I'm concerned, but not terribly so about what politicians say about one anoher, or what should happen to their ideological opponents.
What bothers me far more is how the legacy media has been flooding our discourse by repeating, embellishing and amplifying such comments — but favoring one side exclusively over the other — for the past few decades.
The only way to counter this is through sites like this and through comments and posts on X, which is as close to totally unfettered speech as we're likely to get.
Thank you Bari and those on other Substack sites like yours, and thank you Elon for opening X to a wide range of opinions to a (nearly) world-wide readership.
What’s the purpose of this article, released at the eleventh hour of the election campaign, if not to say, "Yes, Democrats are bad liars, but look at Republicans—they're just as bad! So, vote Democratic!" The only "balance" here is the Mia Culpa in the first part. I see no real comparison, no thoughtful analysis - just shallow rhetoric and finger-pointing. Maybe Eli believes this counts as objective journalism, but to me, it’s pure propaganda, pushing his own convictions while pretending to be fair.
Eli is taking a lot of fire for this post. To me, it seems like he is roughly making the grade-school argument that "two wrongs don't make a right." If you think what one party is doing is wrong, don't do it back to them, or you sacrifice your principles for the sake of revenge.
When the stakes feel/are life-or-death, I don't blame anyone for thinking its only fair to forget the high road and fight for your life with whatever it takes. In the short term, you have to survive. In the long term though, if nobody gets back to the high road, it's bad for everyone, winners included.
I'm not even taking a position on who has the high road here. There has been an insane amount of overheated political rhetoric coming from both parties for at least a decade in different areas. But I think we do ourselves a disservice when we think thoughts like "this will be fair when Harris is shot at too" (roughly the "joke" that apparently went through Elon Musk's mind) rather than thinking of how we can condemn the violence and still keep our values intact.
It's harder emotionally. It may even be harder politically. But it's what I at least would prefer to see from my politicians, and I don't.
The difference, if you care, is that the Democrats don’t actually believe that Trump will end democracy in America — if they did, they would be a lot more circumspect in how they deal with him — whereas Trump sincerely and correctly believes that the hair-on-fire, over-the-top rhetoric the Democrats have been spewing for nine years is significantly contributory to the cockroaches who have crawled out from the baseboards in the last couple of months.
Whether or not the rhetoric of political leaders violates the First A, that rhetoric can inflame mentally ill people and people with poor impulse control to act out. This is especially true when the rhetoric includes Biden saying that it's time to put a "bull's eye" on Trump and Harris making "jokes" about Trump being taken out. Comments which specifically suggest that national political leaders want to see lethal actions against their opponent should be viewed differently from books that criticize the gender ideology. I am not implying that the irresponsible verbal behavior of politicians should result in prosecution, but it certainly should be denounced by both political parties instead of being given overt support and approval.
However, the Left has long had a hobbyhorse about "hypocrisy" or "contradictions". Not sure if this derives from the Marxian desire to "eliminate all contradictions".
Never mind that the tu quoque, except in a few narrowly-defined situations where you DO want to specifically and deliberately condemn a person and not a principle inconsistently followed, is a logical fallacy.
I see what the Right is doing as essentially playing the Left's hoary game back at them.
It doesn't get us any closer to the truth, but it does win over the too-many people who typically fall for this fallacy. Just like it does on the Left.
I think Eli has this wrong. If I read Rene Girard's "The Scapegoat" correctly, Donald Trump is the scapegoat who must be eliminated so all of the problems in our society/the world can be solved. Then we will feel good about ourselves again and all crises will have passed, especially the existential ones. Continual violant speech eventually breeds violence by groups or by a single person; its often called brainwashing. It is pretty obvious that TDS is part of the scapegoat phenomena.
There is so much that is wrong with Lake's line of reasoning. We condemn shouting "fire" in a crowded theater because there is a reasonable expectation that doing so will cause harm as individuals trample their way out the doors. In contrast, shouting "fire" in an open street doesn't rise to the same level because the context differs. One is designed to create panic, the other is not - and does not.
The left and its enablers in the media, government, social media, science, journalism, business, publishers, non-governmental and international organizations, universities, etc. have engaged in a systematic effort to cry "fire" in a crowded theater. It is, quite literally, the driver behind the "threat to democracy" mantra that one hears almost every time a leftist opens their mouth at this stage. It is their two minutes of hate.
To equate what the left has done to all of the above-referenced institutions to Shrier and efforts to shut down her book is a false equivalency. Instead, we have President Biden in the deepest shades of red telling Americans that MAGA is an existential threat in Philadelphia. We have Scientific American coming out this week warning, again, that Trump is the biggest danger to "our democracy" the world has ever seen. Despite handing over the keys to the White House. Despite half the country voting for him. One wonders who inhabits the "our democracy" spoken of by the left.
You cannot stir the pot repeatedly and expect that things aren't going to happen.
What the left has done with the above-referenced institutions, and especially via the MSM and SM, is the equivalent of Hutu Radio. It has been purposefully and explicitly designed to dehumanize the political right and inflame the left. As with Hutu Radio, it has softened the terrain and made political violence easier and acceptable. That the NYT - and others - blamed Trump for being shot at tells you everything you need to know.
Radicalization is a known process, and propaganda is a central component to it. There has been a steady drumbeat for over eight years creating a scapegoat and target that is embodied, directly, in Trump and indirectly in MAGA.
Lake's take is either willfully ignorant and or gaslighting. And The Free Press might want to spend as much time gnashing its teeth over the increasing tendency of the left to ride the slippery slope of dehumanization and political violence - with its predictable outcomes - in the United States context as it does in its focus on Ukraine and Israel.
The problem with the authors analysis is he is equivocating speech such as " Trump is a threat to Democracy" and " Trump and MAGA are a threat to America" and " we must stop Trump at all cost" with a book based on empirical evidence and data driven facts. The two simply aren't the same.
Where are your pieces calling out the left for their hyperbolic vitriol over the past 8 years? Or, perhaps, a deep dive into J6 and the circus surrounding it. Wasn't Trump’s words to blame, even the ones he didn't say? Please.....less one-sided opinions, more unbiased journalism.
TFP has reached the point of irrelevance. When Common Sense started, I thought it presented a great opportunity to poke the MSM bear and counter their propaganda. They instead have become the bear, populated by sloppy “journalists” who at best, ignore lies and inuendo spread by their fellow travelers in the “press” or worse, parrot them as if they were fact. To “balance” their progressive bent, Bari hires “never Trumper” toadies like Eli Lake who are either too stupid to see where the deep state, anti-Trump forces are taking the country or are too enriched by it to call it out.
Donald Trump has taken a bullet and just avoided more for doing what journalists are supposed to do, daring name those responsible for eroding our sovereignty by importing millions of illegals and lavishing them with debit cards, housing, medical care… that our own citizens are unable to access, bankrupting future generations with debt, weaponizing the JustUs Department to bankrupt and imprison their opposition… and doing their best to give warmongers like Eli Lake a hard-on by starting WWIII.
So, what does TFP and Lake do? They join the lefty mob and create a straw man by implying that Trump will end free speech. Meanwhile, hags like Hillary Clinton are given airtime to call for the imprisonment of men and women who dare speak in opposition to those responsible for the county’s malaise. Clearly, TFP in general, and Eli Lake in particular, have nothing to worry about.
That's not what this article is saying. I suggest you re-read it with an open mind if you can. To put it simply the Eli Lake is in his own way "warning" Trump and his supporters that they are going down the same path that Trump is accusing Harris, Biden and the Democrats are already on. I support Trump but honestly I prefer he go back to talking about his policies and issues and how they differ from Harris' then go on about why there were two attempts on his life. Common sense people like myself know why. It would really be unfortunate if he loses because he spent more time talking about the assignation attempts and it's Harris and the Democrats fault as to why he was almost killed. Honestly with what 49 days left until election day, who cares.
"Trump’s failed assassins are responsible for their own actions. They were not programmed by the overheated rhetoric of MSNBC or the Biden White House or the Harris campaign. To blame their speech for the near calamities of the last two months is to imperil a principle that has made America great since its founding"
Obviously you and I interpret things differently. The only time Trump talks about the assassination attempts is when someone asks him and when he does it's to point out that the dems are projecting their evil intent onto him. He was on Gutfeld last night and when he did speak of the attempts he did so to praise the Secret Service and the woman who phoned in the tag number of the second assassin.
I think you are misinterpreting what the author is trying to convey with that quote. The quote is meant to emphasize that Trump is doing the exact same thing that the left tends to do when certain speech results to violence. In other words there's a cycle going between both parties about how speech can or will inspire violence and that in itself can be a detriment to our principle of free speech which is why the author then talks what happened with the book Irreversible Damage was banned from Target because those on the left used that same strategy that speech leads to violence thus whatever that speech is should be banned regardless.
And again to be fair the next day after the assassinate, Trump was on Fox talking about it. And at his current rally in Nassau, New York he started that rally with talking about it. Again talking about this is for those that already support him, he needs those undecided which really do not care who or why he was almost killed, they care about what he plans to do to help them and there country.
This journo is trying to influence readers his interpretation and opinion is correct and true that media rhetoric does not "possibly" influence some readers to extremes of emotion including hate. Final Grade F
I am not on Twitter, so I have to trust that the tweets reflected in the article are accurate. If so, there is a large distinction between Trump and conservatives talking about political violence and the comments about political violence by Harris and liberals. Trump/Vance may say that the rhetoric is leading to violence, but I haven't heard that they are demanding that the rhetoric be censored. They don't seem to be saying that the government should be interfering with free speech. They are not trying to coerce social media or news outlets to omit, manufacture, or alter the facts. It has been proven that the Biden/Harris admin and other liberals have interfered with free speech and manipulated the public narrative, especially during the time of covid.
Does calling abortionists “murderers" lead to violence against abortion clinics? Does calling Jews genocidal zionists, lead to Jew hatred and violence against synagogues?
Language has no impact on violence? How did we end up with so many college students screaming epithets against Jews?
I have lived a long time. America is a violent nation. I have witnessed two Kennedys, MLK and Harvey Milk, assassinated. Political violence is as American as apple pie.
To think that for one minute, our political dialogue is helpful and has no affect on the mentally ill or the unhinged is the dumbest take I have witnessed at The Free Press.
This is lazy thinking just because Trump gives people license to use fighting words in their political dialogue. Type in the word threat in the Google search bar. You get a definition that literally says violence. Humans either eliminate threats or neutralize them.
Say Trump is risk to the peaceful transfer of power, Trump may incite his supporters to violence with claims of a stolen election. Say what you mean. When say that Trump is an existential threat, does a an assassination attempt really surprise you?
Eli, get a grip. America is a violent nation. We have thousands of thousands of nutbags. Yeah, Trump is a very bad guy. You however are contributing to the violence whether you want to admit it or not.
I'm concerned, but not terribly so about what politicians say about one anoher, or what should happen to their ideological opponents.
What bothers me far more is how the legacy media has been flooding our discourse by repeating, embellishing and amplifying such comments — but favoring one side exclusively over the other — for the past few decades.
The only way to counter this is through sites like this and through comments and posts on X, which is as close to totally unfettered speech as we're likely to get.
Thank you Bari and those on other Substack sites like yours, and thank you Elon for opening X to a wide range of opinions to a (nearly) world-wide readership.
What’s the purpose of this article, released at the eleventh hour of the election campaign, if not to say, "Yes, Democrats are bad liars, but look at Republicans—they're just as bad! So, vote Democratic!" The only "balance" here is the Mia Culpa in the first part. I see no real comparison, no thoughtful analysis - just shallow rhetoric and finger-pointing. Maybe Eli believes this counts as objective journalism, but to me, it’s pure propaganda, pushing his own convictions while pretending to be fair.
Eli is taking a lot of fire for this post. To me, it seems like he is roughly making the grade-school argument that "two wrongs don't make a right." If you think what one party is doing is wrong, don't do it back to them, or you sacrifice your principles for the sake of revenge.
When the stakes feel/are life-or-death, I don't blame anyone for thinking its only fair to forget the high road and fight for your life with whatever it takes. In the short term, you have to survive. In the long term though, if nobody gets back to the high road, it's bad for everyone, winners included.
I'm not even taking a position on who has the high road here. There has been an insane amount of overheated political rhetoric coming from both parties for at least a decade in different areas. But I think we do ourselves a disservice when we think thoughts like "this will be fair when Harris is shot at too" (roughly the "joke" that apparently went through Elon Musk's mind) rather than thinking of how we can condemn the violence and still keep our values intact.
It's harder emotionally. It may even be harder politically. But it's what I at least would prefer to see from my politicians, and I don't.
The difference, if you care, is that the Democrats don’t actually believe that Trump will end democracy in America — if they did, they would be a lot more circumspect in how they deal with him — whereas Trump sincerely and correctly believes that the hair-on-fire, over-the-top rhetoric the Democrats have been spewing for nine years is significantly contributory to the cockroaches who have crawled out from the baseboards in the last couple of months.
Whether or not the rhetoric of political leaders violates the First A, that rhetoric can inflame mentally ill people and people with poor impulse control to act out. This is especially true when the rhetoric includes Biden saying that it's time to put a "bull's eye" on Trump and Harris making "jokes" about Trump being taken out. Comments which specifically suggest that national political leaders want to see lethal actions against their opponent should be viewed differently from books that criticize the gender ideology. I am not implying that the irresponsible verbal behavior of politicians should result in prosecution, but it certainly should be denounced by both political parties instead of being given overt support and approval.
Lake is not wrong.
However, the Left has long had a hobbyhorse about "hypocrisy" or "contradictions". Not sure if this derives from the Marxian desire to "eliminate all contradictions".
Never mind that the tu quoque, except in a few narrowly-defined situations where you DO want to specifically and deliberately condemn a person and not a principle inconsistently followed, is a logical fallacy.
I see what the Right is doing as essentially playing the Left's hoary game back at them.
It doesn't get us any closer to the truth, but it does win over the too-many people who typically fall for this fallacy. Just like it does on the Left.
As Saul Alinsky said, "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules."
Except the Right has made this meta.
I think Eli has this wrong. If I read Rene Girard's "The Scapegoat" correctly, Donald Trump is the scapegoat who must be eliminated so all of the problems in our society/the world can be solved. Then we will feel good about ourselves again and all crises will have passed, especially the existential ones. Continual violant speech eventually breeds violence by groups or by a single person; its often called brainwashing. It is pretty obvious that TDS is part of the scapegoat phenomena.
WTF are we even talking about here. Trump talks about the destruction of America daily, and now he's whining about rhetoric.
Please.
"They're DESTROYING America!" "America will be DESTROYED!" "YOU WON'T HAVE A COUNTRY ANYMORE." "Venezuela on STEROIDS."
There is so much that is wrong with Lake's line of reasoning. We condemn shouting "fire" in a crowded theater because there is a reasonable expectation that doing so will cause harm as individuals trample their way out the doors. In contrast, shouting "fire" in an open street doesn't rise to the same level because the context differs. One is designed to create panic, the other is not - and does not.
The left and its enablers in the media, government, social media, science, journalism, business, publishers, non-governmental and international organizations, universities, etc. have engaged in a systematic effort to cry "fire" in a crowded theater. It is, quite literally, the driver behind the "threat to democracy" mantra that one hears almost every time a leftist opens their mouth at this stage. It is their two minutes of hate.
To equate what the left has done to all of the above-referenced institutions to Shrier and efforts to shut down her book is a false equivalency. Instead, we have President Biden in the deepest shades of red telling Americans that MAGA is an existential threat in Philadelphia. We have Scientific American coming out this week warning, again, that Trump is the biggest danger to "our democracy" the world has ever seen. Despite handing over the keys to the White House. Despite half the country voting for him. One wonders who inhabits the "our democracy" spoken of by the left.
You cannot stir the pot repeatedly and expect that things aren't going to happen.
What the left has done with the above-referenced institutions, and especially via the MSM and SM, is the equivalent of Hutu Radio. It has been purposefully and explicitly designed to dehumanize the political right and inflame the left. As with Hutu Radio, it has softened the terrain and made political violence easier and acceptable. That the NYT - and others - blamed Trump for being shot at tells you everything you need to know.
Radicalization is a known process, and propaganda is a central component to it. There has been a steady drumbeat for over eight years creating a scapegoat and target that is embodied, directly, in Trump and indirectly in MAGA.
Lake's take is either willfully ignorant and or gaslighting. And The Free Press might want to spend as much time gnashing its teeth over the increasing tendency of the left to ride the slippery slope of dehumanization and political violence - with its predictable outcomes - in the United States context as it does in its focus on Ukraine and Israel.
The problem with the authors analysis is he is equivocating speech such as " Trump is a threat to Democracy" and " Trump and MAGA are a threat to America" and " we must stop Trump at all cost" with a book based on empirical evidence and data driven facts. The two simply aren't the same.
Where are your pieces calling out the left for their hyperbolic vitriol over the past 8 years? Or, perhaps, a deep dive into J6 and the circus surrounding it. Wasn't Trump’s words to blame, even the ones he didn't say? Please.....less one-sided opinions, more unbiased journalism.
TFP has reached the point of irrelevance. When Common Sense started, I thought it presented a great opportunity to poke the MSM bear and counter their propaganda. They instead have become the bear, populated by sloppy “journalists” who at best, ignore lies and inuendo spread by their fellow travelers in the “press” or worse, parrot them as if they were fact. To “balance” their progressive bent, Bari hires “never Trumper” toadies like Eli Lake who are either too stupid to see where the deep state, anti-Trump forces are taking the country or are too enriched by it to call it out.
Donald Trump has taken a bullet and just avoided more for doing what journalists are supposed to do, daring name those responsible for eroding our sovereignty by importing millions of illegals and lavishing them with debit cards, housing, medical care… that our own citizens are unable to access, bankrupting future generations with debt, weaponizing the JustUs Department to bankrupt and imprison their opposition… and doing their best to give warmongers like Eli Lake a hard-on by starting WWIII.
So, what does TFP and Lake do? They join the lefty mob and create a straw man by implying that Trump will end free speech. Meanwhile, hags like Hillary Clinton are given airtime to call for the imprisonment of men and women who dare speak in opposition to those responsible for the county’s malaise. Clearly, TFP in general, and Eli Lake in particular, have nothing to worry about.
That's not what this article is saying. I suggest you re-read it with an open mind if you can. To put it simply the Eli Lake is in his own way "warning" Trump and his supporters that they are going down the same path that Trump is accusing Harris, Biden and the Democrats are already on. I support Trump but honestly I prefer he go back to talking about his policies and issues and how they differ from Harris' then go on about why there were two attempts on his life. Common sense people like myself know why. It would really be unfortunate if he loses because he spent more time talking about the assignation attempts and it's Harris and the Democrats fault as to why he was almost killed. Honestly with what 49 days left until election day, who cares.
Well stated MT
These are Lake's words:
"Trump’s failed assassins are responsible for their own actions. They were not programmed by the overheated rhetoric of MSNBC or the Biden White House or the Harris campaign. To blame their speech for the near calamities of the last two months is to imperil a principle that has made America great since its founding"
Obviously you and I interpret things differently. The only time Trump talks about the assassination attempts is when someone asks him and when he does it's to point out that the dems are projecting their evil intent onto him. He was on Gutfeld last night and when he did speak of the attempts he did so to praise the Secret Service and the woman who phoned in the tag number of the second assassin.
I think you are misinterpreting what the author is trying to convey with that quote. The quote is meant to emphasize that Trump is doing the exact same thing that the left tends to do when certain speech results to violence. In other words there's a cycle going between both parties about how speech can or will inspire violence and that in itself can be a detriment to our principle of free speech which is why the author then talks what happened with the book Irreversible Damage was banned from Target because those on the left used that same strategy that speech leads to violence thus whatever that speech is should be banned regardless.
And again to be fair the next day after the assassinate, Trump was on Fox talking about it. And at his current rally in Nassau, New York he started that rally with talking about it. Again talking about this is for those that already support him, he needs those undecided which really do not care who or why he was almost killed, they care about what he plans to do to help them and there country.
This journo is trying to influence readers his interpretation and opinion is correct and true that media rhetoric does not "possibly" influence some readers to extremes of emotion including hate. Final Grade F
Eli, REALLY??!! THAT is your take on Trump’s response to the TWO ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS ON HIS LIFE — “Don’t be bitter! Do better!” BULLSH*T
The Left NEVER ceases to amaze! BLAME THE VICTIM!
I am not on Twitter, so I have to trust that the tweets reflected in the article are accurate. If so, there is a large distinction between Trump and conservatives talking about political violence and the comments about political violence by Harris and liberals. Trump/Vance may say that the rhetoric is leading to violence, but I haven't heard that they are demanding that the rhetoric be censored. They don't seem to be saying that the government should be interfering with free speech. They are not trying to coerce social media or news outlets to omit, manufacture, or alter the facts. It has been proven that the Biden/Harris admin and other liberals have interfered with free speech and manipulated the public narrative, especially during the time of covid.
This is the dumbest take I have read in a while.
Does calling abortionists “murderers" lead to violence against abortion clinics? Does calling Jews genocidal zionists, lead to Jew hatred and violence against synagogues?
Language has no impact on violence? How did we end up with so many college students screaming epithets against Jews?
I have lived a long time. America is a violent nation. I have witnessed two Kennedys, MLK and Harvey Milk, assassinated. Political violence is as American as apple pie.
To think that for one minute, our political dialogue is helpful and has no affect on the mentally ill or the unhinged is the dumbest take I have witnessed at The Free Press.
This is lazy thinking just because Trump gives people license to use fighting words in their political dialogue. Type in the word threat in the Google search bar. You get a definition that literally says violence. Humans either eliminate threats or neutralize them.
Say Trump is risk to the peaceful transfer of power, Trump may incite his supporters to violence with claims of a stolen election. Say what you mean. When say that Trump is an existential threat, does a an assassination attempt really surprise you?
Eli, get a grip. America is a violent nation. We have thousands of thousands of nutbags. Yeah, Trump is a very bad guy. You however are contributing to the violence whether you want to admit it or not.