Something is wrong with this split-screen picture. On one side, former president Donald Trump rants about mass deportations and claims to have stopped “wars with France,” after being described by his longest-serving White House chief of staff as a literal fascist. On the other side, commentators debate whether Vice President Kamala Harris performed well enough at a CNN town hall to “close the deal.”

Let’s review: First, Harris was criticized for not doing enough interviews — so she did multiple interviews, including with nontraditional media. She was criticized for not doing hostile interviews — so she went toe to toe with Bret Baier of Fox News. She was criticized as being comfortable only at scripted rallies — so she did unscripted events, such as the town hall on Wednesday. Along the way, she wiped the floor with Trump during their one televised debate.

Trump, meanwhile, stands before his MAGA crowds and spews nonstop lies, ominous threats, impossible promises and utter gibberish. His rhetoric is dismissed, or looked past, without first being interrogated.

  • soul@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    I’d love nothing more than to see her just spend an hour straight laying into Trump and Vance with f-bomb strewn attacks and continuous heavy-handed insults. I think she’d probably convert some Republicans if she did that.

    • Five@slrpnk.net
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      28 days ago

      For the first time in decades, The Washington Post will not endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential election, the newspaper’s publisher announced Friday, a decision that sparked widespread outrage among the paper’s staffers.

      “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election,” Post publisher Will Lewis said in a statement. “We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”

      The Post reported the decision not to endorse was made by the newspaper’s billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, citing two sources briefed on the matter.

      CNN

      Media Bias Fact Check is a right-wing propaganda tool to repeat the laughable lie that the media has a left-wing bias.

    • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      You mean the ones whos mega-rich owners are being promised massive tax cuts by trump? Those very same ones?

      I’m shocked to my core. I’m glad I was sitting down when I read your comment.

    • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      Major immediate supports the GOP. This is hardly new or unique to Trump. It’s been like this for decades.

      • Optional@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        What’s new is how far down they’re willing to go to continue to do that.

        “New” as in - in the last decade. Not like, new new.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          28 days ago

          With someone so stupid and weird and gross as donnie, it’s become nearly impossible to hide the corporate game.

    • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      And the few sources that may not be owned by Trump-backing Nazis still have to have their horse race. They want to make it seem close to get clicks and sell ads.

      • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        Trump is the best thing to happen for News Media since 9/11.

        And they would do anything to have another 4 years of people obsessively watching/viewing/clicking all day every day to see what insane thing hes done to the country next.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      …but the magabrained keep telling us that the corporate media is all liberal! Their proof? Supposed polls of the help at those MNCs. I’d like to know in what universe the help determine the direction of a MNC.

    • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
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      28 days ago

      The truth is not better but there’s some nuance. Major media do not usually care about being for or against fascism. They care about clicks, and following “journalistic ethics” that boil down to Enlightened Centrism™ and bothsidesism.

      Their billionaire owners don’t even have to interfere (most of the time). The system self-selects to make money through a shared set of beliefs in what constitutes “proper journalism”. This makes journalists, as a profession, ontologically incapable of fighting against fascists. They truly, honestly, firmly believe that “Fascist about to win US Presidency” is not a statement of fact.

      It’s the same ideological pitfalls that makes Serious Media pit science against whichever anti-science fad is trendy right now. Vaccines, “climatic skepticism”, etc. anything goes and the journalists in charge truly genuinely from their heart believe that is a fair and balanced approach.

      Not to say there aren’t actual conspiracies from time to time of course, but even actual independent traditional journalism has generally failed to accurately report on the rise of fascism.

      • AshMan85@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        No, they definitely care for Trump to be elected. Major media is owned by oligarchs. Oligarchs support fascism. Plan and simple

        • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
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          28 days ago

          Like most conspiracy theories, there is a huge grain of truth there. Bush should have done 9/11 because it benefitted him in literally every way. Yet he did not.

          Today’s WaPo scandal illustrates the more real situation quite well: usually the billionaires take a mostly hands-off approach to owning a paper. They don’t need to meddle. The journalists are ontologically incapable of being truly disruptive regardless of if the paper is owned by Bezos or funded by an independent government committee. That Bezos presumably felt the need to prevent the WaPo from endorsing Harris was unusual and a big enough deal for the journalists to raise a big stink. And as someone who lives in a country that has a strong tradition of independent and state-funded journalism (that doesn’t shy away from criticizing the government)… I can tell you it’s not very different from the rest. Certainly not as left-wing as it gets, and just as vulnerable to the fallacies I described.

          That is not to say there is no outright corruption of big prestigious papers, or that oligarchs owning the press isn’t a massive, glaring threat to Democracy. But beware of oversimplifying such issues. For one because you might regret making such sweeping statements when the billionaires actually decide to wield their power, Murdoch style. And for two because you might be disappointed to find that prestigious independently owned papers aren’t so much better. Don’t expect them to start printing Marxist pamphlets any time soon if that’s what you are into.

          • AshMan85@lemmy.world
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            28 days ago

            No, we are not talking about Marxist. In fact I said fascists which you keep stesteering away from. Who pays you toispread propaganda?

  • esc27@lemmy.world
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    29 days ago

    “liberal media” outlets are either actually run by conservatives or so obsessed with trying to appear balanced, they end up downplaying Trump and highlighting Harris issues. Combine that with the pure propoganda from conservative media, and the whole industry has a strong conservative slant…

    • Real news: Trump praises Hitler
    • “liberal media”: Trump praises WW2 leader, Harris eats pizza with a fork
    • Conservative media: FORK GATE 2024!!! Harris campaign in shambles!
    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      Bingo bingo and bingo.

      She pivoted away from the base to a non existent center. These have been the core ideological principles of the democratic base for decades. And she doesn’t support them.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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    29 days ago

    Doesn’t anyone feel like this has been the case for a long time with anyone versus Trump?

    Actually, let me back that up, this seems to be a major Republican thing actually.

    Democrats will follow the rules and try out an exemplary candidate up for President (most of the time).

    Republicans will skirt the legality of everything possible to win with a candidate who embodies the worst human instincts and activity.

    Maybe I’m the only one who feels that?

  • graeghos_714@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    One side expects their candidates to hold some standards, the other side doesn’t care. It’s like watching a sporting event with a homer who only sees the world based on how it effects their team winning or losing. Fairness doesn’t come into play, the other side is always cheating and getting favored media exposure.

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    28 days ago

    Its the same with actual actions to. I just got done pasting a part of an article someone linked where the comment was about how under biden there is more drilling on federal land than trump but the salient part is he fought this but was blocked by a lawsuit from republican states. I have seen the same with his work with student loans. Its not enough. Its like dudes. Is half a loaf what we want. no. but its better than no loaf while wheat fields are ordered burned and salted. Maybe we should not vote for the guys trying to put the fire out because they are not putting them out fast enough vs how quickly they spread and should instead let the guys starting fires win and these other guys who have never put out a fire say if we vote for them they will put them out sooooo much better.

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    28 days ago

    I had a thought about this; fascism exists because there are evil but effective ways of swaying people. By scapegoating immigrants and providing propaganda, he’s doing exactly what other fascists have done (including Hitler) to great success.

    It’s like any other good vs evil things, the good guys always have extra hurdles to deal with, like a super hero who has to save civilians and can’t just sucker punch the baddies. Too bad this is reality, and the good guys aren’t guaranteed to win…

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      it also shows how complicit media is in fascism and how any law that would enforce factual reporting by bringing conduct before a jury to decide whether intentional lying occurred by a celebrity or media platform would undermine fascistic lies.

      • Wrench@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        Except half the jury would be comprised of people who either support those lies, even knowing they’re lies, or don’t care enough to form an opinion.

        You would need a population that is both concerned with the rule of law and break from political teams enough to fairly examine arguments for bad faith.

        We do not have that population. Any jury would be split or worse.

        • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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          28 days ago

          Realistic rebuttal: juries seem to have very easy times convicting trump in court cases.

          Theoretical/contextual rebuttal: I would also note that juries are how we convict criminals in this country. If you’re saying the lesser task of just making a determination that somebody is knowingly lying is beyond the purview of a jury then our entire court of law where the juries determine far more than that should be called into question.

  • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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    27 days ago

    “You criticized her for not being good at X so she did X a bunch!”

    Yeah but she’s bad at it and it went really poorly for her and hurt her numbers.

    These people are fucking idiots.

      • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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        27 days ago

        I have a hard time believing that but I don’t know anything about it. I saw clips of the CNN town hall and she was horrendous.