[HigherPlain]

A great article which is ruined by politicising it as a "rightwing problem".

Everything the author identifies applies equally to rhetoric from the left, as anyone who has spent time on the r/politics section of Reddit or Twitter will recognize.

[mckirk]

I'm not sure where you got that spin from the article, as it seemed fairly balanced to me in pointing out the issues both on the right and on the left.

[rpmisms]

I suspect that politicization is to avoid backlash, as we all know which side of that dichotomy holds the cancellation/ostracization power.

[TomSwirly]

> Everything the author identifies applies equally to rhetoric from the lef

Looking from the outside (Europe), I'm sorry, but I just don't see this at all.

A big example: Republicans have repeatedly claimed for over a decade now that the Democrats run an international child sex trafficking network

I am in no way a fan of Hillary Clinton, but the right has spent almost forty years systematically lying about her, claiming she's a criminal, and when the whole "Democrats rape children" thing was invented, they dropped her into that.

Tell me - what claim from the left is comparable to this horrific lie?

And I could go on, and on, and on. Republicans claim that the climate change is a hoax, FFS! (I live in the Netherlands, so this is personal to me.)

Your claim "both sides do it" is false and empty. My guess is that you are in fact an American right-winger - is this true?

[HigherPlain]

"Republicans have repeatedly claimed for over a decade now that the Democrats run an international child sex trafficking network"

You're referring to Qanon type people? They are fringe extremists. Why would you group all republicans in with them?

Compare to r/politics section of Reddit, which is a much more mainstream group of people. On that website there are regularly top-voted comments with thousands of "likes" saying all republicans are pedophiles/fascists/racists etc.

The article correctly identifies such rhetoric as poison for the societal good. But both the left and the right have to acknowledge that it exists everywhere in the online discourse.

[tstrimple]

> They are fringe extremists.

Roughly 1/3rd of Republicans believe QAnon nonsense. They are actively electing QAnon representatives like MTG and Boebert. The wife of a Supreme Court Justice is a QAnon fanatic.

The "fringe extremists" are taking over the Republican party and aren't all that fringe anymore.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/05/27/nearly-30-...