The Most Active Threads Since Friday

The most popular threads over the weekend were almost all political. Eight of the top 10 most active threads were in the main political forum, another one was in the local political forum, and one of the remaining two was in the family relationship forum but dealt with a political topic. That left only one non-political thread and was one that I've previously discussed and, therefore, will skip today. Moreover, all of these threads are very long and I can't read them in their entirety. The result is that today is going to be a lot of my own opinions on the threads rather than summaries of them. The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "Women who say they aren't voting on the single issue of abortion rights" and, of course, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. As the title says, the original poster directed this thread towards those women who are not single issue abortion rights voters. The original poster asks them whether they have daughters, sisters, or nieces and lists several women's health issues that can be restricted by prohibitions on abortion. Essentially, the original poster is describing health risks to women presented by anti-abortion laws and asks why the women she is addressing would expose their loved ones to such dangers. In my opinion, there was no need for the original poster to limit this thread to women. Men also have daughters, sisters, or nieces, and wives. As such, this topic should be equally important to them. The position of anti-abortion posters in this thread basically amounts to a mass burial of heads in the sand. According to these posters, there are no unexpected negative ramifications to abortion bans. For instance, one poster writes, that "A D&C is not abortion", suggesting that a medically necessary dilation and curettage procedure would not be prevented by abortion bans. That would come as a surprise to Amber Thurman. It would, that is, if Thurman had not died after being denied a D&C due to Georgia's anti-abortion laws that classified the procedure as a felony for which doctors can be jailed for up to 10 years. As I am sure many others do, I find the abortion debate extremely frustrating. To be clear, I have no problem with abortion rights supporters. It is not for me to decide what women can do with their bodies. My issue is with those who want to restrict abortion. In this regard, I am much more sympathetic to those who believe that life begins at conception. I disagree with them, but I respect their belief. What I don't understand is how anyone can have that position and then support exceptions for which abortion is allowed. Aren't those, in these individuals' opinion anyway, exceptions for which murder is allowed? Similarly, I understand, and to an extent, agree with restrictions based on fetal viability. I just haven't seen evidence that there is any demand for aborting a fully viable fetus. Rather, there is limited demand for aborting fetuses that are incompatible with life and whose parents are devasted. I question the humanity of anyone who would force these parents to undergo unnecessary psychological and, in the case of the mother, potential medical, trauma. Between these two parameters, it is hard to see abortion restrictions as anything more than attempts to punish women for having sex. As a result, abortion restrictions might more honestly be called "sex restrictions". If men who support prohibiting abortion realized that they are actually supporting restrictions on sex, including for married men (married couples also have unwanted pregnancies), they might view this issue differently. Yes, yes, birth control exists, for now anyway. But birth control methods are imperfect and I don't see anyone supporting abortion exceptions for the cases in which birth control failed.

The next most active thread over the weekend was another one posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Trump's Madison Square Garden rally", the thread was started by a poster opposed to former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump and who found the list of speakers to be a "pathetic group of B-listers". The original poster felt sorry for anyone who would stand in line in order to hear these speakers. One topic of discussion that immediately came up was the comparison of Trump's rally to the infamous 1939 Nazi rally that was also held at Madison Square Garden (although in an earlier rendition of a building with that name). Given Trump's obsession with optics and symbolism, it is hard to believe that he was not aware of this association. Public confirmation by Trump's longest serving Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, that Trump had praised Hitler's generals had already linked Trump to Nazis in the public discourse. Similarly, Trump's promise to use the U.S. military against American citizens had provoked Vice President Kamala Harris to identify Trump as a "fascist". Trump supporters in this thread repeatedly claimed that Harris had called Trump "Hitler", something that she has not actually done. It was actually Trump's sidekick, Ohio Senator J. D. Vance who called Trump, "America's Hitler". Once the rally got underway, posters reacted to it as if they were watching two completely different events. Trump supporters thought it was great while Trump opponents found it to live up to its promise to be a Nazi rally. Threads like this really demonstrate the cult-like nature of Trump supporters. Despite the fact that Trump lies almost every time he opens his mouth, his supporters accept every word that he says as fact. One incredible example was a poster who wrote, "And energy prices will be cut in half in a year. Damn. That would be amazing." Yes, that would be amazing, especially because it would never happen. How does Trump propose to accomplish this or what type of "energy" is even being discussed? Nobody knows. The willingness of Trump supporters to believe the unbelievable is a distinct advantage that Trump has over Harris. If Harris were to say something similar, even her own supporters would immediately ask for details and then critique the plan. Meanwhile, the Washington Post's FactChecker would give her ten Pinocchios. Trump just skates by. For once, however, the foreshadowing of 1939 and the actual statements of rally speakers might have been too much for the media to ignore. Media reaction to the rally has generally been extremely negative. One speaker, Tony Hinchcliffe — allegedly a comedian — has received a lot of attention for calling Puerto Rico an "island of garbage" and saying that "These Latinos, they love making babies, too. Just know that they do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country." While arguably the second "joke" is worse, the first set off a wave of condemnation among Puerto Ricans and others. So much so that Republican politicians including Florida Senator Rick Scott condemened the remark. Even the Trump campaign disassociated Trump from the statement. Nevertheless, MAGAs in this thread defended both "jokes". They didn't seem to realize that they had gone out on a limb that the Trump campaign cut off. This may be the first instance of these posters disagreeing with Trump. He might not think that Puerto Rico is an island of garbage, but his MAGA supporters on DCUM certainly do.

Next was a thread titled, "WaPo no longer endorsing Presidential candidates" and, like the previous two threads, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread was started Friday when the Washington Post announced that, despite having an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris already written, the paper would make no endorsement in the Presidential race. Fairly quickly this debate coalesced into two camps: Democrats generally extremely upset by what they saw as Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos' cowardice; and Republicans generally very happy by what they viewed as the implication that the Post was unwilling to support Vice President Kamala Harris. Before that divide settled in, many posters had more nuanced reactions. Some posters thought that it was a good idea for newspapers to get out of the endorsement business altogether. Others thought that endorsements have no impact anyway and won't be missed. Liberals immediately began cancelling their Washington Post subscriptions and posting an image of cancellation confirmations became a viral trend on social media. Anger was not confined to liberals, however. The Post's editor-at-large, Robert Kagan resigned his position because he was convinced that Bezos had struck a deal with former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. Just after Bezos intervened to stop the endorsement, Trump met with executives of Bezos' space company Blue Origin. Blue Origin, as well as Bezos' Amazon, has been pursuing millions in government contracts. My own opinion is that this controversy is demonstrative of larger crisis within the mainstream media. Conservatives long ago lost faith in mainstream publications such as the Post which they view as liberal. The Post itself wants to be viewed as non-partisan and, like much of the mainstream media, relentlessly pursues a posture of presenting "both sides" of the political divide. This strategy has not worked well in an environment in which portraying Trump accurately is actually seen as liberal partisanship. Hence the tendency to sanitize Trump's statements and actions. This has resulted in growing liberal disenchantment with publications such at the Post. On a host of topics, liberals see the Post as increasingly using one standard for liberals and another standard for Trump. Having lost many, if not most, right-leaning readers, the Post has been at risk of losing left-leaning readers for some time. Bezos' decision to stop the Harris endorsement seems to have been the spark that lit the fire. I am sympathetic to Post reporters who now argue that stopping subscriptions only hurts reporters and will have no impact on Bezos. I never considered stopping my own Post subscription for exactly that reason. I value good reporting and I'm willing to pay for it. But Post reporters owe its readers something as well. We are not living in a normal political environment and reporters should stop acting like we are. I could provide examples of where Post reporters have "sanewashed" Trump to the nation's detriment, but I prefer to acknowledge Philip Bump, one of the few Post reporters who appears willing to report on Trump without the need for MAGA-colored glasses. I don't care about Post endorsements and actually would like to see them all go away (especially the DC-local endorsements which always seem completely disconnected from actual DC residents). But give us more Bumps. As the saying goes, it should not be a reporter's job to simply write that one side says that it is raining and the other side says that it is not. The reporter should look out the window and check whether or not it is raining. For too often, Post reporters report that Trump says that it is not raining while everyone knows that a raging thunderstorm is going on.

The next two most active threads were ones that I've already discussed, including the single thread among the most active that was not political. Skipping those, the final thread that I will discuss today is another one posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Trump going on No. 1 podcast Joe Rogan this Friday - per Politico", the thread was started by the original poster posting nothing but a tweet saying that former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump would record an interview with Joe Rogan. Rogan has the top podcast with over 14 million listeners. Like everything involving Trump, responses in the thread were very divided. Liberals expected that Trump would be treated with kid gloves and that the interview would be a puff piece. MAGAs argued that this would be a hard-hitting interview that would allow Trump to demonstrate his chops in a manner that Vice President Kamala Harris wouldn't do. Once the interview took place and the podcast released, both sides more or less claimed to have been right. Liberals claimed that Trump had gotten off easily and, even so, had done a terrible job. MAGAs bragged about Trump's performance which, to hear them describe it, was flawless. What these threads always make abundantly clear is that most posters have made up their minds about the candidates long ago and nothing is going to change them. Based on publicly available polling, this is true of most likely voters. At this point, candidates are seeking to reach the handful of undecided or pursuable voters, particularly in swing states. In this regard, it is not clear how much Rogan's podcast might help or hurt Trump. For the MAGAs in this thread, however, this campaign has been a series of triumphant events that are nearly genius in their execution and every one of them has had a decisive role in the election. This was sort of the case with Trump's debate with President Joe Biden, but that had more to do with Biden than Trump. Nevertheless, MAGAs have repeatedly expected knock-out blows from a number of other events including Trump's debate with Harris, Trump's survival of repeated assassination attempts, and Harris' interview with Fox News which MAGAs expected would end any hopes she had of winning. The Rogan podcast was viewed by Trump's supporters in this thread as more along those lines. According to them, this appearance should cement a Trump victory. I would take my own advice from the discussion of the previous thread and instead of saying that one side thought the interview was good and one side thought that it was bad, tell you what was actually the case. But I haven't listened to it myself and, therefore, have no idea.