Another day, another brilliant thread by Georgetown Visiting Professor Thomas Zimmer that’s well worth reading (especially in light of all the bizarre, non-serious, not-in-good-faith “suggestions” being thrown out by Republicans like Winsome Sears following the Uvalde, TX massacre). A few key points include:
- “It’s a bizarre feature of the political / media discourse, demanding we pretend both sides are equally serious, making equally serious suggestions, instead of acknowledging that one party is entirely uninterested in solving public policy problems and protecting lives.”
- “Since mainstream journalism is predicated on the idea that politics is a game between two teams that are essentially the same and journalists aspire to ‘neutrality,’ which they define as equidistance from either side, whatever comes from the GOP has to be elevated to credibility.”
- “Stating clearly what the Republican Party has become would run counter to mainstream journalism’s eternal quest for ‘neutrality’ and ‘balanced’ coverage, its overwhelming desire to signal ‘nonpartisanship.’ And so the GOP continues to be covered as if it were a ‘normal’ party.“
- “It’s one of the most bizarre features of the American political discourse that it demands we pretend these are serious suggestions, coming from serious political actors, instead of acknowledging that one side, one party, is entirely uninterested in protecting American lives.”
- “In a healthy political culture, anyone trafficking in such deranged nonsense would be shunned and ostracized, the party that elevates them would have to pay a hefty political price. In the U.S., that’s evidently not the case. And until that changes, nothing changes.”
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