Weltschmerz à Gogo on Nostr: There simply is no "gotcha" to be had with fascists. You can post all the interviews ...
There simply is no "gotcha" to be had with fascists. You can post all the interviews you want with Matt Walsh or Marine Le Pen or anyone named Trump, and you can believe that you've found *the one* where the wheels finally come off because your favorite liberal news anchor or a very well informed academic has finally stood up to them and asked the tough question everyone else avoided.
But the problem is that, while the rest of us generally feel obligated to be more or less honest when we talk to people, fascists just aren't constrained by that.
During the big Trump-Biden debate last week, Trump was asked if he was okay with Putin's proposal to end the war if Ukraine would agree to cede territory and not join NATO. Trump very clearly said "No, Putin's plan isn't acceptable to me!"
Does anyone who pays any attention really think Trump will stick to that promise, if he's elected? Does anyone really think that standing up to Putin is anywhere on Trump's radar? Yet Trump was able to make himself sound reasonable for a moment on national TV, alleviating some people's fears about him. There's no way in the world to force him to tell the truth ever.
Christiane Amanpour interviewed Marine Le Pen for CNN in the past few days, and for a while she seemed to be holding Le Pen to account on some of the extremely racist things members of her party have said. But Le Pen pushed back, saying that the party has a very rigorous internal review process and they kick people out for that stuff. She was actually able to argue that summary expulsion is undemocratic and you have to let their very rigorous system do its work.
Le Pen's argument was about being accountable when making decisions, which sounds pretty reasonable if you just aren't all that concerned about the actual racism. And if anyone really believes she has much of a problem with racists in her party, I'd love to hear from you, because I've got a really excellent real estate proposal for you.
There just is no way to force them to be honest. They lie and then they lie again in whatever way serves their interests. Circulating "gotcha" interviews with them does nothing except make their rhetoric available to more people. It's just not worth it. At all. There aren't enough fact checkers in the world to balance that out.
#FarRight #Fascists #LePen #Trump #NoPlatform
But the problem is that, while the rest of us generally feel obligated to be more or less honest when we talk to people, fascists just aren't constrained by that.
During the big Trump-Biden debate last week, Trump was asked if he was okay with Putin's proposal to end the war if Ukraine would agree to cede territory and not join NATO. Trump very clearly said "No, Putin's plan isn't acceptable to me!"
Does anyone who pays any attention really think Trump will stick to that promise, if he's elected? Does anyone really think that standing up to Putin is anywhere on Trump's radar? Yet Trump was able to make himself sound reasonable for a moment on national TV, alleviating some people's fears about him. There's no way in the world to force him to tell the truth ever.
Christiane Amanpour interviewed Marine Le Pen for CNN in the past few days, and for a while she seemed to be holding Le Pen to account on some of the extremely racist things members of her party have said. But Le Pen pushed back, saying that the party has a very rigorous internal review process and they kick people out for that stuff. She was actually able to argue that summary expulsion is undemocratic and you have to let their very rigorous system do its work.
Le Pen's argument was about being accountable when making decisions, which sounds pretty reasonable if you just aren't all that concerned about the actual racism. And if anyone really believes she has much of a problem with racists in her party, I'd love to hear from you, because I've got a really excellent real estate proposal for you.
There just is no way to force them to be honest. They lie and then they lie again in whatever way serves their interests. Circulating "gotcha" interviews with them does nothing except make their rhetoric available to more people. It's just not worth it. At all. There aren't enough fact checkers in the world to balance that out.
#FarRight #Fascists #LePen #Trump #NoPlatform