I am reading text instead of watching youtube video. I will search Rumble for podcast. I deleted YouTube app from my phone because Youtube removed the gender discussion on The Glenn Show featuring a guest, and because Jordan Peterson’s gender discussion with Helen Joyce was removed. Whether the speaker is Trump, Peterson or Loury’s guest, platforms need actual rules, not vague “community standards”. When I looked for rules on FB, all I found was “Be nice”. I am pro-rules and anti-censorship.
This is going to get absolutely nowhere with Glenn but
a) when Trump had a Twitter account he had absolutely no premeditated thought about what he was saying. Dan Drezner said that he forgot that he was President of the United States and was just a guy raving about all the people who had done him wrong. Someone who wanted Trump to go even farther than he actually did (declare martial law) as some of the January 6th defendants (Oath Keepers) absolutely did could be encouraged by Trump tweets to do the acts of violence that they already wanted to do.
b) Glenn and John may forget the panic that the Biden inauguration would not go off without a hitch (in the eyes of the world evaluating the reputation of American democracy)
c) as was said by Seth Masket and many, many other people, if Trump wasn't President of the United States he would have been banned from Twitter a long time ago. Twitter policies about disinformation about an election applied to him just as much as to the hypothetical left-wing person who would have claimed the election was stolen based on whatever Republican state governments in purple states chose to do about mail-in ballots, voter ID etc. The Twitter Files showed that some people at Twitter made judgment calls based on context but the first point still stands.
Another perspective: It is my honest opinion that Trump is deep in spectrum of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). I'm not a professional so my thoughts are only opinion but I've read the DSM, listened to many hours of professionals explaining NPD and more hours comparing their explanations to the public record.
In short, Trump is mentally ill. Not crazy like a loon but disturbed to a clinical degree.
As such he is
* Completely transactional with regard to truth and lies;
* His emotional maturity is not far of that of a toddler (the professionals use the term infantile ego);
*Loyalty only flows towards him, never from him to others;
* He gathers suppliants to do his dirty work (the professionals call these people Flying Monkeys after the flying beings in the move The Wizard of Oz);
* He has never given a genuine apology;
*He is threatened by people smarter than he is so he always belittles them, and
* Worst of all, he has no problem disobeying the law as he perceives himself as so great, so important, that such things as the Oath of Office can be brushed aside whenever he feels like it.
In short he is a clear and present danger to the Constitution and the country. We're he the guy that owns the corner gas station, we'd all not be too bothered by what he has to say. But he wants to be President again and there should be no doubt he wants to use the power of that office to exact vengeance upon all he perceives as having wronged him.
To allow him a voice at this level of ambition is criminally stupid.
Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much, Glenn. Donald Trump is a *clear* threat to the safety and security of this country and if he gets re-elected again it will be less of a reflection of thing and anything he stands for (if he stands for anything apart from himself) than an indictment that the American people deserve whatever comes next, which ain't gonna be good for the rest of us, either.
I agree that the left as it stands today would be a massive disaster for this country, but no *more* than the right today. They both have their own ways to profoundly screw up the world, and it won't be pleasant for anyone of either political persuasion still in possession of a brain and a grip on objective reality, which neither political side possesses.
Social media is *demonstrably* toxic and is driving a lot of the mental health crises, the violence, the political division and the political extremism we now see. Donald Trump's words *clearly* drove an insurrection attempt that resulted in six deaths, and the next one will be better-coordinated from lessons learned - and perhaps even more, not fewer, deaths.
The unpleasant reality is we need to start talking about levels of *non-partisan* censorship, and especially what constitutes dangerous speech, because someone like you, Glenn, doesn't yet grasp how some of what's expressed on social media is arguably *already against the law*, although I agree that the courts need to decide this, not Musk & Zuck.
But for now, they're getting pressured to do something and they are, however imperfectly.
As someone who's been strongly anti-censorship my entire life, even I've begun contemplating how that could work fairly, and it may not in these divided times. Those who are pro-censorship always mean for t'other side, not for themselves. Speaking as a woman who believes biology is real and you can't truly change your sex, social media is a hostile place and the opprobrium comes primarily from the far left, and in particular angry men in dresses and their good little biologically female handmaids.
Elon Musk's commitment to free speech varies from moment to moment, and perhaps from joint to joint. He shouldn't be making these decisions, but neither should any other platform leader either. But extremism, misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories have flourished and it's killing what's left of our 'free' society.
What is screwing up the world is you so-called moderates screaming Move To The Middle. There is no middle to move to. Roe v. Wade, LGBTQ are binary choices by definition there is no middle. Cliimate there is no middle when it comes to forces of nature because Mother Nature does not negotiate. Gun control there is no middle because the "2A" is über àlles. Immigration there could have been a middle in 2013 but the Gang Of 8 bill which passed the Senate and would have passed the House was prevented from receiving a vote by the far right. Move To The Middle is a euphemism for Do Nothing.
What's screwing the world up is political extremism. Calm down. We've moved to the middle because we're tired of know-nothing extremist rhetoric whether it waves a trans flag or a Confederate one.
No conparison between a trans flag and a Confederate flag. If you think there is then you are the know-nothing. What middle have you moved to? Give examples. You can't. Because there is no middle. Except as a euphemism for Shut Up and Do Nothing.
I had fully intended not to renew my trial subscription. But this is so profoundly stupid I had to respond. So if you need $6 that badly here it is.
Even before the election Donald Trump was bitching non-stop about a stolen election (of course then it was contingent on it was only stolen if he lost). No one shut Donald Trump up when knowing damn well he was going to lose decided that having a civil war fought over him was even better than winning and did everything possible to piss people off.
Yes Glenn Loury Donald Trump did in fact yell fire in the proverbial crowded theater. Donald Trump knew damn well he was sitting on a powderkeg and the slightest spark would ignite a wildfire. No one shut Donald Trump up when he lit that spark with shit like "all the tough guys love me", "stand back and stand by", "be there will be wild". No one shut Donald Trump up when he threw gasoline on the fire on election day demanding the vote count be stopped. Only after "J6" once the message sent was received and Donald Trump's goon squad showed up to resurrect him in the Oval Office by brute force did anyone shut Donald Trump up.
Make no mistake Glenn Loury. They came damn close to doing exactly that. If they had gotten their hands on Pence or Pelosi or any other legislator it would have been a very different outcome.
There is no way to know with certainty who won the 2020 Presidential election. When it was over I accepted the official results that Joe Biden had won, and hoped his promise of unification rather than division would come true. Silly me.
The U.S. Constitution is clear that the separate states' legislatures alone had authority to make election arrangements. Election rules were set by bureaucrats in many states, beginning with mail-out ballots. Pretending that this was the same as absentee ballots by mail missed a crucial difference: Absentee ballots had to be requested by the voter, thus establishing an audit trail. Widespread use of ballot harvesting further obscured the audit trail. Private placement of ballot collection boxes in Democratic precincts only completed the audit trail destruction in many states. For years the legislatively mandated election rules required ballots to be received, or at least postmarked, by election day. Those rules were waived by bureaucrats, and hidden counting in Democrat precincts denying Republican observers the opportunity to observe "flipped" states inexplicably.
Each of these is well-documented in news reports. The claim that Donald Trump was shouting fire in a theatre is poppycock.
So the election was stolen from Donald Trump you think. But you accept the results. Very benevolent of you. It doesn't matter what you or Donald Trump think. Because (unlike Mr. Loury's "whatabouts" ... electoral college defund police etc) all Donald Trump's grievances were addressed by the courts (60 no less up to and including The Supremes) and invariably thrown out.
Donald Trump, rotten to the core racist career criminal Putin wannabe Insane Clown that he is, who never for a minute took being president seriously, who knew damn well that his clown act was a tired act, who knew damn well the only way he was going to remain president was to steal it, by various criminal means up to and including (as it turned out) having his goon squad storm the Capitol. To that end his non-stop screaming (before during and after the election) stolen election inside a powderkeg is precisely the equivalent of screaming fire inside a crowded theater.
Glenn Loury talks about saving capitalism. But, does he own factories or manufacturing companies apart from profiting from writing anti-black propaganda for the conservative Manhattan Institute? Lol!
Hopefully, Trump will be convicted for his consistent illegal transgressions and be locked up (kept in very strict administrative segregation). He's a serious threat to the country, and an example needs to be made if one thinks they're above the law. Furthermore, more lethal force should have been used against those insurrectionists that breached the perimeter of the Capitol building to stop the threat. Imagine if several congressional members had been killed or seriously injured. Sometimes, the wannabe-educated people lack common sense---they don't usually make good soldiers. Lol!
Amen Glenn. I wish Trump would shut up but I don’t want him to be forced to do so.
You mentioned some of the rhetoric from the left on Twitter during the 2020 riots...I think Kamala Harris amplified donating to bail funds of people who were arrested for their involvement-it was irresponsible of her at best. The destruction and chaos of those riots needed to be calmed down by voices who had the power to do so not ramped up-in fact I would venture to say the permissive attitudes toward the “mostly peaceful protests” paved the path to the Jan 6 riot
Trump was outright banned but how many conservative voices were shadowbanned by Twitter which could have easily had an effect on the election? I don't like everything the guy says by any means but I also don't think that something like Twitter should be able to stop him from saying it. What happened to the philosophy of " I may not agree with what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" maybe the truth will never come out about the election, maybe it was stolen the problem is we will never really know
Thanks for another well thought out and reasonable conv ersation on a "hot topic".
As a public school teacher who is of a more conservative nature I appreciate how not being able to speak your mind freely is frustrating to say the least.
Not only should Trump have been banned, but he should also have been arrested for treason. He was actively engaged in the overturning of a legitimate election. I know there were Democrats who stated Trump’s election was illegitimate, but they did not go anywhere as far as Trump nor did they actively call for an insurrection. Trump has no problem destroying things-institutions, football Leagues, the Republican Party, if it serves his purpose. Another Trump presidency would do more damage to our political and civic institutions.
It wasn’t a legitimate election by any stretch. It was corrupted on many levels from government suppression of information to Big Tech suppression of public dialog (de facto illegal campaign contributions) to corruption of state election law in the name of Covid. It was utterly corrupt and will be further corrupted in the coming election cycle. This is unsustainable in a free society, which is a feature of the Left.
Even if what you say is true, I think it is fair to say that enough people looked at Trump and said enough is enough. I am no fan of Biden but Trump is a narcissistic moron. All you have to do to determine that is listen to one of his speeches.
It has, in the past, also been a feature of the right. Though most cries of “voter suppression” are a component of the whiny, woke progressive class, there have historically been cases where it was clear that electioneering and other tinkering like gerrymandering has taken place at the behest of republicans.
However, I will stipulate that there exists a concerted and rampant bias against all things conservative right now in contemporary American society. This has been made clear and undeniable via the Twitter Files, Durham’s report, Mueller’s report; among others. The highest office of law enforcement (FBI) intelligence agencies, legacy media (NYT, WaPo, CNN, NBC, MSNBCetc.) social media and other tech leviathans (Google, for example), as well as major corporate interests (ESG) are myopic in their pursuit to eliminate any legitimacy with regard to conservative ideals.
This wouldn’t be so bad if they’d just own up to it. When someone is driven out of a newsroom for allowing a conservative (Tom Cotton) to publish his opinion, that’s fine. What isn’t fine is then following that behavior with an assertion that cancel culture doesn’t exist on the left.
People aren’t that stupid. It just takes 20 years for the public, which, I hate to say, grows dumber and more polarized simultaneously, to figure it out.
Everyone pretty much now agrees that the wars in and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq were colossal mistakes. Remember when the right cancelled the Dixie Chicks for not toeing the line? But at least republicans were like “yeah, damn right we were trying to cancel them!” It’s ok to have political battles and political enemies. It’s not ok to gaslight the populace though.
The left, from my perspective, has taken a page from the right’s playbook on manufacturing consent. The difference is that they have fed it steroids and released it into the world, and it has now taken on a life of its own, and is running through American society like the werewolf in American Werewolf in London- vicious, hungry, and almost unstoppable and leaving destruction and tragedy in its wake.
Many good points here. I would only note that the Dixie Chicks were not censured because “they didn’t toe the line” but because they took their political disagreements off shore in an era where politics was supposed to stop at the waters edge. Still a good idea.
Indeed, perhaps the misstep was using a creative space that was once fairly neutral into a space that hosts political opinion.
Of course, one would be remiss in failing to mention that not only using the venue of country music to make a politically charged statement, but also to proclaim an anti US war stance.
It might perhaps even be suggested that at the time, Cheney & co had successfully manufactured consent- particularly among conservatives, and they not only didn’t want to hear political rhetoric, but were also turned off by the specific message in conflict with their pro-war, or at least pro-vengeance positions- to which I do NOT begrudgingly add were based on 100% propaganda-grade bullshit.
So, with respect, I think your analysis fails to give adequate homage to every facet of the mainstream political tenor of that time- and a HUGE part of that as evidenced by the poll research done at that time vs now.
Now the old red hawks that urged us to cross sovereign borders for a lie that had zero concrete evidence that cost thousands of deaths are saying “No, we can’t help Ukraine because there are corrupt US entanglements there” (not a direct quote, but I believe that’s a current popular conservative sentiment.) Seems at least a bit hypocritical . For reference:
I think you missed my point that the Chicks took their criticism to a foreign country, England perhaps. True that their fans were interested in their art, not their politics.
It was not universally believed at the time that the war narrative was false, and only in hindsight does that contention have any validity.
I have no idea what polls you refer to or what point they might make.
I suspect you don’t know many conservatives; we are quite a diverse group and very capable of independent thought.
I agree with some of what you say but it is not as if conservatives do not have media outlets. I am one of those old Liberals who is alarmed by the progressive Left cancel culture. The media has returned to the 1830s where each party has its own newspapers.
I understand the compulsion to defend one’s tribe, but good lord man. Conservatives having media outlets too is a poor response to the political capture of:
FBI
ATF
CIA
CISA
NSA
DHS
DOJ
FACEBOOK
TWITTER (pre Musk takeover)
INSTAGRAM
GOOGLE (to include YouTube- ask Glenn about the censorship and the political bias there 😉)
PAYPAL
EVERY UNIVERSITY EXCEPT EXPLICITLY CONSERVATIVE/RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS LIKE REGENT UNIVERSITY, LIBERTY UNIVERSITY, et al. including: HARVARD PRINCETON STANFORD BROWN COLUMBIA… you get the picture here- the elite academic epicenter of the country.
MSNBC
CNBC
NBC
CNN
NYT
WAPO
LA TIMES
95% of every major urban center government. SF, NYC, etc etc etc
Please, please tell me more about these conservative news outlets like NewsMax or Turning Point USA that control the flow of information and speech that clearly exists and has been proven time after time after time.
It’s not just about ‘cancel culture’, it’s about individual liberty, the Bill of Rights and the founding principles of this nation as it was known from oh, idk, about 1787 until roughly 2015.
We can bat this stupid ball back and forth across this net all you want but 2 things will remain true:
You cannot find this level of ideological capture on the right this deep into just about every American institution because there’s only one FBI, DOJ, DHS, etc. aaand…
This list is woefully incomplete. We’re not talking about the same things here and your pissant whataboutism would be laughable if not so tragic.
How many of Trump’s seemingly unhinged assertions since 2016 have turned out be true ? Is the country better served by a pathological liar? Why do the Clinton and Biden crime families remain unscathed? Are leftists open to compromise. Which party’s Senate Majority Leader threatened the lives of Supreme Court Justices ?
The Left is acting on tyrannical impulses, and Trump is the reagent that is making it justifiable in the minds of half of our citizens. Once this genie is fully out of the lamp, it may be impossible to put it back.
This is how countries move, inch by inch, into terrible conditions. Because these impulses, these sinful tendencies, crouch at the door to every human heart. We saw it with Trump, we saw it accelerate under Covid, and we likely have not seen its worst manifestation.
I agree particularly with this last part. If you’ve never been to countries that are in the midst of civil war, and have “othered” entire populations that also inhabit the same country and in doing so, justify unimaginable atrocities, then you can’t really conceptualize just how bad it can get.
Thankfully I didn’t have to witness the genocide in Rwanda but I was in Charles Taylor’s Liberia and Milosevic’s territory in Eastern Europe in the mid 90s and can tell you that ithe things I bore witness to left an indelible mark on my soul.
Before 2020 if you told any American that entire chunks of a city, including municipal buildings and police stations would not only be taken over by armed political militants but also condoned by mayors and other office-holders, they likely would not have taken you seriously. And that is how it begins indeed. Little by little, norms and order get eroded and then eventually ignored completely.
We are without a doubt heading that direction and 2020 was the precursor. It begins with socio-cultural changes that happen seemingly suddenly, followed by justified violence against “the enemy” and “oppressors”.
If these new norms are tolerated and allowed to progress with no resistance because people are first too scared to be cancelled and then scared for their lives, you don’t want to see what comes after that.
There are two legal systems in this country now. There are seemingly at least 2 different societies that people are living in. There’s the one that is in touch with reality and takes all evidence that can be verified into account and one that does not. To be clear, this isn’t a political statement. This isn’t a declaration of how bad democrats are and how victimized republicans are.
Having engaged in the obligatory throat clearing, who actually gives a fuck what’s legal and what’s not? I mean this question seriously. Here’s what I see. “Follow the science” doesn’t literally mean that- it means “do what the fuck I say or suffer the consequences”. Fauci & company specifically and intentionally MANEUVERED AND CONNIVED THEIR WAY AROUND THE GAIN OF FUNCTION BAN IN THE UNITED STATES. They did this by circumventing the regulations with policies they created, and largely by moving the operation out of the contiguous US.
It’s hard to believe that there was no motive or incentive that isn’t financially related. We know now that there was, and continues to be. If this wasn’t already enough to condemn Fauci, let’s consider all the people that were driven out of their jobs- either by failure to comply with masking and vaccination mandates, or because they worked in small businesses that simply didn’t make it through lockdowns. If that’s not enough to condemn him and his cohorts, let’s also consider his attempt at misdirection by promoting studies that pre-confirmed his position and his position only, lying to Congress, lying to the American public, intentionally misreporting medical data (mask and vaccine efficacy explicitly) and in general being a sniveling, elitist twat by stating “I am the science”.
Trump is NOT fit for public office because he is a narcissist which necessarily means, as he has exhibited over and over and again, that he is also a pathological liar. Trump, even if he wins another election, which I believe is unfortunately likely, couldn’t dream of doing more damage to the US than Fauci.
There’s a double standard that even detached people that are generally disinterested in socio-political matters are becoming aware of.
We’ve seen racism against whites and Asians not only allowed, but encouraged in multiple facets of American life- predominantly in urban settings and elite universities.
We watched people lose their livelihoods and businesses because of lockdowns, but shoulder to shoulder protests in the streets hosting thousands of people were allowed.
We’ve seen people like Alvin Bragg outright state he won’t prosecute people-except when they’re white.
We’ve watched people sterilize children as part of an ideological agenda.
We’ve watched as district attorneys and mayors of cities blame crime on police, hamstring departments and then simply shrug their shoulders when violent and property crime skyrocket and blame it on some quasi-transitive property of white supremacy.
I could go on almost endlessly with the Kafka-esque dystopia that’s unfolding here. What is happening in France now will soon be our story as well, and it will be because we’ve let it happen.
I was once willing to lay down my life for the ideals that our republic embraced- and I proved it by enlisting in the USMC straight out of high school.
I can honestly say that not only am I ashamed of what the country at large has become, but also of what the military has become. I am disgusted to be an American because embracing the ideals that once made this nation a glorious bastion for all that inhabited it and exploited it for the wealth of opportunity it offers is now rejected by at least half the country.
So with all due respect Glenn, and in my estimation there is an ocean of it due- I don’t really give a fuck about what’s legal and what’s not anymore because “legal” no longer means a goddamned thing and hasn’t in quite some time.
You sound schizophrenic! Maybe a regiment of Haldol would relieve your pain---rx that you see a mental health professional, specializing in treating cognitive dissonance. Lol?
Perhaps if we had had a president who actually gave a fuck a million plus people would not have died. I said at the time it would take five years to figure out what happened during the pandemic. One thing is clear, our political system failed us.
I am reading text instead of watching youtube video. I will search Rumble for podcast. I deleted YouTube app from my phone because Youtube removed the gender discussion on The Glenn Show featuring a guest, and because Jordan Peterson’s gender discussion with Helen Joyce was removed. Whether the speaker is Trump, Peterson or Loury’s guest, platforms need actual rules, not vague “community standards”. When I looked for rules on FB, all I found was “Be nice”. I am pro-rules and anti-censorship.
This is going to get absolutely nowhere with Glenn but
a) when Trump had a Twitter account he had absolutely no premeditated thought about what he was saying. Dan Drezner said that he forgot that he was President of the United States and was just a guy raving about all the people who had done him wrong. Someone who wanted Trump to go even farther than he actually did (declare martial law) as some of the January 6th defendants (Oath Keepers) absolutely did could be encouraged by Trump tweets to do the acts of violence that they already wanted to do.
b) Glenn and John may forget the panic that the Biden inauguration would not go off without a hitch (in the eyes of the world evaluating the reputation of American democracy)
c) as was said by Seth Masket and many, many other people, if Trump wasn't President of the United States he would have been banned from Twitter a long time ago. Twitter policies about disinformation about an election applied to him just as much as to the hypothetical left-wing person who would have claimed the election was stolen based on whatever Republican state governments in purple states chose to do about mail-in ballots, voter ID etc. The Twitter Files showed that some people at Twitter made judgment calls based on context but the first point still stands.
Another perspective: It is my honest opinion that Trump is deep in spectrum of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). I'm not a professional so my thoughts are only opinion but I've read the DSM, listened to many hours of professionals explaining NPD and more hours comparing their explanations to the public record.
In short, Trump is mentally ill. Not crazy like a loon but disturbed to a clinical degree.
As such he is
* Completely transactional with regard to truth and lies;
* His emotional maturity is not far of that of a toddler (the professionals use the term infantile ego);
*Loyalty only flows towards him, never from him to others;
* He gathers suppliants to do his dirty work (the professionals call these people Flying Monkeys after the flying beings in the move The Wizard of Oz);
* He has never given a genuine apology;
*He is threatened by people smarter than he is so he always belittles them, and
* Worst of all, he has no problem disobeying the law as he perceives himself as so great, so important, that such things as the Oath of Office can be brushed aside whenever he feels like it.
In short he is a clear and present danger to the Constitution and the country. We're he the guy that owns the corner gas station, we'd all not be too bothered by what he has to say. But he wants to be President again and there should be no doubt he wants to use the power of that office to exact vengeance upon all he perceives as having wronged him.
To allow him a voice at this level of ambition is criminally stupid.
Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much, Glenn. Donald Trump is a *clear* threat to the safety and security of this country and if he gets re-elected again it will be less of a reflection of thing and anything he stands for (if he stands for anything apart from himself) than an indictment that the American people deserve whatever comes next, which ain't gonna be good for the rest of us, either.
I agree that the left as it stands today would be a massive disaster for this country, but no *more* than the right today. They both have their own ways to profoundly screw up the world, and it won't be pleasant for anyone of either political persuasion still in possession of a brain and a grip on objective reality, which neither political side possesses.
Social media is *demonstrably* toxic and is driving a lot of the mental health crises, the violence, the political division and the political extremism we now see. Donald Trump's words *clearly* drove an insurrection attempt that resulted in six deaths, and the next one will be better-coordinated from lessons learned - and perhaps even more, not fewer, deaths.
The unpleasant reality is we need to start talking about levels of *non-partisan* censorship, and especially what constitutes dangerous speech, because someone like you, Glenn, doesn't yet grasp how some of what's expressed on social media is arguably *already against the law*, although I agree that the courts need to decide this, not Musk & Zuck.
But for now, they're getting pressured to do something and they are, however imperfectly.
As someone who's been strongly anti-censorship my entire life, even I've begun contemplating how that could work fairly, and it may not in these divided times. Those who are pro-censorship always mean for t'other side, not for themselves. Speaking as a woman who believes biology is real and you can't truly change your sex, social media is a hostile place and the opprobrium comes primarily from the far left, and in particular angry men in dresses and their good little biologically female handmaids.
Elon Musk's commitment to free speech varies from moment to moment, and perhaps from joint to joint. He shouldn't be making these decisions, but neither should any other platform leader either. But extremism, misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories have flourished and it's killing what's left of our 'free' society.
What is screwing up the world is you so-called moderates screaming Move To The Middle. There is no middle to move to. Roe v. Wade, LGBTQ are binary choices by definition there is no middle. Cliimate there is no middle when it comes to forces of nature because Mother Nature does not negotiate. Gun control there is no middle because the "2A" is über àlles. Immigration there could have been a middle in 2013 but the Gang Of 8 bill which passed the Senate and would have passed the House was prevented from receiving a vote by the far right. Move To The Middle is a euphemism for Do Nothing.
What's screwing the world up is political extremism. Calm down. We've moved to the middle because we're tired of know-nothing extremist rhetoric whether it waves a trans flag or a Confederate one.
No conparison between a trans flag and a Confederate flag. If you think there is then you are the know-nothing. What middle have you moved to? Give examples. You can't. Because there is no middle. Except as a euphemism for Shut Up and Do Nothing.
Right. Well better to be Shut Up and Do Nothing than be a Bloviating Ignoramus. Because you clearly are. Done with you buddy boy.
You lose.
I had fully intended not to renew my trial subscription. But this is so profoundly stupid I had to respond. So if you need $6 that badly here it is.
Even before the election Donald Trump was bitching non-stop about a stolen election (of course then it was contingent on it was only stolen if he lost). No one shut Donald Trump up when knowing damn well he was going to lose decided that having a civil war fought over him was even better than winning and did everything possible to piss people off.
Yes Glenn Loury Donald Trump did in fact yell fire in the proverbial crowded theater. Donald Trump knew damn well he was sitting on a powderkeg and the slightest spark would ignite a wildfire. No one shut Donald Trump up when he lit that spark with shit like "all the tough guys love me", "stand back and stand by", "be there will be wild". No one shut Donald Trump up when he threw gasoline on the fire on election day demanding the vote count be stopped. Only after "J6" once the message sent was received and Donald Trump's goon squad showed up to resurrect him in the Oval Office by brute force did anyone shut Donald Trump up.
Make no mistake Glenn Loury. They came damn close to doing exactly that. If they had gotten their hands on Pence or Pelosi or any other legislator it would have been a very different outcome.
There is no way to know with certainty who won the 2020 Presidential election. When it was over I accepted the official results that Joe Biden had won, and hoped his promise of unification rather than division would come true. Silly me.
The U.S. Constitution is clear that the separate states' legislatures alone had authority to make election arrangements. Election rules were set by bureaucrats in many states, beginning with mail-out ballots. Pretending that this was the same as absentee ballots by mail missed a crucial difference: Absentee ballots had to be requested by the voter, thus establishing an audit trail. Widespread use of ballot harvesting further obscured the audit trail. Private placement of ballot collection boxes in Democratic precincts only completed the audit trail destruction in many states. For years the legislatively mandated election rules required ballots to be received, or at least postmarked, by election day. Those rules were waived by bureaucrats, and hidden counting in Democrat precincts denying Republican observers the opportunity to observe "flipped" states inexplicably.
Each of these is well-documented in news reports. The claim that Donald Trump was shouting fire in a theatre is poppycock.
So the election was stolen from Donald Trump you think. But you accept the results. Very benevolent of you. It doesn't matter what you or Donald Trump think. Because (unlike Mr. Loury's "whatabouts" ... electoral college defund police etc) all Donald Trump's grievances were addressed by the courts (60 no less up to and including The Supremes) and invariably thrown out.
Donald Trump, rotten to the core racist career criminal Putin wannabe Insane Clown that he is, who never for a minute took being president seriously, who knew damn well that his clown act was a tired act, who knew damn well the only way he was going to remain president was to steal it, by various criminal means up to and including (as it turned out) having his goon squad storm the Capitol. To that end his non-stop screaming (before during and after the election) stolen election inside a powderkeg is precisely the equivalent of screaming fire inside a crowded theater.
Peace out
You lose.
Glenn Loury talks about saving capitalism. But, does he own factories or manufacturing companies apart from profiting from writing anti-black propaganda for the conservative Manhattan Institute? Lol!
Hopefully, Trump will be convicted for his consistent illegal transgressions and be locked up (kept in very strict administrative segregation). He's a serious threat to the country, and an example needs to be made if one thinks they're above the law. Furthermore, more lethal force should have been used against those insurrectionists that breached the perimeter of the Capitol building to stop the threat. Imagine if several congressional members had been killed or seriously injured. Sometimes, the wannabe-educated people lack common sense---they don't usually make good soldiers. Lol!
I rather doubt Trump's infantile ego could survive more than a few weeks in prison. He'll crack up... a slobbering idiot. Google NPD and read up.
Amen Glenn. I wish Trump would shut up but I don’t want him to be forced to do so.
You mentioned some of the rhetoric from the left on Twitter during the 2020 riots...I think Kamala Harris amplified donating to bail funds of people who were arrested for their involvement-it was irresponsible of her at best. The destruction and chaos of those riots needed to be calmed down by voices who had the power to do so not ramped up-in fact I would venture to say the permissive attitudes toward the “mostly peaceful protests” paved the path to the Jan 6 riot
Trump was outright banned but how many conservative voices were shadowbanned by Twitter which could have easily had an effect on the election? I don't like everything the guy says by any means but I also don't think that something like Twitter should be able to stop him from saying it. What happened to the philosophy of " I may not agree with what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" maybe the truth will never come out about the election, maybe it was stolen the problem is we will never really know
If anyone is concerned about election integrity and which party is dangerous to democracy they should take a look/listen to following link...
https://open.substack.com/pub/aaronkheriaty/p/boom-yesterday-in-court-we-landed?r=ub7jx&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
The short answer is no.
Thanks for another well thought out and reasonable conv ersation on a "hot topic".
As a public school teacher who is of a more conservative nature I appreciate how not being able to speak your mind freely is frustrating to say the least.
Not only should Trump have been banned, but he should also have been arrested for treason. He was actively engaged in the overturning of a legitimate election. I know there were Democrats who stated Trump’s election was illegitimate, but they did not go anywhere as far as Trump nor did they actively call for an insurrection. Trump has no problem destroying things-institutions, football Leagues, the Republican Party, if it serves his purpose. Another Trump presidency would do more damage to our political and civic institutions.
It wasn’t a legitimate election by any stretch. It was corrupted on many levels from government suppression of information to Big Tech suppression of public dialog (de facto illegal campaign contributions) to corruption of state election law in the name of Covid. It was utterly corrupt and will be further corrupted in the coming election cycle. This is unsustainable in a free society, which is a feature of the Left.
Even if what you say is true, I think it is fair to say that enough people looked at Trump and said enough is enough. I am no fan of Biden but Trump is a narcissistic moron. All you have to do to determine that is listen to one of his speeches.
It has, in the past, also been a feature of the right. Though most cries of “voter suppression” are a component of the whiny, woke progressive class, there have historically been cases where it was clear that electioneering and other tinkering like gerrymandering has taken place at the behest of republicans.
However, I will stipulate that there exists a concerted and rampant bias against all things conservative right now in contemporary American society. This has been made clear and undeniable via the Twitter Files, Durham’s report, Mueller’s report; among others. The highest office of law enforcement (FBI) intelligence agencies, legacy media (NYT, WaPo, CNN, NBC, MSNBCetc.) social media and other tech leviathans (Google, for example), as well as major corporate interests (ESG) are myopic in their pursuit to eliminate any legitimacy with regard to conservative ideals.
This wouldn’t be so bad if they’d just own up to it. When someone is driven out of a newsroom for allowing a conservative (Tom Cotton) to publish his opinion, that’s fine. What isn’t fine is then following that behavior with an assertion that cancel culture doesn’t exist on the left.
People aren’t that stupid. It just takes 20 years for the public, which, I hate to say, grows dumber and more polarized simultaneously, to figure it out.
Everyone pretty much now agrees that the wars in and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq were colossal mistakes. Remember when the right cancelled the Dixie Chicks for not toeing the line? But at least republicans were like “yeah, damn right we were trying to cancel them!” It’s ok to have political battles and political enemies. It’s not ok to gaslight the populace though.
The left, from my perspective, has taken a page from the right’s playbook on manufacturing consent. The difference is that they have fed it steroids and released it into the world, and it has now taken on a life of its own, and is running through American society like the werewolf in American Werewolf in London- vicious, hungry, and almost unstoppable and leaving destruction and tragedy in its wake.
Many good points here. I would only note that the Dixie Chicks were not censured because “they didn’t toe the line” but because they took their political disagreements off shore in an era where politics was supposed to stop at the waters edge. Still a good idea.
Indeed, perhaps the misstep was using a creative space that was once fairly neutral into a space that hosts political opinion.
Of course, one would be remiss in failing to mention that not only using the venue of country music to make a politically charged statement, but also to proclaim an anti US war stance.
It might perhaps even be suggested that at the time, Cheney & co had successfully manufactured consent- particularly among conservatives, and they not only didn’t want to hear political rhetoric, but were also turned off by the specific message in conflict with their pro-war, or at least pro-vengeance positions- to which I do NOT begrudgingly add were based on 100% propaganda-grade bullshit.
So, with respect, I think your analysis fails to give adequate homage to every facet of the mainstream political tenor of that time- and a HUGE part of that as evidenced by the poll research done at that time vs now.
Now the old red hawks that urged us to cross sovereign borders for a lie that had zero concrete evidence that cost thousands of deaths are saying “No, we can’t help Ukraine because there are corrupt US entanglements there” (not a direct quote, but I believe that’s a current popular conservative sentiment.) Seems at least a bit hypocritical . For reference:
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-at-how-fear-and-false-beliefs-bolstered-u-s-public-support-for-war-in-iraq/
I think you missed my point that the Chicks took their criticism to a foreign country, England perhaps. True that their fans were interested in their art, not their politics.
It was not universally believed at the time that the war narrative was false, and only in hindsight does that contention have any validity.
I have no idea what polls you refer to or what point they might make.
I suspect you don’t know many conservatives; we are quite a diverse group and very capable of independent thought.
No, you wouldn’t have any idea unless you click the link that takes you to it that I included at the end of my comment so that you would know😂
I agree with some of what you say but it is not as if conservatives do not have media outlets. I am one of those old Liberals who is alarmed by the progressive Left cancel culture. The media has returned to the 1830s where each party has its own newspapers.
I understand the compulsion to defend one’s tribe, but good lord man. Conservatives having media outlets too is a poor response to the political capture of:
FBI
ATF
CIA
CISA
NSA
DHS
DOJ
FACEBOOK
TWITTER (pre Musk takeover)
INSTAGRAM
GOOGLE (to include YouTube- ask Glenn about the censorship and the political bias there 😉)
PAYPAL
EVERY UNIVERSITY EXCEPT EXPLICITLY CONSERVATIVE/RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS LIKE REGENT UNIVERSITY, LIBERTY UNIVERSITY, et al. including: HARVARD PRINCETON STANFORD BROWN COLUMBIA… you get the picture here- the elite academic epicenter of the country.
MSNBC
CNBC
NBC
CNN
NYT
WAPO
LA TIMES
95% of every major urban center government. SF, NYC, etc etc etc
Please, please tell me more about these conservative news outlets like NewsMax or Turning Point USA that control the flow of information and speech that clearly exists and has been proven time after time after time.
It’s not just about ‘cancel culture’, it’s about individual liberty, the Bill of Rights and the founding principles of this nation as it was known from oh, idk, about 1787 until roughly 2015.
We can bat this stupid ball back and forth across this net all you want but 2 things will remain true:
You cannot find this level of ideological capture on the right this deep into just about every American institution because there’s only one FBI, DOJ, DHS, etc. aaand…
This list is woefully incomplete. We’re not talking about the same things here and your pissant whataboutism would be laughable if not so tragic.
How many of Trump’s seemingly unhinged assertions since 2016 have turned out be true ? Is the country better served by a pathological liar? Why do the Clinton and Biden crime families remain unscathed? Are leftists open to compromise. Which party’s Senate Majority Leader threatened the lives of Supreme Court Justices ?
No party's Senate majority leader threatened the lives of Supreme Court justices.
The Left is acting on tyrannical impulses, and Trump is the reagent that is making it justifiable in the minds of half of our citizens. Once this genie is fully out of the lamp, it may be impossible to put it back.
This is how countries move, inch by inch, into terrible conditions. Because these impulses, these sinful tendencies, crouch at the door to every human heart. We saw it with Trump, we saw it accelerate under Covid, and we likely have not seen its worst manifestation.
I agree particularly with this last part. If you’ve never been to countries that are in the midst of civil war, and have “othered” entire populations that also inhabit the same country and in doing so, justify unimaginable atrocities, then you can’t really conceptualize just how bad it can get.
Thankfully I didn’t have to witness the genocide in Rwanda but I was in Charles Taylor’s Liberia and Milosevic’s territory in Eastern Europe in the mid 90s and can tell you that ithe things I bore witness to left an indelible mark on my soul.
Before 2020 if you told any American that entire chunks of a city, including municipal buildings and police stations would not only be taken over by armed political militants but also condoned by mayors and other office-holders, they likely would not have taken you seriously. And that is how it begins indeed. Little by little, norms and order get eroded and then eventually ignored completely.
We are without a doubt heading that direction and 2020 was the precursor. It begins with socio-cultural changes that happen seemingly suddenly, followed by justified violence against “the enemy” and “oppressors”.
If these new norms are tolerated and allowed to progress with no resistance because people are first too scared to be cancelled and then scared for their lives, you don’t want to see what comes after that.
There are two legal systems in this country now. There are seemingly at least 2 different societies that people are living in. There’s the one that is in touch with reality and takes all evidence that can be verified into account and one that does not. To be clear, this isn’t a political statement. This isn’t a declaration of how bad democrats are and how victimized republicans are.
Having engaged in the obligatory throat clearing, who actually gives a fuck what’s legal and what’s not? I mean this question seriously. Here’s what I see. “Follow the science” doesn’t literally mean that- it means “do what the fuck I say or suffer the consequences”. Fauci & company specifically and intentionally MANEUVERED AND CONNIVED THEIR WAY AROUND THE GAIN OF FUNCTION BAN IN THE UNITED STATES. They did this by circumventing the regulations with policies they created, and largely by moving the operation out of the contiguous US.
It’s hard to believe that there was no motive or incentive that isn’t financially related. We know now that there was, and continues to be. If this wasn’t already enough to condemn Fauci, let’s consider all the people that were driven out of their jobs- either by failure to comply with masking and vaccination mandates, or because they worked in small businesses that simply didn’t make it through lockdowns. If that’s not enough to condemn him and his cohorts, let’s also consider his attempt at misdirection by promoting studies that pre-confirmed his position and his position only, lying to Congress, lying to the American public, intentionally misreporting medical data (mask and vaccine efficacy explicitly) and in general being a sniveling, elitist twat by stating “I am the science”.
Trump is NOT fit for public office because he is a narcissist which necessarily means, as he has exhibited over and over and again, that he is also a pathological liar. Trump, even if he wins another election, which I believe is unfortunately likely, couldn’t dream of doing more damage to the US than Fauci.
There’s a double standard that even detached people that are generally disinterested in socio-political matters are becoming aware of.
We’ve seen racism against whites and Asians not only allowed, but encouraged in multiple facets of American life- predominantly in urban settings and elite universities.
We watched people lose their livelihoods and businesses because of lockdowns, but shoulder to shoulder protests in the streets hosting thousands of people were allowed.
We’ve seen people like Alvin Bragg outright state he won’t prosecute people-except when they’re white.
We’ve watched people sterilize children as part of an ideological agenda.
We’ve watched as district attorneys and mayors of cities blame crime on police, hamstring departments and then simply shrug their shoulders when violent and property crime skyrocket and blame it on some quasi-transitive property of white supremacy.
I could go on almost endlessly with the Kafka-esque dystopia that’s unfolding here. What is happening in France now will soon be our story as well, and it will be because we’ve let it happen.
I was once willing to lay down my life for the ideals that our republic embraced- and I proved it by enlisting in the USMC straight out of high school.
I can honestly say that not only am I ashamed of what the country at large has become, but also of what the military has become. I am disgusted to be an American because embracing the ideals that once made this nation a glorious bastion for all that inhabited it and exploited it for the wealth of opportunity it offers is now rejected by at least half the country.
So with all due respect Glenn, and in my estimation there is an ocean of it due- I don’t really give a fuck about what’s legal and what’s not anymore because “legal” no longer means a goddamned thing and hasn’t in quite some time.
You sound schizophrenic! Maybe a regiment of Haldol would relieve your pain---rx that you see a mental health professional, specializing in treating cognitive dissonance. Lol?
Perhaps if we had had a president who actually gave a fuck a million plus people would not have died. I said at the time it would take five years to figure out what happened during the pandemic. One thing is clear, our political system failed us.
Oh yeah for sure, all of it is Trump’s fault. Moron.