Media chatter has turned to Thursday night’s televised debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and it seems nobody is pretending anymore that the event has anything to do with educating the electorate. If it were, you’d see articles comparing and contrasting the positions espoused by the two grandpas. Instead we get stories about colleges missing out on a big payday when the campaigns cut out the debate commission, and how CNN hopes to boost its sagging ratings by hosting the first debate to grant exclusive broadcast rights. The next step is probably commemorative merch.
You’ve probably seen stories about various state GOPs consumed by infighting, but Our Liberal Media has yet to piece it all together as “Republicans at each other’s throats,” so Amanda Marcotte did, and she doesn’t even include every state. Another MSM mistake: The sides aren’t MAGAts vs. Never Trumpers – they’re MAGAts vs. people further to the right.
You thought that if a cease-fire could be negotiated in Gaza, Israel would stop attacking its neighbors? What, and let the country go back to putting Netanyahu in prison? No, no, no. Once all of Gaza has been bombed to rubble, it’s gonna be time to attack Lebanon. At what point will American politicians, and a majority of the public, realize that we’re backing yet another megalomaniacal right-wing autocrat?
Social scientists might offer a clue about where all this right-wing aggression is coming from: In a word, men. The troubling trend: Gen Z men tend to feel marginalized more conservative than their fathers and grandfathers, and – surprise! – it leads to women being scapegoated for getting educated and becoming independent. This helps explain why the Christianists are trying to put the birth control genie back in the bottle.
The floor’s yours.