious "both sides are bad" refrain.
I have a different perspective on this. When I watch/listen to MSNBC, what I get from them are positions and information that are mostly accurate, with a heavily liberal spin and a little bit of blatantly bs pro-Democrat propaganda. From CNN I get positions and information that are mostly accurate with occasional unintentionally incorrect information that was presented in good faith. From the FOX, I get mostly unadulterated horse manure, outright lies and blatant pro Republican propaganda, even moreso that in prior years now that they are in the position of having to defend Trump.
But the difference with FOX, is that since most of the folks on their panels and opinion shows are spewing an endless stream of misinformation and Republican propaganda, the few contrarian voices are a YUGE contrast. Whereas on CNN, the positions are for the most part reasonable and accurate, so there is very little contrast, and even when there is disagreement its much more reasoned and nuanced. So I can see how watching that, a person might feel like "Wow FOX has much more diversity of voices than MSNBC or CNN!", but that's an illusion. FOX only seems diverse because the stark contrast between reasonable positions (like criticizing Trump's lying and illegal/dishonest/corrupt behavior) and the completely unreasonable, disgusting positions of trying to defend Trump and make excuses for him and his administration.
To analogize... CNN is like a panel of five deciding on what desert to have. Person 1 says "vanilla ice cream", 2 says "chocolate ice cream", 3 says "carrot cake", 4 says "apple pie", and 5 says "tiramisu". On MSNBC Person 1 says "vanilla ice cream", 2 says "deuce de leche yogurt", 3 says "kale smoothie" 4 says "flan" and 5 says "cucumber gelatto"
On FOX Person 1 says "horse manure", 2 says "shoot yourself in the face", 3 says "pigs blood", 4 says "anyone who eats desert should die in flames", and 5 says "banana crème pie".
And listening to that... you might say "Wow those FOX guys are so diverse in their positions, they even allow people on the panel who say reasonable things!"
Socrates99
Bottoms up!
Eh maybe, except I'm not so sure that in the russiagate era that's exactly true. Maddow did a fear mongering segment about Russians turning off the heat in winter ffs. Replace "Russian" with "Iranian" in that story and you've got a Hannity segment. Two sides of the coin is all. Fox sounds crazier if you're on the other side but if you take a break from CNN/MSNBC for a while and get your news from any other source then come back, they sound pretty kooky too. Fox just, shockingly, has more dissenting voices.
M4All polls overwhelmingly amongst democrats. Why don't the "lefty" stations even give the policy a fair shake, let alone support it? Why do they push Klobuchar, Biden and Warren so hard? There's hardly any variety in the voices on their own side. Then when they do have a conservative on its some whackjob they can make fun of or a never trumper who feeds their overall narrative.
Fox is absolutely awful, no denying that. They just oddly enough have a wider variety of voices and opinions on their own side and even on the other. CNN/MSNBC are lockstep centrists.
M4All polls overwhelmingly amongst democrats. Why don't the "lefty" stations even give the policy a fair shake, let alone support it? Why do they push Klobuchar, Biden and Warren so hard? There's hardly any variety in the voices on their own side. Then when they do have a conservative on its some whackjob they can make fun of or a never trumper who feeds their overall narrative.
Fox is absolutely awful, no denying that. They just oddly enough have a wider variety of voices and opinions on their own side and even on the other. CNN/MSNBC are lockstep centrists.
My knee-jerk reaction to "those networks tolerated no anti-Obama talking heads" is "there were liberals generally opposed to Obama?"
I've very sporadically listened to Maddow (though it's been a couple years since the most recent) and my BS meter doesn't peg, melt down, then dissolve and eat through the floor and a decent chunk of the Earth's crust the way it does with Hannity or a couple of the other most egregious Fox heads, and in general I don't notice CNN and MSNBC blurring fact statements and opinion statements the way they do on Fox.
But I've not watched any enough to really compare, and I'll have to start taking a closer look at CNN and MSNBC now, though... *shudder* I'd really like to just stick with Politico and NationalReview.
I've very sporadically listened to Maddow (though it's been a couple years since the most recent) and my BS meter doesn't peg, melt down, then dissolve and eat through the floor and a decent chunk of the Earth's crust the way it does with Hannity or a couple of the other most egregious Fox heads, and in general I don't notice CNN and MSNBC blurring fact statements and opinion statements the way they do on Fox.
But I've not watched any enough to really compare, and I'll have to start taking a closer look at CNN and MSNBC now, though... *shudder* I'd really like to just stick with Politico and NationalReview.
I'd settle for just Kavanaugh and/or Gorsuch.
Estebonrober
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I never watch news channels but I have both of these websites on bookmark as well and I have to say National Review has gone down since the Trump takeover of the GOP.
it is quite good I must admit
Are there any conservative-leaning sites that have not?
Estebonrober
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The ones that stood their ground went bankrupt its kind of a sad story for conservative thought honestly. So monolithic. Quillette is out there, but its dabbles in white nationalism. I still read it on occasion because it has conservative academic voices which I consider important to pay attention to in my political life.
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
I prefer Tres Leches, but otherwise, I'm with you.
We might as well talk food, because the Clown car is running on tilt. You would think Hillary was still driving.
J
Quite? QUITE!?
No worries, seeing as how all those other federal judges have no powers whatsoever.
Lexicus
Deity
I honestly don't know if I'd agree that any right-wing media has gone downhill since Trump, it's always just been horrid lying garbage.
I don't think the ideological leanings of the guests is a good metric for this.
What a contrast!
I get what you're trying to say but it seems like you're unintentionally moving goalposts all over the place here. You can't have it both ways. Either you feel like MSNBC is the Democratic propaganda to match FOX's Republican propaganda, ie the "other side of the coin" or you feel like they are "centrists". If it is the former, then how can you then call them "lockstep centrists"? If they're on the "other side" then they cant be in the center. On the other hand, if it is the latter, they why are you calling them "lefty" and complaining that they don't sufficiently endorse the most liberal positions? Why would they be "lefty" if they're "lockstep centrists"?
The other thing we need to address is the notion that CNN and MSNBC are equivalent. They aren't. Like I've said, I consume all three channels and there is a vast difference between MSNBC and CNN. MSNBC is certainly geared to favor Democrats, but CNN is much more focused on being moderate/centrist/mainstream, and simply accurate. The Republicans have tried for years to lump the two of them together as "the liberal/lamestream media" and Trump has stepped up these efforts by essentially declaring war on CNN as the "Fake News/Enemy of the people" but that's just a clever tactic on his part to move the Overton window. MSNBC was always seen as the counterpart to FOX by Republicans and CNN was easily recognized as the more centrist of the three. But now by branding CNN as "liberal" and getting people to buy into the notion that they are the same as MSNBC, Trump and the Republicans make FOX seem 1) like an underdog fighting a 2-against-1 battle and 2)more reasonable, in the sense that "its just one side of the same coin" and "both sides are bad" and similar moral equivalence themes. The positions that you are taking here seem to suggest that this strategy is working.
And that is a big part of the problem with the "both sides are bad" narrative. It presupposes that the Republicans and Democrats agendas are morally, economically and socially equivalent in merit and value. They aren't. If they were, then yes a "variety of opinions and choices" would have value, compromise would have value, but as I've said before... there's no "compromising" with someone who wants to add feces to the mashed potatoes "for flavor". FOX is mostly horse manure. A plate of wet horse manure with also some beans and gravy on it isn't "variety", its a plate of manure. I'd rather have a plate of mashed potatoes, sans manure. It's might not be as "diverse", but its at least fit for consumption. FOX just has the beans for the manure juices to bleed all over and ruin it. The contrary voices on FOX are just punching bags for them to mock and beat up on and make them look foolish.
Its easy to conflate "doesn't give Bernie sufficiently favorable coverage" with "lockstep centrist" but they aren't the same thing. Its even easier to conflate "gives Tump negative coverage" with "lefty" but they aren't the same. CNN gives Trump unfavorable coverage because Trump deserves unfavorable coverage. Same for MSNBC. Accurate coverage of Trump is going to be unfavorable because Trump is odious. The reason Bernie doesn't get the coverage that Biden gets on MSNBC is because MSNBC wants the Democrats to win, Bernie isn't a Democrat, and more importantly, they aren't buying that Bernie is the best candidate to win. I expect that if and when Bernie becomes the clear frontrunner, MSNBC will be fawning all over him. With CNN, they are trying to appeal more to moderate/centrist audiences.
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