The fringe is the center - just a few of today's postings

SMH. Crazy from the cons…

 

How'd we get to this point? It saddens and scares me.

 

Fox News grandpas are now in government posts

 

Really interesting OP. America is crumbling from within.

 

As I’ve often said, income inequality is the root cause. When folks can’t afford a home, for example, they become frustrated and angry - radicalized in a word. Combine that with the same mentality which considered it okay to own and abuse black people, and you have widespread meanness.

 

At what point do people on the right go...stop...no more. We don't want to be a party of hate, xenophobia, conspiracy theories. Don't you have a responsibility to yourself and this great nation to pushback? You either agree or are complicit in tearing down our country. Damnit... do something already.

 

I’ve never thought it was that complex. I’d say it is more to do with the evolution of media, cable media then internet and social media, that caters to our base less desirable instincts, including the desire to identify as a victim. You can find plenty of well paid successful people who believe the same garbage

 

Can't disagree with that as a contributing factor, but it seems all that media just gives voice to what is already percolating, so to speak.

 

Agree but it keeps going - they just go more irrational to appease the base. Maybe there will be a ground swell for independent candidates.

 

That’s actually the point. The media voices it, reinforces it, makes it ok to speak it and amplifies it. In the past most people would be embarrassed to communicate their suspicion that one party eats babies.

 

The idiocracy is becoming more prominent.

 

None of that matters as long as a candidate is pro life and pro gun

 

Of these, the North Carolina one seems like the one to actually potentially be upset about (although I suspect it’s a troll bill that has no chance of going anywhere - obviously no one is going to build free gas pumps, and I highly doubt the state is actually going to pay to tear down electric vehicle charging stations on that basis).

A quick Google suggests the Tulsa public school audit is because they have some financial scandal and two school board members (both African American women, one of whom has previously run for the state house as a Democrat) requested an audit of the district.

On the Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion, I haven’t read the whole thing, but “people’s faith in elections is undermined when the state doesn’t follow its own election laws” is fairly thin language to read as suggesting that maybe Biden didn’t win.

 

Long article. I think what I said generally falls in line with his conclusions. Fox News really started it, and in recent years internet and social media has amplified it.

 

If you read the original OK tweet he states that the audit is one thing then follows that they are also investigating CRT in TPS - as a separate issue. It doesn’t say or imply the audit was for CRT.

I read the two pages of the decision in the tweet and what I got was

1. Elections must follow the law
2. If elections don’t follow the law then peoples trust in elections decrease
3. Drop boxes are illegal and thus harmful to WI voters.

I did not get that they were saying the outcome was in question, so the tweet is a stretch, although I do think the WI decision language was inflammatory and one sided.

While obviously elections must follow the law, which they vigorously stress, what they don’t mention is the law is being used to affect the outcome and in itself decreases confidence in the elections. Gerrymandering and various voter restrictions are examples. Ironically they cite examples of Saddam and Kim Jung Il, but presumably those ridiculous elections followed the law, as dictators basically make their own laws.

 

I'd argue that all that media doesn't simply give voice to it, but actively exacerbates and incites it as well. Outrage has become "big business" in this country on both sides of the aisle. Someone said it earlier in another thread, but social media is a sewer without the cleaning mechanisms.