Pretty easy to talk this one out after the year we\u2019ve had. The problem now is not what it looks like. It\u2019s not the ravenous anti-vaxxers or the Confederate assholes who stormed the Capitol or the \u201cpatriots\u201d rushing Cheesecake Factory to breathe unmasked. These people are all scum and deserve whatever they get – mostly from omicron – but they are not the ones I have the beef with this year.<\/p>\n
No. The people who have disappointed me are the press, and not even the gutter press like Fox and its imitators. The press that can only see two equal and opposite sides to everything, deserving of equal consideration. The ones who report on resistance to vaccine mandates without also acknowledging that it\u2019s not 50% of employees refusing a mandated vaccine, it\u2019s not 25%, it\u2019s closer to 1%. The ones who can only see horse race approval ratings because they\u2019re too stupid to address issues and see nuance. The ones who refuse to acknowledge that the 60-vote Senate threshold is an artificial creation from the filibuster and a 21st century anomaly and is fundamentally undemocratic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is not asking too much for every reporter in this country to have a firm grasp on 12th-grade civics and 6th grade math. It should be possible to say that these bullshit opinions only represent about a quarter of the population, and then call out the additional quarter that hems and haws about agreeing with them but is happy to trade on their paranoia and delusion for their own political gain. Every single Republican in public life should have long since been forced to answer two questions: \u201cdo you believe Joe Biden was rightfully elected President\u201d and \u201cdo you believe the Capitol incursion on January 6 was wrong.\u201d These are not complicated questions, and a \u201cno\u201d on either one should be followed up with a constant and relentless \u201cwhy not\u201d and their logic and reasoning should be debunked at every turn.<\/p>\n
But that would require a smart press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pretty easy to talk this one out after the year we\u2019ve had. The problem now is not what it looks like. It\u2019s not the ravenous anti-vaxxers or the Confederate assholes who stormed the Capitol or the \u201cpatriots\u201d rushing Cheesecake Factory to breathe unmasked. These people are all scum and deserve whatever they get – mostly … <\/p>\n