It’s your fucking duty. It’s why you got an ’estate’. You are a necessary facet of democracy but you need to do your part and act like it so you deserve the protections and benefits provided to you for doing so - like benefit of trust and access to politicians.
With few exceptions, you’re failing to be our eyes and ears and mouths and are instead mouthpieces for ownership and interests.
If it was just your job to make money take off the news armour (yeah you Fox) and stand naked in front of us as the liars you are.
Oof sorry. Got ranty there. It’s all getting to be too much.
Can you explain the “estate” thing like I’m a 5 year old non-American? (Only one of those is actually true, but I won’t say which one)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate
Just like within actual government there’s supposed to be balance of power between different branches or houses, there’s this idea that the role of the press is to hold governments accountable.
(More of an ELI12, but that’s the gist of the idea)
Sadly, I feel like the whole “separation of powers” thing is under attack in America and elsewhere as power continues to consolidate over time - even where it pertains to branches within government. Traditional media has long been lost in many cases, and even “alternative” media is so flooded with bad actors that it’s nearly impossible to get signal through the noise.
Not to get too dour, but if media is in this state now, I hate to think of where it will be once AI starts to gain a real foothold in our political discourse. I assume we’ll start to see the effects of this really become evident this years, with American federal elections ramping up.
France had 3 estates, The Nobles, The Clergy, and the Everyone Else. Another two got added by political theory people over time. Number 4 is the journalists. Number 5 is the alt journalists.
Is there a sixth? And please don’t say alt alt journalists, because that would be very disappointing.
Interesting, I had never heard of this! That explains that show “The Fifth Estate”. I’ll have to read up on this a bit, seems like useful knowledge.
You know, I thought I could but on brief search it’s… complicated.
This is the best nugget from Wikipedia that sums up the general notion I’m trying to state that the media has been afforded a role in society - and that they aren’t acting as an independent class.
The modern term the fourth estate invokes medieval three-estate systems, and usually refers to some particular force outside that medieval power structure, most commonly the independent press or the mass media.[3][4]
If Journalists point that out and report on it, then the Republicans will refuse their interviews and to come on their shows… and they much rather have the fall of democracy, than risk losing access.
Here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we don’t have time to worry about the fall of democracy when the fall of ratings is on the line!
This is the paradox of liberalism.
You have blue MAGA outlets like NPR that spent the last 8 years being “fair” to both sides, telling their audience the antivax fascist psychopaths are just as valid and worthy as the left trying to give people education and healthcare.
As if conservative views are even worth recognizing.
Liberalism without a STRONG left wing always ends in fascism, and the liberals are more than happy to join the fascists (see: literally all liberal discourse on Lemmy).
Guess what the US has spent the past 80 years doing. Real coincidence every time a country leans left, they are overthrown by CIA puppets.
So now you have liberals in literal tears trying to get their guy elected without even fucking understanding the issues at play. They don’t give a shit.
Not all NPRs. Boston Public Radio, or at least Jim and Marjorie, the only time I ever heard them talking about antivaxers was when Art Caplan (a weekly regular…“American ethicist and professor of bioethics at New York University Grossman School of Medicine” per his Wikipedia) was tearing apart most of what they say.
But that’s more like a talk news show. You kind of expect a little bit less neutrality in that.
Art Caplan was also recently on an episode of Nova talking about ethics in modern medicine. Think it was actually about vaccination (may have been designer babies).
It’s a two party system, jabroni. If the liberals crying their tears don’t get their guy in office, who do you think DOES get into office?
newflash: Trump gets into office. Which must be your guy, right?
If you’re going to join conversations with people you might want to check your tone, as you could have the most sound argument ever but if you come across as a prick you’re going to turn people off your pov.
Be better my guy and talk to people how you would expect people to talk to your mother.
“bbbbut thuh Dems haven’t done anything to EARN my vote” and other such brain dead takes from ding dongs who don’t understand basic pragmatic logic.
* From dingdongs who are repeating – accidentally or on purpose – some bullshit that was professionally constructed to emotionally resonate and sound convincing on surface level, so that when people spread it on social media it can do its job and help Trump get elected and fuck up the country absolutely beyond recognition
Sadly they are the only voices trying to keep the Dems aim to the left.
Dems kept sliding right after coopting the middle with Clinton. Basically a Good Cop-Bad Cop routine.
Now there is no left, aside from Sanders.
Authoritarian to the left, fascist to the right, here we are.
If Sanders ever got the Presidency, leftists would drop him within 3 months.
Leftists want a unicorn, and they don’t exist. Until leftists realize this, they’ll be powerless. Leftism in America has spent 20 years eating itself, and now they’re surprised they have no power.
Sure, when Sanders was dominating the Democrats primary in 2016 we saw the entire county do a charachter assasination for a week straight.
It was the purest sign since Gove v Bush2 that the USA was no longer a republic nor a democracy.
Neither of us can convince someone whose friends had their asses beat by cops at a university protesting Biden’s action. Only Biden can do that, by ending the genocide.
When dems lose for not doing the things they need to do to get elected, are you going to blame the dems for not winning what should be an easy election by just doing the things the people want him to do, using all the means at his disposal, or are you going to blame every single voter in the US for not voting for a party that shows nothing but contempt for them?
Sure Biden has messed up with the protesters, but the Republican nominee Trump, would have had you shot.
“what should be an easy election” <- this is how we know you are campaigning for Trump. There is no such thing as an easy election. Since 1992, Democrats have won the popular vote in 7 out of 8 elections, but that didn’t stop Bush from beating Gore, or Trump from beating Clinton.
lol, all your type does is talk about dems dems dems, not a single word about Republicans or how much worse they have proven to be when they are in office.
Trump said he would help Israel end the genocide, I guess that’s what you want after all, right?
Oh, so you’re still under the delusion the DNC did nothing wrong, and it’s the voters who were wrong for not voting harder.
Look at it this way: The democrats can change their own policy. They cannot change the psychology of the masses. No matter how much you yell at people for pointing it out, facilitating genocide, restarting student loans, letting Texas keep their child drowning fence, standing around while states ban abortion, are bad for electoral outcomes.
The republicans are psychopaths whose policies are bad for the material conditions of 99% of Americans. This has been true forever, but here we are, with dems somehow right of Richard Nixon. You have to have absolute dogshit policies for it to even be close, and that’s exactly what got us here. “Well trump might have restarted student loan payments but worse” isn’t gonna convince someone who is building up credit card debt now because they can’t balance rent, food, and student loan repayments.
I notice a certain slight tendency in your comments to talk about China, implication that aid for Taiwan was “bought” from the US congress by someone, tendency to delve into the details of tariffs and suchlike.
Quick question for you: If I protest in China against a Chinese policy I don’t agree with, what happens to me?
(This isn’t a whataboutism – China doing something doesn’t excuse the US police from doing a much milder version of the same thing. I don’t think they should be beating or arresting protestors here either. I’m just curious how universally you apply this concern for protestors who had their asses beat.)
Quick question for you: If I protest in China against a Chinese policy I don’t agree with, what happens to me?
Quick Answer: You can just google “site:scmp.com (or any other english language chinese news site) protestors”
You could probably find much better data if you googled the chinese word for protestors, but then you’d have to translate the results.
Even when the government wants to shut down protests, such as in HK, it’s 100x more gentle than the US is. Think of how many people getting run over by cops we saw in 2020. I didn’t see a single child get domed with a pepperball in Hong Kong.
Dems lose? We all lose. You people seem to forget you’re fucking everyone. Your feelings don’t matter, outcomes do. If you know Trump wins in this scenario, and you know there may be no more free elections, how does this “force the Dems to learn for next time?” Braindead ideological bullshit. You’re a fucking cult.
Why the hell are you coming at me then? I can’t control the dems policies, nor can I change the psychology of muslims to vote for a guy who is facilitating genocide. Nothing I say would convince someone who is struggling to pay rent because their student loans were resumed by executive order.
The only thing either of us can do is pressure the dems to do the things they need to do to get elected. If Biden stops the genocide, then I could tell muslims “Hey, if you don’t vote Biden, Trump will resume it”, and college grads “Hey, if you don’t vote Biden, Trump will resume loan repayments”, and women “Hey, if you don’t vote Biden, Trump’s gonna remove your right to bodily autonomy” but I can’t do that because he doesn’t give me shit to work with.
Private Media’s duty is to the shareholders.
And if you look at who the big shareholders are voting for (and donating to and campaigning for) it’s the Trump GOP.
Sinclair Media, iHeartCommunications, News Corp, Amazon Media Group, Twitter…
These guys are lockstep with the conservative movement.
The end of democracy in the U.S. is not going to come from fascist conservatives, but from too-busy-with-life normies, the type who don’t vote in anything but presidential elections. They’re just too busy to notice anything other than their bills.
In their minds, they’re going to “punish” the blues for inflation while ignoring that the reds only ever made them poorer. These type of people don’t care about genocides (someone else’s problem, there’s always brown people dying, Israel is an ally etc), abortion rights (only stupid people get pregnant or only sluts need that), or trans people (that’s too weird for them). They don’t care about climate change (it’s a topic up for debate, it’s not factual), but have kids. They don’t care about workers rights, but work deadend or multiple jobs. They don’t care about getting more healthcare rights, but are a medical emergency away from bankruptcy.
I am not saying these people are dumb or callous, they need outreach and they need to be presented clearly with their options and outcomes. If you can, volunteer to sign people up to vote and present what’s at stake.
In my country, basically everyone accepts climate change, except perhaps the most conservative and those who already believe in conspiracy theories. What is going on in the US?
Those who believe in conspiracy theories have become our conservative party. Some (myself included) would argue they’ve always been there or that that’s always been the nature of the republican party. But the important thing here in the modern day is that the conspiracy theorists now control half of the country’s political system.
I’m personally of the opinion that conspiracy theory is the result of a fundamental unwillingness or inability to engage with reality. If that is the case then why on earth would you choose to believe in climate change? It’s scary, and an existential threat to humanity if it’s taken seriously. Besides, theres a lot of money to be made burning the planet.
I think at the end of the day that’s what the American right’s denial of climate change boils down to. Everyone in that party participates in some way in denying reality in favor of a collective fantasy. What’s one more denial?