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by voltaireodactyl 2209 days ago
The conservative commander in chief has been referring to the media as “enemies of the people” for four years. Law enforcement is overwhelmingly conservative. They believe what they’re doing is right, because they are attacking the people the president says are the enemy.

To my eyes, it really looks that simple.
2 comments
mycall 2209 days ago
Obama was dealing with this same problem. He couldn't get the Republicans in Congress to make change in good faith.

The problem is more complicated than simple.

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voltaireodactyl 2209 days ago
I agree with you that "how we got to a point where the conservative commander in chief could repeatedly label the media 'enemies of the people' without any political repercussions whatsoever" is a much more complicated topic.

I'm just saying that I think you can draw a direct line between the shameless attacks on reporters the past few days, and the words spoken over and over again by the ostensible top law enforcement agent in the country.

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netsharc 2209 days ago
I don't think its a political sides kind of thing, but more of the tribalism as shown by the Stanford prison experiment.
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voltaireodactyl 2209 days ago
I would agree with you if I were able to find any members of the Democratic Party calling the media "enemies of the people". As I am unable to, I must unfortunately conclude it is, in fact, a political issue -- or at the very least an issue stemming entirely from one side of the political aisle.

Additionally, you may be suffering under some misunderstandings with regard to the Stanford Prison Experiment -- long story short, the methodology is largely understood to be flawed at best (Source: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-45337-001) -- and therefore the conclusions as well. That may have contributed to misapprehending the fuller picture (nationalism) for the narrower one (tribalism).

I remain open to any new evidence that authority figures within the Democratic Party are also describing the media as "enemies of the people" -- but until that arrives, I think we can agree that in this case tribalism has been subsumed into nationalism -- since tribalism is just the low-level building blocks of nationalism anyway.

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