In America today it’s generally frowned on to be a bigot. Well, almost.
If you harbor negative racial animus, or even undue positive/supremacist racial views quite a few people will call you out and openly criticize the validity of your thinking. Racists are shunned and ridiculed for good reason. If they implement their racism through their business or through a position in government they may be liable for legal action, criminal penalties up to and including hate crimes.
In recent weeks we’ve seen the awakening — finally — of a similar reaction when it comes to sexual harrasers and predators who pray on those of the opposite gender. [And sometimes the same gender.] So many are repulsed by these allegations, they feel that it’s too much to even associate with these accused persons — sometimes long before the allegations are vetted by court proceeding— lest the stench of approval for those predatory actions latch on to all in the vicinity. Thus Roger Ailes is fired. Bill O’Reilly is fired. Eric Bolling is Fired. Charles Payne is suspended. Harvey Weinstein is fired. Louie CK is fired. Kevin Spacey is fired.
However we’ve also seen something else.
We’ve seen a completely different type of response to these types of transgressions based on the perceived political ideology of the accused, and the political ideology of those reporting, commenting on and analyzing their actions.
We react predictably to neo-Nazis with Tiki torches chanting “Jews Will Not Replace Us”, but truly many of their views are not just Racial, they’re also quite political in construction. Remove the torches and the racial/religious references and it’s easy for people who are openly bigoted politically to have their say and it’s not only accepted, it’s expected. No one apparently is able to be non-partisan, nearly everyone is expected to have a self-aggrandizing politician slant and skew. Someone without a political agenda is immediately suspect of simply pretending and hiding their “true” agenda. It’s so common we don’t even comment on it or frankly notice it so much anymore.
Also we seem to have no inclination or idea of what to do about it.
It’s literally reached the point that we practically don’t see the world and reality in anywhere near the same way across ideological lines.
Here in this clip Brian Stetler questions how some of the right-wing defenders of Roy Moore can sleep at night as they repeatedly question the “timing” of recent allegations against him. Stetler notes that the Washington Post wasn’t looking for these allegations, they were simply doing a profile on Moore and stumbled into this. It wasn’t planned as a “political hit job” they were just reporting what they found. The timing had to do with his winning the GOP nomination for Senate and the WaPo became curious about him.. The story has blown up largely because of allegations regarding Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey came to light at about the same time — which is why some of his accusers were willing to come forward on the record, not because of shenanigans by the Post.
And here you have a Moore supporter who says that the assault on Mrs Nelson by Moore when she was 14 years old would have been misdemeanor at the time and the statute of limitations expired in 1986 — which is true — but then he goes on to claim that “Barack Obama did Cocaine” and “Bill Clinton smoked marijuana” and those were years ago so they weren't considered relevant either.
Barack Obama does mention his own drug use in his book ‘Dreams From My Father” as noted in 2008 by the “Liberal” NyTimes.
Nearly three decades ago, Barack Obama stood out on the small campus of Occidental College in Los Angeles for his eloquence, intellect and activism against apartheid in South Africa. But Mr. Obama, then known as Barry, also joined in the party scene.
Years later in his 1995 memoir, he mentioned smoking “reefer” in “the dorm room of some brother” and talked about “getting high.” Before Occidental, he indulged in marijuana, alcohol and sometimes cocaine as a high school student in Hawaii, according to the book. He made “some bad decisions” as a teenager involving drugs and drinking, Senator Obama, now a presidential candidate, told high school students in New Hampshire last November.
So in this case, he’s right, and the person in the wrong is Brooke Baldwin who reacts like he just accused them both of being secret axe murderers. To her It’s beyond the pale for her to even consider the possibility that Barack Obama once did Cocain. Well, yeah, he did and he said so in writing and in public. He did try it out in High School, but what he discovered then was he didn’t like it — so he stopped. Sometime we all have blinders on, willfully so.
Many of us constantly ask how people could vote for Donald Trump even after over a dozen women accused him — including reporters for Newsweek and even NBC reporter Katy Tur — of inappropriate kissing, groping and sexual assault? Simple — they simply chose not to believe those claims and did just what Kaylah Moore has recently advocated: “Consider the Source.”
I would say now is a good time to get some things done in Congress. While they are down here trying to distract the attention from our opponent who is an ultra-liberal, who is an Obama delegate, who is for full term abortion, who is for more gun restrictions, who is for transgender bathrooms, who is for transgender in the military, is against everything that we an Alabama believe and stand for.
The Washington Post has called everybody that I have ever known for the last 40 years. They have called everyone that my husband has known for the last 40 years. They print what ever anyone says without bothering to see if it’s correct.
Wouldn’t you do that by talking to everyone you can and find out what they all have to say?
They have staked out Etoway County, basically camped out.
So to the people of Alabama thank you for being smarter than they think you are. They will call you names, they will say all manner of evil against you. And I would say, consider the source.
So they aren’t judging facts based on whether they’re factual — they’re judging them based on whether they politically agree with the person or outlet reporting those facts. That’s bigotry.
And frankly the issue with Obama or Clinton in comparison to Moore isn’t that they each once did a bad thing a long time ago — it’s that Moore kept doing it so much he was banned from the local mall. And there are allegations he groped a woman in 1991.
Tina Johnson told the news outlet AL.com she was groped by Moore during a meeting at his law office in 1991, when she was 28 years old. She said she went to see Moore to sign over custody of her then 12-year-old son to her mother, who was also in the meeting, and that as soon as she walked into his office, Moore began flirting with her.
“He kept commenting on my looks, telling me how pretty I was, how nice I looked,” she said in her account. “He was saying that my eyes were beautiful.”
She described the event as uncomfortable before noting that at one point during the meeting Moore moved around his desk, sat inches from her and asked questions about her young daughters. When the meeting ended and Johnson turned to leave, she said Moore grabbed her buttocks.
That’s not 38 years ago. That’s not coming from the Washington Post, it’s from AL.com a local Alabama media outlet. That’s not the “Left” coming after Roy Moore, and it’s frankly insulting that these qualifications have to be made but the fact is that they do.
Unfortunately the right constantly makes the accusations of political bias, yet ignores their own biased actions such as Leeann Tweeden’s accusations being somehow “well known” at Fox News before she eventually went public at just the right time to offer a deflection from Roy Moore.
This seems like a media outlet having information and choosing to not to disclose it until the “timing” is just right doesn’t it? Exactly as Moore supporters repeatedly claim as an excuse to ignore the WaPo’s reporting. What a coincidence that is, eh? Must be just pure dumb luck.
In the first clip with Stetler they play part of a recent speech by Steve Bannon where he states that the “Washington Post makes no bones about being part of the Left.” Actually they do when it comes to the News section of the paper and always have. He is clearly confusing the Opinion columns with the News columns when they are written by entirely different people, and frankly some of the Opinion writers at the WaPo and even the New York Times are decided not “from the Left.”
Conservative David Brooks is a columnist with the New York Times while Ed Rogers is a columnist for the Post who worked in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush White Houses and has done consulting work with former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. Not exactly a “Leftist.”
There’s even a column now on the WaPo by Alexandra Petri that makes the same point I am here — but considerably more sardonically.
Over the numerous years I have had my television show or other personal media platform, I have used it to call into question the credibility of women time and time again. But this woman just seemed extra credible, after I learned who it was that she was talking about. I know that just moments ago, when a woman made a statement about something a man had done to her, I was demanding six separate handwriting analysts to study the writing in a yearbook and urging that cryptological gurus and experts from Vienna be called in to question her, but you have to understand, I agreed with that man. He shared my values. Well, some values. He shared a selective reading of the Bible that resonated with me and a selective respect for the Constitution that — well, he had the right letter next to his name.
However, I don’t think this is a joking matter. It’s quite serious because this open bigotry is precisely why America has grown increasingly stagnant politically over the last 20 years. It’s why we can’t have anything nice or get anything done.
The presumption of the entire mainstream media being “Leftist” is a bigoted position, not based on facts. Working from that point you get the rationalization for clearly and deliberately Right-wing media in the form of Fox News, Newsbusters, Daily Caller and Breitbart as a way to “balance” things with the supposedly unbalanced left media. Theoretically in order to see the full spectrum of news people would have to watch and read both the Mainstream and Right-Wing media to have the full picture of things, just as in a trial you would have statements and testimony from both the Defense and Prosecution positions.
But that’s not how many people consume their news — they pick a side first, decide what they’d like to be true and then seek out the outlets that tell the truth they want to hear.
That’s an inherent problem. Credibility isn’t assigned based on a facts presented or a history and track record of being accurate individually, or a willingness to make a correction when it’s needed, it’s assigned by the group you’re perceived to belong to.
Again I will say — that’s bigotry.
Before someone can even present their opinion of the news or facts of any situation, they have to essentially declare the position of their political flag. Far Left. Center Left. Squishy Middle. Right. Far Right. Off the end of the Earth Right. And of course those on the furthest ends of this spectrum view each other in the worst light possible, and don’t even hesitate to assume the absolute worst possible motives and goals of the other. People from the right regularly use the word “Liberal” in the same way someone might say “Commie, Anarchist, Abortionist, N*gger, Wet Back, Camel Jockey, Towel Head or Slut.”
Similarly those on the Left may sometimes say “Conservative” and what they really might mean is “Money-Grubber, Racist, Misogynist, Bible Thumping Theocrat, Authoritarian or Selfish Myopic Asshole.”
“Liberal” and “Conservative” serve as proxies for many of these epithets, and that goes for media outlets as well.
Sometimes it actually is the same use and implication of the exact same thing because saying one of the latter terms could produce a backlash and accusations of bigotry — or “playing the race card”— but saying the first does not. When we see voter suppression and gerrymandering take place along racial lines, I believe that is really only a byproduct of the real goal which is entirely political. Shifting power toward one party and against the other, the racism of it is almost incidental since African-Americans vote overwhelmingly Democratic it’s a racial means to a political end, not simply racism for racism’s sake.
This is not a tenable situation. Facts are not fungible. Reality isn’t optional or malleable based on your ideological position. We have to come to terms with this schism in some way. We have to take a step back and try to come at things with fresh eyes, rather than a closed mind and clenched fist.
I’m not entirely sure how to rip down the ideological walls between red state and blue state, between parents and children, between siblings and long lost ex-friends who’ve reach a point where they can no longer communicate without it escalating into a violent argument. Perhaps simply pointing out that prejudging facts based on the presumption of bias by the source is itself — a form of bias.
I know many on the right won’t even consider reading anything I’ve written simply because it’s posted here on Dailykos, just as they won’t take seriously reports by CNN or MSNBC, when neither of those are particularly “Left” when contrasted with Democracy Now and The Young Turks. And many here won't even deign to read what someone like David Brooks or Ed Rogers might write even if it’s in the New York Times or Washington Post, let alone what may be reported by Fox News, Sinclair Broadcasting or posted on Newsbusters, The Daily Caller, Breitbart, or InfoWars.
Ok, sure some of that is with good reason — but the larger point is that we are no longer communicating with each other, we’re talking around each other and ultimately only convincing ourselves of what we already believe.
The real question is: what can be done about it?
Perhaps simply calling it what it is — BIGOTRY — will help jolt some people into looking past the surface and begin to get at the truth, regardless of the source, but based on the validity of the information and the veracity of the argument. Perhaps admitting that we all have biases, small and large, political, racial, gender-associative, social and religious is key. Perhaps realizing those biases and presumptions must constantly be challenged and tested lest they become hardened and calcified into a rigid inflexible position that gradually stands in contrast to current factual reality is something we all — from every political spectrum — need to acknowledge before we can really begin to solve any of our issues of racial inequality, gender inequality, income inequality… or political animus.
There’s no guarantee this will solve the problem, and frankly I doubt there’s much impetus to really even try on the part of most people — most are perfectly happy and proud to be in within their current ideological camp, they’ve worked hard to get there, burrowed their way in deep and sealed the entrance. It’s comfortable deep inside that cave. It’s warm. It’s safe.
But political and ideological Supremacy — is exactly that: Supremacist. It should always be questioned, always be challenged and always tested. When it isn’t, it becomes a danger to us all, regardless of party or position, or how safe and comfortable we feel in our well guarded position.
Something has to change, and it has to start somewhere. Here and now seems like a fine time for those who are up to the challenge.