I think the USA is as closest it’s been to failing at Democracy, in the last 100 years. That said, I think the US Democracy has been very stable for 100 years, and I don’t expect us to fail now.
I do think there’s a decent chance this will culminate in riots and terrorism, both of which are pretty common in our history.
I also think this election stuff is solidifying the disconnect between Trumpkins and truth / reality / humankind. I didn’t really expect them to “wake-up” and join reality right away, but it’s just one more sign that we will be on opposite sides for decades to come.
I realize that the large majority of Americans accept the election results, but there’s a significant minority (let’s say tens of millions) who now and forever believe they were secretly cheated.
The hate vented towards the “Main Stream Media” is arguably most upsetting part about the whole situation. The “Main Stream Media”, along with books, scientists, and historians that they also don’t trust… make up all the best ways of knowing the truth about anything all.
Without reputable sources, normal people have literally no source of truth, and are easy prey to conmen and cults (right now that’s Trump, but anyone can pick up the reins).
yup, it’s insane! when they condescendingly tell people to “educate yourself” it’s like uh, where then? through Trump’s own lying words or FoxNews or even worse sources than FoxNews?
In all fairness. Almost all of the main stream media is heavily biased now. FoxNews is (‘R’) and the other big outlets are all (D). My problem is that very few of the “straight news” shows are actually impartial. Brit Hume is probably the closest to truly impartial in his reporting at this point.
When the NYT comes out and openly says it is doing away with the impartial reporting standards because Trump and fires the opinion editor for publishing a controversial piece by a US Senator (but is fine with one by a Taliban terrorist leader), it makes it a little tough to consider them an unbiased source of accurate news.
The NYT will tell you that they maintain a wall between the news function and the opinion side. I mostly believe them.
It is impossible to have perfectly unbiased news because no site can report everything that happened today. The decision that something is worth putting on the site is a human choice.
I make it to the NYT and to Fox internet every day to try to offset that. Then try to be aware of the bias as I read. I think the best option is to try to get news from more than one place. I’m sure you’ve seen this before https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/
NYT is my main news source when I’m not commuting to work, though I make it a point to read op-ed pieces by their conservative guy Bret Stephens and their moderate guy David Brooks. When I’m in the car or out for a run I’ll listen to NPR - not having a profit motive definitely helps keep things near the center. I don’t subscribe to the WSJ but they have several non-paywall columns available. They are fairly balanced in their news reporting though their opinion pieces give a good conservative view of politics without getting extreme.
Reliability (imo) is much more important than bias.
So, no reason to go to FoxNews.
Also, whether the site offers free content is important (imo). So, I’m not going to WaPo, NYT, The Independent, The Economist, The Atlantic (I don’t see that on the chart).
I don’t think the MSM is any more biased than it’s ever been before-- the same kinds of reporting decisions have been made our entire lives-- we just didn’t think about them as much.
I don’t know who Brit Hume is or about your NYT stories, so feel free to explain. I wouldn’t recommend the NYT as the ‘most unbiased’ source anyway. What they (and other somewhat left-leaning sources) have going for them is being very thorough and honest. But certainly there’s some bias to pick through.
Fox and most other conservative bubbles are neither thorough nor honest. They float important and easily discredited lies as equal to verifiable facts, and they frequently leave out the most important pieces of information (evidence, statistics, reasons, graphs, etc.) leading the reader with the wrong conclusion about practically everything… eg.
-how many people have died to Covid
-who won the election
-whether Obama is secretly a Muslim
-whether the world has been getting warmer
-macroeconomic statistics (deficit, unemployment, gdp, etc.)
Lots of things that really should have a basically straightforward answer.
Now there’s plenty of nuance on every topic, and nuance is always going to be biased… but basic facts should not be. And where we are these days is bias in the basic facts. “Who won the US presidential election” should not be some controversial question because of “Media Bias”. It should be really easy.
I’m currently in an email exchange with a group of friends, one who is arguing that I rely too much on the mainstream media and an obvious reason that I shouldn’t is they haven’t done enough to pick up the Hunter Biden story because it is not good for the blue team.
Bias is unavoidable. Having a point of view is universal.
But that is not the same thing as refusing to accept reality. FoxNews often leads with rumors. Making up, or even just rebroadcasting nonsense from others is not in any way similar to having “a slant”. To me, there is a bright line there.
Put out the facts, then overlay your own opinion to interpret those facts, is fine. Making stuff up, or starting with " some people are saying" is wholly different.
no it didn’t coincide where I live. The cases DECREASED here with the protests. Restaurants hadn’t re-opened yet at that point. There were JUST protests. That’s it.
I agree with respect to riots & violence. Although, I was expecting that no matter who won. We’re simply too polarized, and sitting on top of too much long-term stress this year.
Regarding the disconnect… I’m on the fence. I get your view toward trump supporters, but I think there’s a much deeper, more significant division in there. I have broad concepts of what fuels that schism, but nothing concrete, it’s all very abstract at the moment.
