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This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle hard to thread. No matter how I present it, I’ll offend some thoughtful, decent people.
The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.
The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.
This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.
The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it.
As for those who equate Trump and Joe Biden, that’s false equivalency. Biden has done nothing remotely close to the egregious, anti-American acts of Trump. We can debate the success and mindset of our current president, as we have about most presidents in our lifetimes, but Biden was never a threat to our democracy. Trump is. He is unique among all American presidents for his efforts to keep power at any cost.
No dissent during an election cycle, got it.
2016 was not long ago. “Valid dissent” is what successfully disenfranchised enough voters to give us Trump, which we will spend a lifetime recovering from.
You people have a very short memory.
Like I said: No dissent in an election cycle.
And the neat part is that election cycles don’t ever stop.
So we have zero dissent.
Yay democracy.
Also: What you mean “you people?” That sounds like you’re being needlessly divisive, trying to paint progressives as disloyal.
I bet you’re one of those IRA agents infiltrating message boards.
And you sound like someone who would be complicit with electing Hitler pre-WW2 because his political rivals weren’t perfect matches to your ideals.
Wake the fuck up. You get “divisive” replies from people like me because we’re tired of your intellectually dishonest “what, I can’t voice dissent?” when democracy is actually in major jeopardy this very moment. This isn’t some hypothetical.
You whine about people shutting down your bullshit because we’re fed up with it. But the other side is literally facism that would likely evolve into actual imprisonment for “voicing dissent”.
And that’s not hyperbole. Dictatorships around the world currently do that. Trumps own lawyers argued that the sitting president cannot be guilty of any crimes, that they can literally assassinate rivals.
Again, that is not hyperbole. That is fact.
Holy cow, y’all are more deranged than I thought