The people who try to force everything into a false binary choice is one reason why our democracy is in peril and we can’t get to the common good. A person can be both for life and for choice, for the 2nd amendment and for gun reform, for justice and against capital punishment.— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) March 22, 2018
This pathological Beltway ritual of avoiding saying the word "Republican" out loud when faced with yet another Republican atrocity persists, like some ludicrous, political version of the "Candyman" urban myth: a primal fear that if you stand in front of a camera and say the words "It's not Both Sides -- it's just the fucking Republicans" the ghost of Eugene Debs will manifest itself and smite your lucrative career with a lethal blast of socialist stank.
So who exactly are these "people" who want to ruin our nice little democracy by "[forcing] everything into a false binary choice". Well, skipping right on past the fact that the very elections on which our democracy is founded are literally binary (or, in some cases, ternary or quaternion, but mostly binary) choices, I can tell you who Mr. Dowd damn well isn't referring to.
He damn well isn't referring to Democrats.
And the reason I know this is that I can read.
From Mr. Dowd:
A person can be both...for the 2nd amendment and for gun reform
From the 2016 Democratic Party platform:
With 33,000 Americans dying every year, Democrats believe that we must finally take sensible action to address gun violence. While responsible gun ownership is part of the fabric of many communities, too many families in America have suffered from gun violence. We can respect the rights of responsible gun owners while keeping our communities safe.
From Mr. Dowd:
A person can be both...for justice and against capital punishment.
From the 2016 Democratic Party platform:
We will abolish the death penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment. It has no place in the United States of America. The application of the death penalty is arbitrary and unjust. The cost to taxpayers far exceeds those of life imprisonment. It does not deter crime. And, exonerations show a dangerous lack of reliability for what is an irreversible punishment.
From Mr. Dowd:
A person can be both for life and for choice.
The 2016 Democratic Party platform has twelve separate planks under the heading "ENSURE THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF ALL AMERICANS" including this one -- "Securing Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice" -- which says both this (emphasis added) --
Democrats are committed to protecting and advancing reproductive health, rights, and justice. We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should have access to quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion—regardless of where she lives, how much money she makes, or how she is insured. We believe that reproductive health is core to women’s, men’s, and young people’s health and wellbeing...
-- and this:
And we strongly and unequivocally support a woman’s decision to have a child, including by ensuring a safe and healthy pregnancy and childbirth, and by providing services during pregnancy and after the birth of a child, including adoption and social support services, as well as protections for women against pregnancy discrimination. We are committed to creating a society where children are safe and can thrive physically, emotionally, educationally, and spiritually. We recognize and support the importance of civil structures that are essential to creating this for every child.
The "people" Mr. Dowd is referring to are a threat to our democracy are called "Republicans".
And Mr. Dowd damn well knows it.
Or as Duncan Black put it:
Or as Duncan Black put it:
Matthew Dowd Is A Fraud
This man is paid a lot by ABC News to pretend to know nothing about politics.
Behold, a Tip Jar!
3 comments:
Seems the CNN CEO Jeff Zucker found words rolling off his tongue in public. Calling FOX a “state run TV”. “A pure propaganda machine that ----- think---- does incredible disservice to the country”, Zucker said.
How long has FOX been riding it’s advertising by calling CNN, The Communist News Network?
Zucker went on, “FOX has maybe a handful of good journalists, but I ----Think----- they are lost in what is a complete propaganda machine and has nothing on TASS. The official Russian News agency”.
The CEO has to dilute his words with, “there are some good journalists” and “I think”.
Maybe Zucker and Dowd can tell us how much free air time their networks propagandized to Then candidate Trump who is now President David Dennison?
Unlike Dowd. I can say GW Bush and Cheney and all their failures. I can say John Bolton belongs in an asylum for the dangerous schizophrenic mentally ill. I have also been known to say, “there are no mulligan’s from Saint Peter at Heaven’s gate for VP Mike Pence.
I can say Zucker and Dowd got their tax cuts and they are down with us paying off the loan with interests that paid them.
• I am sure both will say there was no socialized redistribution of money to see here, move along to another network if you want reporting on tax cut failure to provide its republican promise.
Thank you so much for this crystal clear rebuttal of the'both sides' nonsense. In such of typing 'not the Congress, just the Republicans'. The latest example is all the take about how 'we' failed the children by not passing gun safety laws. No, not 'we', the Republicans and every single person who's voted Republican. The Democrats have been trying to pass legislation forever. We won't fix the problem Down is taking about until we clearly label who is doing what.
I posted my best imitation of driftglass this morning on David Brooks' latest dump:
Reasonable Orlando 35 minutes ago
"If it’s just group against group, deliberation is a sham, beliefs are just masks groups use to preserve power structures, and democracy is a fraud. The epistemological foundation of our system is in surprisingly radical flux."
It's hard to accept this hand-wringing coming from a man who helped create the hate machine that brought us Donald Trump. Brooks cheered on the invasion of Iraq and slandered liberals throughout his entire career. In short, he has been wrong about everything, and the hippies he disparages constantly have been right. He exists on the pages of the New York Times to tell reassuring lies to his wealthy Republican friends, who don't want to believe that the Republican Party has, for years, been led by monsters and has created a vast lynch mob of an army to keep them in power. They want Brooks to tell them that "both sides" are corrupt and that there is noble tradition of Republicanism that was here not so long ago and that we can go back to it if we just try hard enough.
And when was that noble tradition of Republicanism in ascendence? During the Obama years when they called him a Muslim Kenyan and stole a Supreme Court seat? Was it during the George W. Bush years when they roared their approval for Bush's illegal war (and mass murder) in Iraq, passed massive tax cuts for the rich (which blew up the budget deficit), and crashed the economy? How far back do we have to go to find these noble Republicans?
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