[mrtesthah]

>'The Left' absolutely does this as too.

Remember when Biden claimed that COVID-19 was invented by the Republicans to make his presidency look bad?

Remember when Obama refused to acknowledge that Trump won the presidency and when CNN aired nonstop coverage from conspiracy theorists claiming that the entire election was fraudulent?

Remember when Obama claimed months in advance that any election in which a Democrat lost was necessarily fraudulent, and then incited a mob to take over the US Capitol building during the electoral vote count? And then when Obama refused to authorize the national guard to prevent US senators and house representatives from being taken hostage?

You're damn right -- they're both totally the same.

[BitwiseFool]

This is very likely to devolve into a partisan squabble, so I don't want to keep going back and forth on this. I was ready to cite examples of the left playing fast and loose with the truth but I sense it will just create hostility. If I pick only one example, it looks like I'm not prepared and have nothing substantial to counter with. If I list multiple examples, it will look like I came here prepared for a fight as a right wing partisan. How do you want to proceed, if at all?

[mrtesthah]

Can you cite an example of left-wing news outlets playing "fast and loose" in a way that literally jeopardized the foundation of US democracy and incited mass violence?

Even if you think the investigation into Trump's ties to Russian influence was unjustified, it relied on democratically-elected representatives to impeach him, and it never undermined the rule of law itself.

I'm sure you can find examples with lesser consequences, but given the stakes, are those really relevant here?

It's easy to dismiss all such disagreements as being boiled down to partisanship, which is why it's more useful to look past the actions and focus on the outcome.

Violent rhetoric from politicians and their supporting news outlets has real consequences, and in this case the actions of one side are resulting in the potential for mass vigilante violence:

From Ethnic antagonism erodes Republicans’ commitment to democracy[1]

About half of all surveyed Republicans agreed with these points:

  1. The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.
  2. A time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands.
  3. Strong leaders sometimes have to bend the rules in order to get things done.
  4. It is hard to trust the results of elections when so many people will vote for anyone who offers a handout.

1. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/37/22752

[BitwiseFool]

>"in a way that literally jeopardized the foundation of US democracy"

What does this even mean? This is way too vague and nebulous to ever get a grip on. I'm guessing you're talking about members of House/Senate contesting the results of the election, which they had a right to do, and followed the constitutional procedure for. You could also say this relied on democratically-elected representatives and wasn't undermining the rule of law.

>"and incited mass violence?"

Again, what qualifies as "mass violence"? I assume you're alluding to January 6th, which I hardly consider "mass violence" as it was very much localized and was over within a few hours. Surely the summer riots are more deserving of a term like "mass violence", no?

If we're talking about vigilante violence / decentralized intimidation, Maxine Waters told people to harass Trump staffers: "“They’re not going to be able to go to a restaurant, they’re not going to be able to stop at a gas station, they’re not going to be able to shop at a department store... The people are going to turn on them, they’re going to protest, they’re going to absolutely harass them.”"

As for your four bullet points, I am confident you can get the same kind of result (eroded faith in Democracy) by tweaking the questions to appeal to the sensibilities of people on the left. Just imagine flipping a few them by asking if a liberal agrees with "The rights of women and minorities are disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save them" and "It is hard to trust the results of elections when so many people have been victims of voter suppression".

[mrtesthah]

>What does this even mean? This is way too vague and nebulous to ever get a grip on.

No, the idea that democracy is undermined when citizens are told that their elections are no longer valid or trustworthy, and when politicians no longer respect the results of those elections, is actually very clear and straightforward. The legitimacy of those in power is upheld by the legitimacy of elections. Take away the latter, and what remains is tyranny.

>Surely the summer riots are more deserving of a term like "mass violence", no?

We're talking specifically about lies told by the media that resulted in mass violence. So, no.

>Maxine Waters told people to harass Trump staffers

Remember, we're speaking now in terms of actual outcomes. You'd need to point to demonstrable mass violence that resulted from her comments.

>I am confident you can get the same kind of result (eroded faith in Democracy) by tweaking the questions to appeal to the sensibilities of people on the left

I'm sure you've got a great imagination, but what counts is evidence. Given your confidence, surely you can find a study or poll somewhere to support that hypothesis. And given the vast sums of money behind right-wing think tanks and PACs, I would not expect such studies to be wanting for funding.

[mrtesthah]

>Again, what qualifies as "mass violence"?

https://twitter.com/existentialfish/status/14530202894077952...

“When do we get to use the guns? ... That's not a joke. I'm not saying it like that. I mean, literally, where's the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?”

[TomSwirly]

You could simply have said, "I can't come up with any examples," and skipped all the rambling text.

[BitwiseFool]

>"You could simply have said, "I can't come up with any examples," and skipped all the rambling text."

This attitude is part of the reason why I didn't feel the need to paste a bunch of links. Not only am I certain you'd dismiss them as biased interpretations, you didn't even pick up on the fact that I was disagreeing with his premise. And, that I did provide an example with Maxine Waters calling for Trump Administration staffers to be harassed in public.

[Jensson]

> Can you cite an example of left-wing news outlets playing "fast and loose" in a way that literally jeopardized the foundation of US democracy and incited mass violence?

Protests summer 2020? There was a huge surge covid a month after those protests everywhere in USA, even though it was summer and covid should have been low as everywhere else in the world during summers. All of the left wing politicians and news outlets scrambled to try to discredit this or hide it or find any flaws in that connection, but the connection is crystal clear. Those protests lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

[mrtesthah]

>Those protests lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

This sounds like an opinion disguised as fact. If that wasn’t your intention then you’ll need to show peer-reviewed evidence of at the very least a strong association between those two outcomes.

Moreover, we’re specifically talking about lies perpetrated by the media that led to mass violence. The George Floyd protests weren’t fomented by media lies — you can go ask a poor black American if you want to know what’s going on.

[iammisc]

You start off with a premise that is not immediately obvious. You claim right-wing news outlets are jeopardizing the 'foundation of US democracy', but most right wingers would counter that democracy is not the foundational value of the United States, but rather, individual rights, that even democracy is subservient to the rights of the individual. For example, no matter how many people would vote for such an ability, a modern 'right winger' would reject the notion that the people should be able to buy others. Your insistence that democracy is being eroded by the right, is easily countered by most conservatives that individual liberty is being eroded by the left, and they can easily point to the coronavirus lockdowns which seem neverending, obviously overreaching, and -- given the vaccine -- also unnecessary. They can point to multiple examples of what they see as having their rights trampled over, such as being forced to participate in events they have moral concerns with, while facebook and Amazon and other large companies apparently have every right to kick off those they agree with from their multi-billion dollar platforms.

So the counter to your claim that the right is undermining democracy is that the left is undermining civil liberties.

[mrtesthah]

>...most right wingers would counter that democracy is not the foundational value of the United States, but rather, individual rights, that even democracy is subservient to the rights of the individual...

That's a good point, but consider the following:

Civil liberties don't exist in a vacuum -- their definitions arise out of conflict among members of society. I.e., the individual, alone in nature, has no need for them. One of the functions of a government is to protect those liberties, especially among those in the minority.

Without trusted elections and therefore a sound democracy, elected officials have no legitimacy. Without a legitimate claim to power, they become tyrants, and the state loses its moral authority to uphold one person's civil liberties against another's. There is no longer any social consensus backing those decisions.

[CalChris]

I don't disagree with your description of right wingers saying that individual rights are foundational rather than democracy. I will point out that neoconservatives just spent $6T trying to export democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan rather than individual rights. Indeed, there is no second amendment in the Iraq constitution which we wrote.

[iammisc]

Neoconservatives are not a meaningful cohort in the gop at this point. The nomination of Trump was the end of that chapter.

I think most people agree that Afghanistan And Iraq was a terrible idea. At least all the young conservatives do.

And I honestly think we shouldn't read too much into foreign policy. Both parties are happy to support all kinds of regimes that follow all kinds of anti democratic or anti individual rights ideologies, so long as it's in their perceived best interest of America.

[iammisc]

Hunter biden tapes jeopardized the purpose of a free press to report on news, regardless of how it affects the outcome of elections.

[TomSwirly]

I'm not an American, but this is silly.

> I was ready to cite examples of the left playing fast and loose with the truth but I sense it will just create hostility.

I mean, sounds like an excuse to not participate.

The question seems quite black and white.

We have a few classic lies:

* Obama is a Muslim from Kenya * His wife is transgender * Climate change is a hoax * COVID is a hoax * Climate change is a hoax * There is not enough pollution in the world * The Democrats are Communists * The Democrats run an occult pederasty wing through Twitter * Trump won the 2020 election

All of these are widely believed by Conservatives and all of these have been widely spread by Conservative speakers.

Can you find even one comparable lie to any of these spread by prominent Democrats (not some random Twitter account)?

Trump is is in a category of his own.

* Here he is claiming to be the best at all these fields he knows nothing about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GqJna9hpTE * Here are his lies about COVID: https://doggett.house.gov/media-center/blog-posts/timeline-t... * Here's an approximate count of his lies over 4 years - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-fa...

All of his lies have been strongly supported by Republicans

Can you find one Democrat a fraction as mendacious as Donald Trump?

[BitwiseFool]

"> I was ready to cite examples of the left playing fast and loose with the truth but I sense it will just create hostility.

I mean, sounds like an excuse to not participate."

Actually, I was exactly right. I'm sensing some hostility from you right now and I'm making the mistake of engaging when I should just let it go.

>"Can you find even one comparable lie to any of these spread by prominent Democrats (not some random Twitter account)?"

So on the one hand, the laundry list you gave is acceptable as "widely believed by Conservatives", but I have to provide counterexamples that are only restricted to "prominent democrats"? You also don't qualify what 'widely believed' means, so I can just as easily claim that people on the left widely believe other falsehoods. If it is so bad that some conservatives agree with the idea that "Democrats are Communists", is it not exactly the same thing as Democrats believing that "Republicans as Fascists"? This is a widely believed view by Progressives.

I'm not here to chuck a laundry list of "lies" at you. Quite frankly I see something like "Trump’s false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years" and I roll my eyes. Am I seriously expected to believe that number is anywhere close to accurate? I dare say the majority of those are subject to interpretation, which we will not be doing here.