It's an extension of the larger assumptions in our political media -- Democrats are the only ones with any agency or morality, while the awfulness of Republicans is taken as a fixed constant.
been trying to place the the cognitive dissonance I feel with “to serve his country, Biden should step aside” and I think it’s that no one would ever suggest that Trump should do something that puts the country first
A few years ago, Jon Lovett floated a theory that media treats Democrats like protagonists - to be challenged, accounted, and forced to be behave in growth-oriented ways - while the GOP are treated like antagonists - immutable, expected to disrupt, thematic obstacles.
Thinking about that a lot.
The best media seems to muster is to ask republicans if they'll accept election results which seems an absurd thing to me. They should be asking what they'll do if Trump doesn't accept it. But, they get the evil answer anyway. "Maybe" (if Trump wins). Otherwise, they'd get death threats.
It's already baked in the cake about Trump. We know he doesn't care about what's good for the country. His own staff begged him to do something on J6, but he'd rather watch it burn down. He liked what they were doing *for him.*
they seem to enjoy the clicks that come from the awfulness of republicans so they have no interest in combatting that
they just want democrats to be dramatic and nuts so they generate clicks too
And we simply cannot resign to that. President Biden said it yesterday. We know the difference between right and wrong, between truth and lies. Wrong and lies are — and always will be — unacceptable. That’s a principle that cannot be broken — but will break us if we do.
one is a bomb defuser, the other is the bomb. I think some urging him to step aside are worried he's too old to defuse the bomb. They might be helping to elect the bomb instead though.
and yeah, no point in telling the bomb to defuse itself. there should be wide alarm calls instead.
Exactly. Media holds each party only to that party's standards. Democrats have standards, media expects them to live up to them always. Republicans don't, and media just accepts that as a given.
I wonder if the assumption goes beyond political media to be found in people at large, including conservatives. Can’t cite an example offhand, but conservative cries of “You made me do this” suggest it. And the very labels “progressive” and “conservative” say one side acts and the other resists.
