While this might sound reasonable and balanced in most democracies, it's just not applicable to what is/was happening in the US. Regardless of moderate views of individuals, this election was not about economic policies or other debatable differences, this election was about if we can get back to this described discourse level of coexistence, not where one side's chief strategist says it's required to behead scientists for deterrence, any adherence to truth, decency and the general right to exist for minorities was on the table.
And this is why the democrats can’t figure out what they’re doing wrong. What you said is a hilarious fantasy. Please, show me the proposed legislation that would suggest minorities can’t exist. I’m dying to see how that could even be worded.
You seem to be affected by the exact thing the post you replied to is alleging. As an outsider who reads both sides' arguments all the time, I am convinced that Republicans currently lean towards supporting freedom of speech and personal liberties, civil discourse, equal rights while the Democrats are the exact opposite. They are supporting and defending violent protests, looting, segregation(!), vowed to make lists of Trump supporters to deal with after the election etc. etc. ... Perhaps this is "truth and decency" for some people, but to many it's not.
There are absolutely extremist supporters of both sides. For instance, I'm dismayed at some of the schadenfreude reactions on Twitter by anti-Trump people right now. (In particular the "I love to see Trump supporters cry" meme that really needs to die, as it's extremely antagonistic and unhelpful.) However the difference is, on the Republican side, it comes right from the top. Just read Trump's twitter feed: it's an endless stream of ad-hominem attacks and lies. Regular politicians will attack their opponents' positions, and they'll spin or stretch the truth sometimes, but I've never seen another American politician, much less a president, stoop to the level that Trump regularly inhabits in his everyday discourse. I mean, just listen to Biden's victory speech and compare it to Trump's. Or compare their twitter feeds. To say the Republican party stands for civil discourse... I honestly don't know how you could have watched the President for the past four years and come away with that impression.
Also the Roger Stone - Alex Jones connection, it’s a preposterous projection of the extreme right to justify abuse of power on their end. There is simply no objective „both-sides“ ground to any of those claims. https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/13/roger-stone-...
> I mean, just listen to Biden's victory speech and compare it to Trump's. Or compare their twitter feeds. To say the Republican party stands for civil discourse... I honestly don't know how you could have watched the President for the past four years and come away with that impression.
Easy, just look at who is in favour of censorship, "deplatforming", violence against people with the "wrong" opinions. Words don't hurt, Tweets are overrated. But silencing people, causing them to lose their jobs, or just assaulting them, that hurts.
Words can absolutely hurt. Trump's rhetoric has severely ramped up partisan anger and disaffection, contributing to real violence in several cases.
I don't believe it's the case that Biden or anyone in the leadership of the Democratic party has advocated for violence against people with wrong opinions, or indeed anyone.
It was not about what reasonable people think at this point, it’s about what they do and who they enable to enact power. The people you mentioned have no power and are not endorsed or are told to „stand by“. This is a very significant difference. As a reminder the whole reason Biden entered the race was Charlottesville.
That isn’t what “stand by” meant, and the intent of that statement was obvious. Also, Trump repeatedly condemned the racists at Charlottesville, and not only were they not endorsed, but explicitly disavowed. Repeatedly.
Charlottesville is a good point, as it was one of the most perpetuated lies during the Biden and supporting media campaign that Trump somehow supposedly called extremists "good people" (media and Biden omitted the rest of the quote to distort what Trump said, he explicitly condemned extremists).
While that's true, I think the parent is right that the media went too far with this one. Trump did explicitly say later in the speech that he wasn't referring to the white supremacists as good people, but to others in the crowd that just wanted to protect the Lee statue.
I think you're right that people were upset with Trump for focusing on that and drawing a moral equivalence between the counter-protestors and even those willing to march with white supremacists. One could even reasonably argue that no 'good' person would choose to join a march largely inhabited by white supremacists, or even that their support of the General Lee statue was itself a racist act. But those are the points that should have been made, rather than stretching it to say Trump literally called white supremacists good people, which he didn't. There's plenty you could criticise without resorting to taking him out of context.
