President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Oh, not all kids act like that. Not all kids -- hell, nearly no kid -- would wear MAGA hats because they're at anti-abortion rally. But I understand what you're saying.

I'm sadder that I can see the direction we're moving. The big media can't back down from its initial impression, not much, without getting shamed for it. They're trapped, on some level, into a whole set of beliefs and social media behaviors for which there isn't much way out. And so the divide grows and grows.

One thing we miss, or tend to, is just about every back office/down-the-line editor/content specialist/whatever in a modern non-right wing news media company is likely very far to the left. Perhaps libertarian, but almost certainly a hard-left social liberal. Just about anyone running a social media account for a news site is the gatekeeper of knowledge about what's going on around the Web, and since they're often the "content" folks in charges of getting hits on the Web site, a news organization is naturally going to bend to their proclivities. Do I think, for example, the very upper reaches of the Washington Post management had nailed down every question before this stuff got posted? No. I think it's a decision made among 20-somethings.

Further, you have a writer like Anne Helen Peterson, who just wrote a much-celebrated piece on millennial burnout (which, for as a good as it was, also had a John Mayeresque "Waitin On the World to Change" vibe to it) opining at length about the DC matter, and, look, maybe this is unfair, but what else is she going to say? She's a brand at this point. If she weighs in, she likely has to weigh in in the way that her brand suggests she would weigh in, lest the brand take a hit and, I dunno, some Web site doesn't give her another thinkpiece to write. There's just no percentage - financially, socially, especially socially, where what matters most is being cool with the coolest, most put-together people - in any other kind of opinion. So you either have no opinion (sit this one out), or have the appropriately-branded opinion, or, if it's Door No. 3, the objective dissent, to the cool social media people whose outrage (or lack thereof), you're a horrible person for even thinking to sympathize with the MAGAs.

On and on it goes. The divide grows larger.

 

You lost me when you put libertarians on the left

 

The thing is: this is all in line with the initial reports.

The powerful still photo evoked a feeling that some people may feel is misleading, but what was actually reported happening is exactly what happened.

 

Poor Anne Helen Peterson and those 20-something snowflakes. Objectivity was so put-upon them!

 

Two people can DO the same thing, ACT in the same manner and have the same LOOK on their face.

If one of them is wearing a MAGA hat, they WILL be judged more harshly. Their actions aggressive, their intent nefarious, their look smug.

 

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

 

If you believed the worst of the early narratives, it hardly rose to the level of "acts of terrorism."

 

And sometimes groups of people gathered in one place marching for one cause or another will just cross paths.

 

I agree completely with the first statement. Where were the adults, teachers, parents, chaperones, etc. If I'm that school's administration my focus now goes to them.
But the Black Hebrew Israelites (That's who they call themselves?), from account I've seen, started their own particular beef with the kids.

 

Sure. So what?

"They started it" is never a good excuse for bad behavior.

If I'm chaperoning these children, I herd them right out of that argument.

Which gets us right back to "where are the adults?"

 

Exactly. Take off the hat and this isn't a story. And, to the extent it would be discussed, the issue would primarily be about adults provoking confrontation with kids.

It's all about the hat.

 

It’s just a small start. These MAGA kids are just being indoctrinated. It won’t be long before killing that lying scum journa,it’s is good for the country. Or rounding up people on the street that look illegal. “If news is fake, so is your passport and ide tification papers” and if locking them up is ok, why not have some fun with the girls,p. It’s not like they’re normal. Just inferior for our use”