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Comparative politics - a novel way to combat the fallacy of "bothsidesism". [1]

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Date: 2024-06-06  

Many people are fed up with media pundits who espouse “bothsidesism”, which is also known as “false balance”, and which, according to Wikipedia, is a major contributor to misinformation. False balance happens when certain journalists frame their reporting in a way that makes a right-side political statement sound equivalent to a left-side political statement. The problem is that in order to make the arguments sound equivalent, these journalists must omit information that, if reported concurrently, would establish that one side's claims (typically the right) are not only non-equivalent, they are entirely baseless.

Fox News dropped their slogan “Fair and Balanced” in 2017, and replaced it with “Most Watched, Most Trusted”. The former was a tautological example of false balance, and the latter is sadly factual, if one considers “a plurality” of viewers to be equivalent to “the most” viewers.

I would like to propose a technique to help journalists avoid false balance: Stop comparing a left-view on Topic A against a right-view on Topic A.

Start with the left-view for Topic A, then shift to Topic B for the right-view.

The comparison will still be valid, it just won’t be contorted to look like a false equivalence any more. Here are some samples, with the initial (Biden) content all adapted from The White House Briefing Room:

June 6, 2024 — Today, President Biden commemorated the 80th Anniversary of D-Day with a particularly stirring speech. In his remarks, he said “Hitler and those with him thought democracies were weak, that the future belonged to dictators. Here, on the coast of Normandy, the battle between freedom and tyranny would be joined. Here, on that June morning, the testing was at hand.” Meanwhile, at a town hall today in Arizona, Former President Trump stated that if he is elected, he would spearhead “the largest domestic deportation operation” ever, which happens to be exactly what Hitler did to German Jews in September 1941 — nearly three years before D-Day.

with a particularly stirring speech. In his remarks, he said “Hitler and those with him thought democracies were weak, that the future belonged to dictators. Here, on the coast of Normandy, the battle between freedom and tyranny would be joined. Here, on that June morning, the testing was at hand.” June 5, 2024 — Today, President Biden chastised Republican Senators who voted against bringing to the floor a bill to protect contraception nationwide . He said, “Senate Republicans just refused to protect a woman’s right to birth control. .. It’s unacceptable. Today’s vote comes two days before the 59th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, which established that the fundamental right to privacy protects the ability to make deeply personal decisions free from the interference of politicians, including to access contraception.” By contrast, we all should recall a 2022 concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas (in the Dobbs case); an opinion that hints the Supreme Court of the United States may be gearing up to do away with Americans’ right to privacy in its entirety. In his own words, Thomas predicts, “...in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold , Lawrence, and Obergefell. … Because any substantive due process decision is “ demonstrably erroneous ,” we have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents...”

. He said, “Senate Republicans just refused to protect a woman’s right to birth control. .. It’s unacceptable. Today’s vote comes two days before the 59th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, which established that the protects the ability to make deeply personal decisions free from the interference of politicians, including to access contraception.” June 3, 2024 — Today, President Biden congratulated the new president-elect of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum. “I congratulate (Ms. Sheinbaum) on her historic election as the first woman President of Mexico. … I also congratulate the Mexican people for conducting a nationwide successful democratic electoral process involving races for more than 20,000 positions at the local, state, and federal levels.” In other semi-recent news, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) slammed former President Trump’s comment that immigrants were “poisoning the blood ” of the country, arguing the former president’s rhetoric is “poisoning our country.” Then she added, “...with the exception of Alaska Natives and Native Peoples, most of us are daughters and sons of immigrants who came to this country to build a better life for themselves and their families.”

involving races for more than 20,000 positions at the local, state, and federal levels.” May 25, 2024 — Today, President Biden delivered the Commencement Address at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point). Toward the end of his remarks, he said, “We’re unique in the world. We’re the only country in the world founded on an idea. Other countries are founded based on geography, ethnicity, religion, or other attributes, but we’re the only one founded on an idea — not figuratively, literally. And the idea is we’re all created equal , deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. But ideas need defenders to make them real. That’s what you, the Class of 2024, are all about: defenders of freedom, champions of liberty, guardians — and I mean this — guardians of American democracy .” And this just in, Donald Trump’s first Campaign Manager, Steve Bannon will begin serving his prison sentence on July 1, as ordered by Federal Judge Carl Nichols, who presided over Bannon’s Contempt of Congress trial. Bannon told reporters outside the courthouse, “There’s nothing that can shut me up and nothing that will shut me up. There’s not a prison built or a jail built that will ever shut me up.” Lest we forget, a Bannon acolyte, Jack Posobiec spoke at CPAC 2024 and stated, “ Welcome to the end of democracy . We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it. ” Be sure you turn up the volume on the video, to hear Bannon chortling approvingly, into his microphone — proving that he is indeed, far from being “shut up”.

, deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. But ideas need defenders to make them real. That’s what you, the Class of 2024, are all about: champions of liberty, guardians — and I mean this — .”

Interestingly, as I was collecting data from the White House Briefing Room webpage, I was taken aback by all the amazing speeches and statements Biden has been delivering several times a week, it seems.

All you have to do is to look around — just a little bit, and you see how much Joe Biden is accomplishing. And … he doesn’t even have a unified Congress around to pass legislation that is to his liking!

But the presidential briefing room demonstrates that Dark Brandon is about as far as you can get from being a doddering old man (...which creeps like Robert Hur want to pretend he is).

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/6/2245211/-Comparative-politics-a-novel-way-to-combat-the-fallacy-of-bothsidesism?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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