“Political Discourse”

I’m gonna be mean today, I’m furious. Today I’m going to be mean to the Guardian and Martin Pengelly, as well as the Economist and YouGov and, obviously, everyone else, too.

“More than a quarter of Republicans approve of Capitol attack, poll shows.” - is the stupid and terribly written headline. Subheading: “Survey also reveals more than half of Republicans think January 6 was a form of legitimate political discourse” - a question as meaningless as it is vague as it is stupid.

Before we leave the header and subheader, let’s take a quick look at what those two things mean and what it is they are saying. We’ll address the subheader first because it is slightly less likely to be bullshit as compared to the headline.

“Survey also reveals more than half of Republicans think January 6 was a form of legitimate political discourse” - means that when given the question and possible answers to “Which comes closer to your view regarding what took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021: People participated in legitimate political discourse / people participated in violent insurrection / don’t know” half of Republicans replied either mostly or somewhat approve. 

What good is that question? What is legitimate political discourse is the better question. Why isn’t January 6th legitimate political discourse a better question. Why would you confuse people with the concept of legitimacy or illegitimacy? Furthermore, any political discourse threatening to people who get to decide what’s legitimate or not is going to be called illegitimate by them at least. 

There is no such thing as legitimate political discourse and the Orwellian nonsense of trying to convince people you’re actively murdering that to fight back is “illegitimate political discourse” is deafening. I’m angrier with everyone but Republicans answering this poll honestly. The difference between legitimate and illegitimate political discourse is found within history. 

Was the Tea Party legitimate political discourse? Not to the King, dumbshits!

This is wholeheartedly a belief of mine, everyone who thinks Jan 6th is illegitimate political discourse is unAmerican.

Which takes us to the headline, “More than a quarter of Republicans approve of Capitol attack, poll shows”. 

First, no fucking shit. They’re the ones who did it. Morons. Second, the reason they did it is because a global cabal of pedophiles just overthrew their elected government. Of course they approve of the attack. The better question, of course, is “if the Jan 6th rioters were right, would you join them?” If the January 6th rioters were telling you correct information, that pedophile billionaires and such had taken over the government and had control over who was elected, would you be on their team or on Billionaire pedophile team? 

You’d let them take over. I know this because we did. It’s already happened. And let me tell all of you “legitimate political discourse” fucks, I’d rather have a 1/6/01 than a fucking 9/11 that’s for goddam sure. 

Let’s ask the question again, “Is January 6th legitimate political discourse if the election has been stolen? Because that’s the question those Republicans responded to. You’ll notice that it didn’t even occur to the Economist and YouGov to add that part. The idea of overthrowing the government is so absurd to them, they’d rather live with the belief that the government is not murdering them through climate change, and that what should’ve happened is all those nice royalists’ should never have had their tea messed with. 

The question, though posed the same way to both Democrats and Republicans, was actually two completely different questions. What do we do with this lack of context? We have our dumb journalists breathlessly write dumb shit.

For instance, let’s take this beautiful couplet of paragraphs, sandwiched between a paragraph with the results of the poll and the “trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection” paragraph without context.

Nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides, have been linked to the attack. More than 1,000 people have been arrested and hundreds convicted.

The longest sentence yet handed down is 10 years in prison, to a former New York police officer who assaulted Capitol officers. The statutory maximum sentence for seditious conspiracy, the most serious convictions yet secured, is 20 years.

Now, the obvious implication is that these 27% of Republicans approve of these heinous crimes without actually coming out and saying that Republicans wanted those deaths to happen, because that’s not in the poll, see? You can’t accurately report that Republicans want the deaths of their political enemies because no one, I guess, has the courage or fortitude necessary to ask the person across the desk from them if they would murder them in a different context. 

Instead of saying something, Pengelly has implied something and then moved on. Not only that, but he has callously implied that it is Republicans who are the monsters here, despite his obvious lack of giving a shit. Want to not be a callous hypocrite? Do more than write two paragraphs without names. And you know what, ACAB means ACAB. Always. If you don’t believe that, don’t fucking say it.

We can ignore the rest of the piece, because it’s just whining about Fox News. Except for the very last sentence: “Trump recorded a charity single, with a choir of prisoners.” which is a juicy morsel that a good writer would sink their teeth into.

Because what that is is the sign that Pengelly doesn’t really think of it as an attempted coup, either, or I guess he thinks it’s an attempted coup but that’s fine? 

100% of Pengellys believe that an attempted coup should be punished with a terrible case of “someone wrote something that implies I, someone who tried to overthrow the government, should feel bad about it.”

It’s not an attempted coup because no one is treating it like such. We’re treating it like a regular ole crime. Who is delusional in this case? You can call it an attempted coup all you like, but everyone’s acting like it’s not. I don’t care what you say. I just don’t. If what you say mattered, W. would never have been president. If what you voted for mattered, we wouldn’t fucking be here.

January 6th is absolutely legitimate political discourse. For fuck’s we celebrate overthrowing the government every fucking year! 

The question isn’t, is this legitimate political discourse, the question is “why were these people willing to overthrow the government on a lie, but all the Pengellys of the world know that W. did steal the election and won’t do fuckall about it?”

Honestly, in many ways I admire them. I wish we had had the courage. Because we would’ve been RIGHT! We weren’t delusional. We were cowards. 

What is legitimate political discourse? To the media we live with, it’s licking a fucking boot.