The GOP is without shame and has sunk to a level that I don’t think they can come back from. We do need to have alternate political views to keep our politics from becoming one sided. The problem is that the GOP is o longer an actual political party. Even if they loose this election it doesn’t seem that they will purge themselves of this malign and incompetent and backward thinking
I think Grand is a false moniker for this group of criminals who are trying to turn the US into a Christian Nationalist nation as MAGAs or jumping ship like from the Titanic to the life raft of the Harris-Walz coalition.
The reality based community may finally be winning. In part because real journalists are working overtime to spread the truth and in part because the right is flailing in their efforts to create their own reality. They can no longer create a narrative out of whole cloth and get it amplified and perpetuated by a willing and complicit corporate media. The alternative realities of the republican right have gotten so insane that corp media can no longer aid and abet, not because they no longer want to but because they can’t. The lies are just so transparent, so preposterous, so far fetched that corp media can’t both sides them or reshape them to make them seem reasonable. At least to sane, sensible people who are willing to listen.
I so wish I could agree with you. So why does almost every poll, including those conducted or sponsored by MSM, show the votes for president are tied or nearly so? It is a conundrum shrouded in a mystery as deep as "does God exist."
If violent crime rates were increasing we could run on that… if only … hey, wait a minute… if we just talk real loud, say scary things, and pretend to believe them we can platform the shit out of this crime thing!
Unless, and until, the main-stream-media (ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Public TV and radio, the NY Times, Washington Post, etc., etc. etc.) start pointing out that the GOP is under the control of "Putin's Puppet" and refuse to continue to treat Trump, or any Republican candidate for public office at the local, state or federal level as if they are qualified to serve, the country is in deep trouble. Our democratic republic will not survive. The "free press" is not doing the job the framers of the Constitution expected them to do when they wrote and adopted the 1st Amendment. Our demise, which we are approaching quickly, is their fault. November 2024 could be the end of the grand experiment to self-govern.
Unfortunately, Media will not do that in the whole at this point. The act of "Reporting", itself, has become a commercial commodity complete with a "customer base" to whom Media "reports" (sells) not information, but a version of reality that those customers want to consume. This is true across the spectrum of Liberal/ Conservative Media. Like processed foods, alcohol or tobacco, this product is unhealthy to consume in the quantities the american (and globally- this isn't happening in a US vacuum) population desires it. The population of the US will have to take a good, long, hard look in the mirror to DEMAND a different product, before it will ever happen. Beginning in the Mid 1980's America began the ground work of creatining the current Media reality.
Trump is fueled intensely by his projection of his own criminality. From the time he rode down the elevator to announce his run for president when he accused the Mexicans for being rapists to his current screaming about a violent increase in violent crime, he's describing his modus operandi. He sexually assaulted women he found attractive ("because when you're famous they let you do it"); and his presidential culmination in fomenting the violent crime at the Capitol, and his on-going crime wave now documented in well-known indictments awaiting trial. So, let's be warned, Trump sees the current state of crime in our land as increasing.
The problem is that Trump, if faced with these facts, will just pivot to say "Wait until you see the 2024 numbers , they are so bad you can't even believe it." He's doubling down on crime for his platform, all he talks about anymore is migrant crime and migrants "pouring into our country." It's literally all he has to run on now that we've basically achieved a soft landing from COVID. Not to mention it's coming to light that somewhere between 25% and 50% of inflation was purely rent hikes.
Fear-mongering and paranoia are tools used to weaponized public opinion. Trump is a seasoned bully leading a primed army of MAGAts who have been immersed in the RNC weaponized propaganda machine since the 1980’s.
The halloween season fantasies, lawless depravity & corruption of MAGA leadership has consequences. That the base may "lap it up" is not an excuse, but of course MSM needs to normalize the whining MAGA depravity & create a horse race…ads, eyeballs, $...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmr1owmG2aI
BTW, Trump knows nothing about Project 2025, Robinson, Stormy, E Jean, & supports a self proclaimed Nazi slavery supporter for governor of NC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVXuNgNPpmU
When Trump says crime is going up, he is projecting and talking about white collar crime - his crimes and those of his ilk. Trump sees it, and does it, first hand, so he knows crime is up. It's all the same anyway. Just racist and xenophobic dog whistles that are the only "bullets" in the reprehensible Republican playbook, and have been for quite some time. These are horrid, horrible people. Their only path to office is to prey on the white supremacist/white supremacist-adjacent (those who don't want to give up their white privilege). Add in some socialist/culture dog whistles and that's all there is. And it is very effective. Too much of this country either believes it or is scared by it. Vote against their own interests.
I'm no statistician so I didn't understand Asher's point on the statistics of rape. The rest is logical and a good counter to the trumpican's lies about violent crime...especially migrant crime. Migrants didn't go through hell to get here to turn around and get deported for committing a crime.
Great piece for those of us who look to data to understand the world. But the MAGA base is fueled by fear and rage, 24/7/365. They are prisoners of their own emotions; facts never enter the picture. I make calls to voters, so I talk directly with Trump lovers when the phone bank has a bad entry. They're insular, they don't give a damn about truth. I'm optimistic that we'll prevail this November, but we can't turn away thinking the job is done. We must play the long game, just like the right wing's been doing for decades.
Funny how a disgraced criminal can accuse others who are innocent of criminality and his followers will believe and act accordingly to anything their not-so-great pumpkin says.
Then you have other folken who know better but amplify the lies as part of their own, personal agenda/vendetta.
Great changes are coming. Whether for good or bad is yet to be seen but I remain optimisitc.
I'm not a proponent of conspiracy theories, but there is one related aspect of murder statistics compiled by the FBI I would like to see examined in more detail. Specifically, the number of gunshot victims who do not die, but instead are saved as a result of improvements in the application of emergency medicine. I've seen several stories that rely on this argument to support the claim of rampant violence and crime.
Remember too that a lie repeated often enough by those with a soapbox will eventually become truth to many...
Hospitals may have the data on survivors or using the aggravated assault category as defined by the FBI for reporting crime. — The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program defines aggravated assault as an unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury. The UCR Program further specifies that this type of assault is usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or by other means likely to produce death or great bodily harm. —
I can see advancements in medicine, EMS and 911 systems as relevant when comparing homicide data to 35 years ago. Not in recent years or year to year. I’m not sure if agencies reporting to the FBI track & could report how many attempted homicide gunshot victims there were total versus deaths. They wouldn’t be the only victims of homicide attempts though. Others include strangulation (seldom charged) & stabbing. Failed attempts may not generate attempted murder charges. In our state that is because the penalty for attempted murder is less than other charges & more difficult to prove.
“In 2021, 78% of homicides were committed with a firearm, the highest proportion since 1980. In the 1980s, the share of homicides committed with a gun hovered around 60%, compared to 70% between 2010 to 2019.“ — (Their info shows an inverse correlation between firearms being used in homicides and homicide clearance rates.) https://counciloncj.org/homicide-trends-report/
To be honest, over the past 15 years I’ve seen homicides in my area triple from 50 - 65 to more than 150 for the past few years. A non-profit works closely with victims, families, youth and police. It tracks shootings and homicides. The increase here correlates to an influx of drug & gang activity met with denial by the governing body (despite having a gang prevention task force since the 1970s). Gangs are bad for attracting business & tourists. Other crime has decreased.
The GOP is without shame and has sunk to a level that I don’t think they can come back from. We do need to have alternate political views to keep our politics from becoming one sided. The problem is that the GOP is o longer an actual political party. Even if they loose this election it doesn’t seem that they will purge themselves of this malign and incompetent and backward thinking
I think Grand is a false moniker for this group of criminals who are trying to turn the US into a Christian Nationalist nation as MAGAs or jumping ship like from the Titanic to the life raft of the Harris-Walz coalition.
The reality based community may finally be winning. In part because real journalists are working overtime to spread the truth and in part because the right is flailing in their efforts to create their own reality. They can no longer create a narrative out of whole cloth and get it amplified and perpetuated by a willing and complicit corporate media. The alternative realities of the republican right have gotten so insane that corp media can no longer aid and abet, not because they no longer want to but because they can’t. The lies are just so transparent, so preposterous, so far fetched that corp media can’t both sides them or reshape them to make them seem reasonable. At least to sane, sensible people who are willing to listen.
I so wish I could agree with you. So why does almost every poll, including those conducted or sponsored by MSM, show the votes for president are tied or nearly so? It is a conundrum shrouded in a mystery as deep as "does God exist."
If violent crime rates were increasing we could run on that… if only … hey, wait a minute… if we just talk real loud, say scary things, and pretend to believe them we can platform the shit out of this crime thing!
This article is much too long to hold Donald Trump’s attention, but I’m glad you presented it to the rest of us!
Unless, and until, the main-stream-media (ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Public TV and radio, the NY Times, Washington Post, etc., etc. etc.) start pointing out that the GOP is under the control of "Putin's Puppet" and refuse to continue to treat Trump, or any Republican candidate for public office at the local, state or federal level as if they are qualified to serve, the country is in deep trouble. Our democratic republic will not survive. The "free press" is not doing the job the framers of the Constitution expected them to do when they wrote and adopted the 1st Amendment. Our demise, which we are approaching quickly, is their fault. November 2024 could be the end of the grand experiment to self-govern.
Unfortunately, Media will not do that in the whole at this point. The act of "Reporting", itself, has become a commercial commodity complete with a "customer base" to whom Media "reports" (sells) not information, but a version of reality that those customers want to consume. This is true across the spectrum of Liberal/ Conservative Media. Like processed foods, alcohol or tobacco, this product is unhealthy to consume in the quantities the american (and globally- this isn't happening in a US vacuum) population desires it. The population of the US will have to take a good, long, hard look in the mirror to DEMAND a different product, before it will ever happen. Beginning in the Mid 1980's America began the ground work of creatining the current Media reality.
Unfortunately, you are correct. Which is why I predict the demise of our democratic republic if not this year, very soon.
They are NOT mainstream—they are CORPORATE MEDIA, and they are run by conglomerated CEOs who are among the fascists trying to destroy this country.
Thank you PI!
This is what journalism should be:
1) Take a complex subject.
2) Find an expert
3) Have the expert explain it for the layperson.
Trump is fueled intensely by his projection of his own criminality. From the time he rode down the elevator to announce his run for president when he accused the Mexicans for being rapists to his current screaming about a violent increase in violent crime, he's describing his modus operandi. He sexually assaulted women he found attractive ("because when you're famous they let you do it"); and his presidential culmination in fomenting the violent crime at the Capitol, and his on-going crime wave now documented in well-known indictments awaiting trial. So, let's be warned, Trump sees the current state of crime in our land as increasing.
The problem is that Trump, if faced with these facts, will just pivot to say "Wait until you see the 2024 numbers , they are so bad you can't even believe it." He's doubling down on crime for his platform, all he talks about anymore is migrant crime and migrants "pouring into our country." It's literally all he has to run on now that we've basically achieved a soft landing from COVID. Not to mention it's coming to light that somewhere between 25% and 50% of inflation was purely rent hikes.
Fear-mongering and paranoia are tools used to weaponized public opinion. Trump is a seasoned bully leading a primed army of MAGAts who have been immersed in the RNC weaponized propaganda machine since the 1980’s.
Harris for the People!
The halloween season fantasies, lawless depravity & corruption of MAGA leadership has consequences. That the base may "lap it up" is not an excuse, but of course MSM needs to normalize the whining MAGA depravity & create a horse race…ads, eyeballs, $...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmr1owmG2aI
BTW, Trump knows nothing about Project 2025, Robinson, Stormy, E Jean, & supports a self proclaimed Nazi slavery supporter for governor of NC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVXuNgNPpmU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJCuAm83AoU
When Trump says crime is going up, he is projecting and talking about white collar crime - his crimes and those of his ilk. Trump sees it, and does it, first hand, so he knows crime is up. It's all the same anyway. Just racist and xenophobic dog whistles that are the only "bullets" in the reprehensible Republican playbook, and have been for quite some time. These are horrid, horrible people. Their only path to office is to prey on the white supremacist/white supremacist-adjacent (those who don't want to give up their white privilege). Add in some socialist/culture dog whistles and that's all there is. And it is very effective. Too much of this country either believes it or is scared by it. Vote against their own interests.
Always helpful —
if only there was an antidote for willful ignorance.
I'm no statistician so I didn't understand Asher's point on the statistics of rape. The rest is logical and a good counter to the trumpican's lies about violent crime...especially migrant crime. Migrants didn't go through hell to get here to turn around and get deported for committing a crime.
Great piece for those of us who look to data to understand the world. But the MAGA base is fueled by fear and rage, 24/7/365. They are prisoners of their own emotions; facts never enter the picture. I make calls to voters, so I talk directly with Trump lovers when the phone bank has a bad entry. They're insular, they don't give a damn about truth. I'm optimistic that we'll prevail this November, but we can't turn away thinking the job is done. We must play the long game, just like the right wing's been doing for decades.
Funny how a disgraced criminal can accuse others who are innocent of criminality and his followers will believe and act accordingly to anything their not-so-great pumpkin says.
Then you have other folken who know better but amplify the lies as part of their own, personal agenda/vendetta.
Great changes are coming. Whether for good or bad is yet to be seen but I remain optimisitc.
I'm not a proponent of conspiracy theories, but there is one related aspect of murder statistics compiled by the FBI I would like to see examined in more detail. Specifically, the number of gunshot victims who do not die, but instead are saved as a result of improvements in the application of emergency medicine. I've seen several stories that rely on this argument to support the claim of rampant violence and crime.
Remember too that a lie repeated often enough by those with a soapbox will eventually become truth to many...
Hospitals may have the data on survivors or using the aggravated assault category as defined by the FBI for reporting crime. — The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program defines aggravated assault as an unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury. The UCR Program further specifies that this type of assault is usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or by other means likely to produce death or great bodily harm. —
I can see advancements in medicine, EMS and 911 systems as relevant when comparing homicide data to 35 years ago. Not in recent years or year to year. I’m not sure if agencies reporting to the FBI track & could report how many attempted homicide gunshot victims there were total versus deaths. They wouldn’t be the only victims of homicide attempts though. Others include strangulation (seldom charged) & stabbing. Failed attempts may not generate attempted murder charges. In our state that is because the penalty for attempted murder is less than other charges & more difficult to prove.
“In 2021, 78% of homicides were committed with a firearm, the highest proportion since 1980. In the 1980s, the share of homicides committed with a gun hovered around 60%, compared to 70% between 2010 to 2019.“ — (Their info shows an inverse correlation between firearms being used in homicides and homicide clearance rates.) https://counciloncj.org/homicide-trends-report/
To be honest, over the past 15 years I’ve seen homicides in my area triple from 50 - 65 to more than 150 for the past few years. A non-profit works closely with victims, families, youth and police. It tracks shootings and homicides. The increase here correlates to an influx of drug & gang activity met with denial by the governing body (despite having a gang prevention task force since the 1970s). Gangs are bad for attracting business & tourists. Other crime has decreased.