Paid Members BomberPat Posted November 12, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted November 12, 2020 14 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said: Talk about Fox, and the fact that it's is a propaganda arm for the Republican party. If the party decides it's beneficial to part ways with Trump then they'll fall in line. Absolutely, it depends which way the political wind is blowing, and it already seems like they're distancing themselves from Trump, and seeing him as damaged goods. If it came to it, they'd distance themselves from the entire Republican party if they felt it no longer represented Rupert Murdoch's business interests - I don't see that happening, but the point is that they're not "the Trump News Network", they're furthering their own interests and agenda that generally aligns with the Republican Party. My friend said the other night that his favourite unexpected consequence of Trump losing is that the news media are no longer hanging on every word or every Tweet as a newsworthy event. He's still President, but already he's losing the amount of column inches of coverage he received throughout his presidency. He's not on the BBC's homepage. When his name does appear in election coverage, it's "why did he lose?" and "can he actually do that?". The only place his photo appears on CNN's homepage today is as part of a small election graphic. Fox's homepage is the same - the only place his face appears is in election charts, there's basically no Trump-centric headlines. They've pivoted away from explicitly supporting Trump, and towards attacking Democrats - headlines about Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Black Lives Matter. I don't doubt that he'll be rehabilitated in the public eye, and may well even run again in 2024, but right now he's as close to yesterday's news as it's possible for a sitting president to be. Quote I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The way to negate Trump, and more importantly what he stands for, is by addressing the issues many who voted for him have and remove the need and desire for someone like him, not to try and ban our way to a solution. The problem is that many of those issues are either utterly illusory, or not issues that a nominally centre-left party should concede ground on. It's only ever progressives and liberals who are asked to find common ground and listen to the "legitimate concerns" of the other side. When Trump won no one was calling for him to listen to the "other side", or hand-wringing about how to win over the people who voted for Hillary. No one suggested that the Republican Party should be talking to Democrat voters and finding an acceptable compromise on immigration policy or women's reproductive rights, or climate policy. When Britain voted to leave the EU, even though that side won we still had never-ending think-pieces about the "legitimate concerns" of people who voted for it, but nary a suggestion that the people who voted to Remain might have their own concerns that now weren't being represented by the political establishment. When the centre-left, or the true left, lose, there's no suggestion that it's the responsibility of the right wing to find out why and ensure that they're still represented. It's only liberals and progressives that are expected to compromise, which only means that the mythical "centre" drags ever further right. If it's Biden's intention to push through a more progressive agenda, then he should focus his attentions on that, and allow his political project to stand on its own merits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 1 hour ago, BomberPat said: people always point to Nick Griffin on Question Time as killing his political career - that may be true, but it didn't exactly refute his politics in the public eye, or quell the rising far-right influence on British politics that he represented, did it? It isn’t true. The BNP vote and membership rose after his appearance on Question Time as he played it as proof how the mainstream media were attacking him and his supporters. What killed his political career was how he suppressed any opposition to his leadership with threats of violence and eventually the party had enough of him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted November 12, 2020 Moderators Share Posted November 12, 2020 16 minutes ago, BomberPat said: The problem is that many of those issues are either utterly illusory, or not issues that a nominally centre-left party should concede ground on. It's only ever progressives and liberals who are asked to find common ground and listen to the "legitimate concerns" of the other side. When Trump won no one was calling for him to listen to the "other side", or hand-wringing about how to win over the people who voted for Hillary. No one suggested that the Republican Party should be talking to Democrat voters and finding an acceptable compromise on immigration policy or women's reproductive rights, or climate policy. When Britain voted to leave the EU, even though that side won we still had never-ending think-pieces about the "legitimate concerns" of people who voted for it, but nary a suggestion that the people who voted to Remain might have their own concerns that now weren't being represented by the political establishment. When the centre-left, or the true left, lose, there's no suggestion that it's the responsibility of the right wing to find out why and ensure that they're still represented. It's only liberals and progressives that are expected to compromise, which only means that the mythical "centre" drags ever further right. If it's Biden's intention to push through a more progressive agenda, then he should focus his attentions on that, and allow his political project to stand on its own merits. It's not about conceding ground on those issues I don't think. I don't think they should be compromising their vision, but they should be better at communicating how that vision addresses the root concerns - because I think it does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 12 minutes ago, BomberPat said: The problem is that many of those issues are either utterly illusory, or not issues that a nominally centre-left party should concede ground on. It's only ever progressives and liberals who are asked to find common ground and listen to the "legitimate concerns" of the other side. When Trump won no one was calling for him to listen to the "other side", or hand-wringing about how to win over the people who voted for Hillary. No one suggested that the Republican Party should be talking to Democrat voters and finding an acceptable compromise on immigration policy or women's reproductive rights, or climate policy. When Britain voted to leave the EU, even though that side won we still had never-ending think-pieces about the "legitimate concerns" of people who voted for it, but nary a suggestion that the people who voted to Remain might have their own concerns that now weren't being represented by the political establishment. When the centre-left, or the true left, lose, there's no suggestion that it's the responsibility of the right wing to find out why and ensure that they're still represented. It's only liberals and progressives that are expected to compromise, which only means that the mythical "centre" drags ever further right. If it's Biden's intention to push through a more progressive agenda, then he should focus his attentions on that, and allow his political project to stand on its own merits. Yes, but isn't that what separates an intelligent, progressive liberal from a closed-minded, right-wing zealot? Aren't those of us who see the bigger picture and who are in a position to do so supposed to be "the bigger man" and be able to move forward sensibly? Because, if it's just a case of elections and referendums being about the winners absolutely crushing the losers for the duration then we'll quickly find that no one actually wins. We'll just continue down this road of absolute shit where political spectrums swing violently back and forth and people become more and more entrenched. It's a shambles, really. This election has consisted of both Trump and Biden to an extent tearing lumps out of each other, while the likes of Sanders and Yang stand in the middle being blatantly ignored while actually having some sensible answers and solutions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewdogg Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 What are people's thoughts on this? It's on the Fox news website, but not really near the top. It seems quite important that one of their journalists has evidence of voter fraud https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-2020-presidential-election-voter-fraud-dead-voters Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 I wouldn't call Tucker Carlson a journalist. I'd barely call him a human being. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewdogg Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 Just now, Uncle Zeb said: I wouldn't call Tucker Carlson a journalist. I'd barely call him a human being. Fair enough I should've caveated that although he says it's evidence, I doubt it's been fact checked by anyone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted November 12, 2020 Moderators Share Posted November 12, 2020 Tucker Carlson is, as argued by his own defense lawyers, legally not a credible source of information*. You can't call him a journalist. He lost a lot of credibility more recently even with conservatives with his whole carry on before the election where he hyped up his proof of Biden's misdeeds, but then said he lost the only copy. Go look that up if you want a laugh. * https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye?t=1605184195303 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 (edited) Trump is currently 0-12 in lawsuits over supposed fraud in this election. His own lawyers admitted in court that they had no case. The one witness Republicans had has admitted he was lying. Meanwhile: Edited November 12, 2020 by Uncle Zeb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Factotum Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 Its weird with Fox news. On the whole, they've not really been very pro-Trump at all in the last four years, but their main 'opinion' guys Carlson, Hannity etc. are all so far up his arse and are basically cheerleaders for ridiculousness. They also get the highest cable ratings, so they are constantly put on. The fact that their opinion shows are seen as news is part of what's wrong in that country (and the same can be said for certain other new channels) Watching Fox coverage during the election, it was interesting to see how fair and balanced the actual reporters were, with good interviews and no activist style rhetoric. Its a really schizophrenic news channel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 Carlson barely has any advertisers left on his show, but Fox keeps him around anyway because his white supremacist rhetoric is what they want to promote. It's not just about ratings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted November 12, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted November 12, 2020 1 hour ago, Chest Rockwell said: It's not about conceding ground on those issues I don't think. I don't think they should be compromising their vision, but they should be better at communicating how that vision addresses the root concerns - because I think it does. For sure - but I wouldn't really consider this as "legitimate concerns", which always seems like a euphemism for "let right wing people complain, and take their complaints at face value". On the doorstep, if someone ever talked to me about immigration, I would try and turn the conversation around - if your issue is that you don't have access to the services you want because they're over-subscribed, this isn't an immigration issue, it's an issue of access to resources, and equitable service. Sometimes, maybe, that worked. But I'm not sure that it ever did. Because more often than not once you'd dealt with resources, the complaint would be about speaking different languages, or "incompatible cultures", or crime, or anything else that they connected with immigration...and really you got the impression that the problem was with foreigners, and everything else was a post hoc justification. I'm not saying that only racists voted for Trump (cunts did as well), but you basically need to be having that conversation on a national scale, against the tide of large swathes of public opinion, on countless issues all at once. And I don't think that's possible within a 4 year presidency, let alone within an electoral campaign. The best you can do is push forward with the politics that you believe in, and demonstrate how it is a net improvement for the lives of your constituents. Anything else is fluff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted November 12, 2020 Moderators Share Posted November 12, 2020 It's shit isn't it? Because 4 years is no time at all in which to see results. And there's a year worth of campaigning and midterms in between to distract. It's no wonder fuck all gets done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 21 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said: It's shit isn't it? Because 4 years is no time at all in which to see results. And there's a year worth of campaigning and midterms in between to distract. It's no wonder fuck all gets done. Not to mention the first year or two being hampered with claims of legitimacy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dopper Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 This was yesterday's highlight for me... A Trump supporter saw two blokes emptying ballots from a drop box the morning after Election Day and presumed they were going to dump them or whatever. She tweeted the video which got lots of retweets and eventually Trump himself posted it as proof that tampering with ballots was happening. Turns out the guys were following procedure and doing their jobs, legally and fairly. They repeatedly asked the lady filming them to move back as she was not wearing a mask and was within six feet of them, so she was the only person involved that wasn't following the rules. A lovely story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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