Consideration
From the comments section here…
This “theater” is really toxic.
Governmental structures are not infinitely resilient and government is not a branch of show business. In 1978, a character calling himself “Jesus Christ Satan” ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He got 5000 votes. In 1979, Jello Biafra, vocalist for the Dead Kennedys punk rock group, finished fourth among 10 candidates for mayor with 6,600 votes.
I would place the start of San Francisco’s decline in governance somewhere in this era, when many of the city’s voters started to think of politics as entertainment instead of something that had to be dead serious because dysfunctional government has real consequences.
Now San Francisco is spiraling downward, with open-air drug injection and dealing destroying the quality of life in neighborhoods. Feces in the streets. Massive property crime, because thefts of less than $950 have essentially become unprosecutable. COVID-related destruction of half the city’s restaurants, with many other small businesses devastated.
I’m sure that in the 1950s, the citizens of Detroit never imagined that their city could be laid to waste by a combination of circumstances and bad governance. I fear the San Franciscans are equally as cocky, and I fear for the future of the city. It should be a cautionary tale for those who think that governmental “theater” at any level is anything but destructive.
A couple items comments here
The whole media attacked Trump with a vitriol reserved for state-controlled media attacking opposition figures in Kazakhstan. Stories unfavorable to Biden were disappeared. Google biased their searches against him. Twitter banned his supporters and censored him. Facebook too.
And you think Trump is undermining democracy?
There is no democracy to undermine. Just a series of polite norms hiding an ugly reality.
I understand you don’t want to face that reality.
The media attacked Ronald Reagan too– who was nevertheless reelected in a landslide.
the democrats never accepted the legitimacy of the trump win in 2016. Far different than the grace and the spirit of cooperation (e.g. the party of ‘NO’. The ‘grim reaper’, ‘we will make Obama a one term president’) that the republicans expressed towards Obama when he assumed office.
trump has always been divisive. He never had the will or probably even the capability to create a governing coalition. Conservatives may have helped steer his policies in some areas, but all in all he was a disaster to the American system and should have been dumped before 2016 in favor of a more truly conservative candidate.
Even in losing in 2020, Trump pulled a higher percentage of the minority vote than any Republican since
Not gonna lie I think our intrepid caller needs a hobby that doesn’t involve weepy fangirling of politicians and media figures. If he chooses that lifestyle, sure; it’s a free country. But it’s not a consequence-free habit.
Spot the difference folks. Lay it out for me why these are different phenomena; one mockable and one that should tug on our heartstrings.
Woman lets out agonizing screams as Trump is sworn in — disq.us
Odd ad sense images…oddly haliographic or stately images of Obama underlined by poll “Who was the better President?” . Obama, Trump. The past tense is new. (Interspersed witj the present tense “Are the Dems stealing theelection?”, which may be getting phased off to ” Will the Dems overturn PresidentTrump’s Progresx?”) The blank slate image, which comes when the RNC ad shows Trump, is oddly… Non-partisan… Unless you just figure the assumption of gutteral reaction on clicking to any image ofthe two is baked in.