"Donald Trump’s 2024 bid is an antidemocratic revenge fantasy being treated like a conventional political campaign. …
We have never had a president who didn’t accept the peaceful transfer of power and encouraged rioters (“will be wild”) to storm the US Capitol. We have never had a president who was impeached twice, including for trying to incite said insurrection."
The social norm is constructed: not naturally occurring but created by the society in which it is found.
Hence there are no actions which in themselves are inherently #abnormal or universally condemned by all societies at all times. Deviance is thus situational and contextual.
Margot Déage: "A girl who does not belong to a boy or a man can fall into the category of whore at any time, whatever her clothes or sexual practices."
Margot Déage: "Being in a position to say who’s a whore and who’s a good girl is a power in itself within the girls’ group, a power that is strongly mobilised by certain girls. The ones who can fall, in general, are the hardest on the matter."
"A reminder that the media often sanitizes and rewrites what Trump actually says, since he’s incoherent and they assume he just meant to say something else."
#US#Judge Royce C. #Lamberth is the latest in broad, public push by #FederalJudges against #Jan6#revisionism [Another] #Republican-appointed judge said he plans to send a written response to supporters of a Jan 6 rioter who claimed that he did nothing wrong, warning the man’s friends & family members that justifying #PoliticalViolence risks further #violence in a “vicious cycle” that “rots republics.”
“January 6 must not become a precedent for further #violence against #political opponents or governmental institutions,” Judge #Lamberth wrote. “This is not normal. This cannot become normal. We as a #community, we as a #society, we as a country cannot condone the #normalization of the January 6 Capitol riot.”
"NBC — and most of the press — have yet to accept the reality that this is not a normal election between a Republican and a Democrat. Donald Trump and his enablers represent an extraordinary threat to democracy. This industry, which prizes objectivity above all else, is incapable of accurately covering an election where one candidate is a normal politician and the other is a dishonest, corrupt insurrectionist."
The mainstream media should not normalize Donald Trump’s behavior, nor should they give a platform to his lies or those of his sycophants, who for years have spread disastrous untruths that may have irreparably damaged our nation.
But in one fell swoop, NBC News has managed to do both."
"Along with that sector of the electorate which seems detached and uninterested in our fate as a nation, we also have the problem of collective denial. American political elites who have the resources to be fully informed about the devastation Trump 2.0 would cause are among this group."
"Not wanting to accept the reality that the GOP has become an autocratic party and supporter of White supremacist violence, they lose time hoping futilely that a return to the before times is possible."
"The Biden administration plan for the “day after” in Gaza is rooted in American hubris and ignorance, and therefore doomed to failure."
"The United States has a long history of misunderstanding the Mideast, but this level of ignorance and willful blindness far surpass anything we’ve seen before."
@lednabwm Thanks👍
Me neither (websites). But we in germany have just to fight a rising right wing, anti-Semitic movement plus a far right political party coming into power. They're discussing the logistics of deportations already (again).😱
It's really scary and so one becomes sensitive to a lot "beginnings"... #normalization
"A former president, who incited an insurrection, attempted a coup, is facing multiple felony indictments, and has expressly stated that he would like to be a dictator is planning to use the government to exact retribution on his enemies.
"The Times has no idea how to handle this threat except to present two sides: One which warns about the danger and one which prevaricates and misdirects in an attempt to hide it."
"In any other America on any other timeline, a presidential candidate echoing the words of Adolf Hitler would soon be packing up for an early retirement. …
The muted response to Trump’s latest authoritarian outburst shows just how dangerously far our media has normalized what should be disqualifying conduct — and how ready the Trump campaign is to exploit the media’s moral numbness."
Thomas Zimmer on how the mainstream media function often as a "normalization machine" for people like Mike Johnson, normalizing his dangerous attack on democracy (and on LGBTQ people and women seeking reproductive rights) as an expression of apple-pie US "faith and family" values. As if no one else's voice counts beyond the voices of right-wing white Christians….
"Even as the mainstream media continues to treat Trump as a politician rather than a peril, normalizing his dangerous threats, the nation’s judges and prosecutors are holding the fort — protecting the rule of law.
They — along with Saturday’s bipartisan majority vote in Congress against MAGA extremists — give me some hope that the fever of Trumpism may be starting to break."
"Late Friday night, the former president of the United States—and a leading candidate to be the next president—insinuated that America's top general deserves to be put to death. That extraordinary sentence would be unthinkable in any other rich democracy."
"And yet, none of the nation’s front pages blared 'Trump Suggests That Top General Deserves Execution' or 'Former President Accuses General of Treason.' Instead, the post barely made the news. Most Americans who don’t follow Trump on social media probably don’t even know it happened."
“The most salient truth about the 2024 election is that the Republican Party is poised to nominate an authoritarian thug who publishes rationalizations for political violence and promises to abuse presidential authority on a near-daily basis."
~ Eric Levitz
And so, Levitz says, the media try to cover what's happening as "normal" to avoid being accused of partisanship — when it's anything but normal.
"The interview also speaks to a larger problem that — somehow in 2023 — continues to confound the news media and the well-compensated television anchors tasked with effectively holding power to account. Even after Trump subverted democracy during the 2020 election, inspiring an actual insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, newsrooms continue to struggle with how to cover him."