I just don't follow the number of intuitive leaps necessary to arrive at the conclusion that Colbert and Stewart (who now is a has-been snob) influenced the election differently than any of the other fatuous celebrity snobs.
Oh, well, I didn't really count Stewart in, he was out of the loop during most of the crazy that happened around elections. Unless we assume he would have been a voice of reason had he participated calming and reasoning the left media. Which I guess we could assume, to a degree, from how he reacted to the "Trump won" news
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUkv_jPgTegHe's basically explaining to people that yelling "racist" and "bigot" at whomever voted Trump isn't really leftist thing to do, it's more in line with something what far right would do, which is a correct message.
And you are right, it is a leap to get to see left media TS hosts, effectively pushing portion of left, not towards Trump, I doubt anyone who's left at heart would just up and vote a republican, but pushing them away from Hillary. This is particularly easy for me to see cause I fit several criteria.
1) I was pro-Sanders - I'm not allowed to vote, so my inclination is purely limited to talking to voters online. But as elections started I was pro-Sanders, and I honestly expected Dems to realize that he is a superior candidate and to back him. The way I see it they were really proud of having first black president, not because of his policies, but just cause he was black, and they wanted to add a woman to that list, cementing this idea of America as liberal kingdom. I guess it was hard for them to see happy outcome as out of reach, considering how controlled media is.
2) I consider my self a liberal, always have, cause I support all the core principles of liberalism, you are allowed to be whatever you are, and you will be heavily scrutinized if you choose to be things that limit freedoms of other people. This however is not how liberals behave these days, and I was constantly exposed to other liberals calling me racist (?) simply for being anti-muslim. I'm antitheist, but the way I see it, xtianity is a dying religion, and it's waste of time to bother with it, however islam is something that requires us to talk about it, and any mention of islam that doesn't follow "not all X's are Y" sentence structure is hushed and abused and you end up called names. I have been trying to get people to read this article
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/12/21/as-muslim-women-we-actually-ask-you-not-to-wear-the-hijab-in-the-name-of-interfaith-solidarity/ which was written by egyptian muslim woman about hijab, and got called a racist for sharing it.
Every time some crap would happen somewhere, like a gay person being tossed off the roof of the building for being gay, or a woman getting lashed and imprisoned for being raped, or just a jihadi group murdering and kidnapping and raping villages of people, I felt the need to talk about how fundamentals of islam are encouraging this type of behavior and I would end up met with "you ignorant racist" remarks. TV show hosts like Colbert and Oliver would spend weeks telling us how "not all terrorists are bad people" and completely ignoring the fact that islam, the fundamentals of islam, are calling for people to behave the way these so-called, extremists are doing. Complete refusal of liberal media to stand with gays, women, non muslim fold, and even with reformed muslims, defending basically only the extremists, made me feel not part of the group. I do feel this is something we need to talk about, I don't think it's job of liberals to defend large groups 1.5 billion strong, it is our job to side with those individuals within those groups who are truly oppressed. Being called names on the subway, is not oppression. Being stoned to death for someone proclaiming you an atheist, is oppression.
This as I said made me feel left out of the group, and the only people to agree with me, were right wingers, with whom I disagree on everything else, and I didn't appreciate being let down like this by left. Trump never felt like a right wing to me, no matter what he said, he's a media clown, but he dared to touch up on the issue of islam.
2) slavophobia in left media. I only watch Colbert and Oliver, so I'm basing all of these on what two of them said, and how they behaved. I don't know what stance of fox news on slavs might be. I don't watch CNN either. All I know is that these two can't go an episode of their show, w/o bringing in some slavic nation, mostly russia, but not limited to it, and spewing pure hate for them. Oliver once talked about Gitmo, quoted Putin agreeing that Gitmo is horrible thing that doesn't belong in 21st, and then Oliver proceeded to rant against Putin for 5 minutes, before returning to the topic of Gitmo.
All of that despite the fact they agreed on the topic. Now imagine when they disagree how horrendous Oliver would get. And to make things worse, when two of them would be so openly racist, instead of boos, they would get cheers.
They kept repeating sound bites about russia (and about Assad) that were debunked, they ignored the fact that group Obama supports in Syria is a terrorist group who in fact used chemical weapons, that Obama kept blaming on apparently innocent Assad, that bombing of hospitals was either unverified or those didn't act a hospitals any more, being taken by america backed terrorists. Similar with Ukraine, they painted a picture of Putin walkin into SE Ukraine and just turning it into war zone, again ignoring the role western europe and Obama played in starving of the people there, in hopes of forcing Putin's hand into sending them food and water, which they could then spin into "Putin invades Ukraine".
Every little bit of story they said about Russia, was not just hateful and racist, but directly aimed into cooling the cold war further. I follow russian media online, and they don't do that thing. There's no demonization of americans going on in Russian media. In fact you can hear Putin trying to reason with american journalist, to get them to at least recognize that there's cold war machine running, but to no avail.
The way I see it, no true liberal would ever be racist (slavophobia), war mongering (cold war rhetoric) or would participate in demonization of a foreign nation (russia), yet they all did it. Again, Trump was all like "we can be friends with Russia" - do you now get to see how liberal media is making Trump sound reasonable??
3) fat shaming and body positivity. These are values heralded by left, yet Oliver and Colbert kept yapping on about Trump's hair, his orange complexion, his small hands. Even made fun of his last name, which doesn't fall under body positivity, but is equally mature thing to do, and would constitute as bullying had leather face hasn't been so thick skinned. I'm sure this worked on some, but as a grown up person, I don't care what candidate looks like. I supported Sanders ffs, he looks like a sceletor. They kept telling me how Trump was being rude to people, but then there was never that moment when they would take the higher ground, no they behaved as deplorable as they told me Trump is behaving.
As mentioned, I don't watch fox news, and I also didn't directly follow either Hillary or Trump, I based my opinion solely on what these two told me. And they told me that shouting low level abuse at someone is a bad thing. Then they proceeded to shout low level abuse at Trump.
4) The wall - they kept reminding us how ridiculous and impossible the wall is. And it just so happens, walls are neither. Not only did chinese build one 28 centuries ago, which served as advertised, but more recently, one wall was used to split germany in half helping them go from most hated country around the world to world leaders. Morocco built a wall to western sahara some 30 years ago, and that one served it desired function, stopping terrorist attacks in their tracks. Recently Estonia built a wall towards Russia, and while i don't know what might have pushed them to do that, unless it's global anti russian propaganda as pushed by obama and america, I do know that russian-estonian border is not being flooded by migrants, so it must have worked.
While they were busy lying to us about how it's impossible to build walls, they completely ignored the bit of the story that a true liberal such as my self, would care about: That wall shouldn't be build, cause it would affect so many innocent mexicans, and further, the economic impact on america such wall might have, as those mexicans tend to do jobs no american wants to do, that can't go w/o affecting the us economy.
5) global warming - they completely ignored Trump's stance on GW, and I've become aware of it only after he got elected. Although, having to choose between nuclear war trigger happy Clinton, and GW denier Trump, whom I feel would embrace GW if only someone told him how he can make money by fighting it, I'd say even if they did mention this most disturbing bit of his agenda, he'd still come off as less dangerous than Hillary-
6) freedom of speech and hate speech - they, coupled with loose "liberal fascist" running rampant around the web, have made freedom of speech impossible, but hate speech encouraged. As I mentioned, you can't enter an honest discussion on islam as you will instantly get attacked, thus you are stripped of your freedom of speech. However, liberal fascists would instantly hurl at you "racist", "ignorant", "bigot" and so on, which to me constitute as hate speech. I don't know, maybe if you are a racist or whatever, you wouldn't find being called a racist offensive, but I do find it. And them yelling "RACIST" at me is encouraged. Hate speech is encouraged. It's now become impossible to offend anyone accidentally, but offending them on purpose is welcomed.
So yeah, I agree, the connection isn't obvious for casual observer, and had the campaign lasted only month or two, these issues wouldn't crystallize so hard as they did, but after a year and half of constantly treating me as a moron, lying to me, and ignoring the actual issues, yeah, they pushed me away from hillary, and I assume I'm not the only one.
They have made liberalism into fascism, and they might have ruined the honest movement forever, and for what?
___
Anyone who has ever read any spoilers,
knows that Winter Is Coming
reply
share
hilaryjrp
8 years ago
Your post is way too long to answer every point of, but I agree with many of the things you say. I voted for Sanders in the primaries and Trump in the general election. What the media and political and Hollywood elite have said this past year is that only people of a certain temperament are qualified to be president. Trump is sanguine, emotional, and not good at being political. I hated every talk show host who ridiculed him so mercilessly, because the ridicule was ad hominem in the extreme. I felt that Trump deserved credit for not buckling under the onslaught of viciousness. I am however very very glad I didn't have to choose between Sanders and Trump, because I agree with you that radical Islam's unspeakable atrocities can't be equated with bullying. Is bullying of any oppressed segment of society right? No. But what's happening in the Mideast surpasses language to express. I suppose I'll continue to watch Colbert by default: Jimmy Kimmel is too silly and not very funny, although he seems much more down to earth than any other late-night host. I've never watched Jimmy Fallon and never will, because he took a job away from another late-night host solely on the basis of age. The ageism in Fallon's getting the hosting job was too offensive--and the media and political and Hollywood elite totally ignored what he did. So that leaves Colbert.
reply
share