I came across this is little story today, it's not breaking news. I suspect that a member of the housekeeping staff knows something about the bomb threat that required the sweep for weapons.
According to police in Secaucus, the bomb threat — which later was determined to be bogus — was called in to Hudson Regional Hospital on July 18. During a search, bomb detection dogs led investigators to an unlocked office closet containing dozens of firearms.
Among the weapons were 11 handguns and 27 rifles or shotguns, according to police. The closet also contained a .45 caliber semi-automatic rifle with a high-capacity magazine that was determined to be an assault rifle, and a 14-round high-capacity handgun magazine.
The arrested the guy the next day.
What the heck do you think this guy was doing? It sounds very ominous that he was keeping those weapons there.
Young pulls together a lot of research on psychology, history and media to explain why we find funny what we do. The need for closure is a big one. If you have a high need for clear-cut moral rules, then satire, which asks us to skewer our own beliefs, is going to make you pretty anxious. Ouchie stuff if “us versus them” makes you feel safest.
As it turns out, political messages play on some similar psychological needs. One that tells you who are “bad” and, even better, how to punish them satisfies the same need as good old-fashioned outrage. Think how Donald Trump and his audience co-wrote one of the most enduring outrage political messages of 21st-century politics: “lock her up.”
Liberals may be drawn to ironic humor like satire because it reflects their antagonism toward the status quo. But outrage plays better to the political psychology of conservatives. As outrage has become a more viable media model than satire, it gets harder to sell liberal politics. “All of our political, cultural and economic messages risk being filtered through an identity-driven ecosystem that proportionally rewards not just conservatism and Republicanism,” Young told me, “but also conservative populism on the far right.”
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The irony isn’t lost on me that conservative audiences complain about how vilified they are in popular culture. Conservative media seems to be doing quite well. Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro are two of the most popular podcast hosts in the nation. There is no liberal counterpart to either. Fox News lost some of its big names when Megyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly left in 2017. But while MSNBC looks for its footing after Rachel Maddow’s exit on most weeknights and as CNN pivots to centrism, Fox is beating them both in ratings.
"There is no liberal counterpart"...
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When you look across media platforms, it is easier to see how conservative psychological preference for outrage bodes better for their growth in satellite radio, lifestyle media and, of course, social media. My Times colleague Zeynep Tufekci is one of many scholars who have documented how social media’s economic models reward outrage-driven content. Conservative social media platforms like Parler are duds. But conservative personalities like Shapiro are hugely popular across facebook and Youtube. And Elon Musk has promised to turn Twitter into his idea of a free-speech platform. Some observers suspect that means reinstating accounts previously banned for violating Twitter’s terms of service. Outrage comedy has for the most part never found its late-night mojo, but outrage content is doing just fine in every other sector of infotainment.
We see the outrage echoed here. For instance, are we generally upset by Obama's recent speeches in contrast to Trump's? Or Biden's communications as compared to other President's?
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If satirical political content is the liberal audience’s way to stick it to the man, why isn’t the genre exploding right now? Young says the thing about satire is that it asks the audience to take risks. Getting the layered meaning of ironic humor requires a little, well, faith that the payoff will be worth it. “It is hard to be hopeful, even ironically, when everything seems to be going so bad,” she says. The Dobbs decision has radicalized and terrified millions of voters. Many Americans think the Supreme Court is partisan, if not outright corrupt. Biden’s policy achievements do not seem to be capturing voters’ imagination. And he has several significant policy wins. Large swaths of the Republican Party have embraced white identitarian violence. We are too scared to laugh.
Whether infotainment should matter to the way politics is communicated is a separate issue from the fact that it does matter. In the meantime, Republicans are set to take over the House and perhaps the Senate with next week’s midterm elections. Many expect Trump to run again in 2024. Election deniers are legitimate G.O.P. candidates. Outrage is the mainstream G.O.P. brand, from the top of the ticket to the bottom. We are heading into a dangerous election cycle with a contracting liberal media ecosystem and conservative media machine optimized for outrage.
All of this is only funny in a laugh-to-keep-from-crying kind of way.
I've didn't get that from the article posted. I know that from other reading. The FBI director mentioned it in a hearing during the previous administration.
I misstated, the FBI noted that white supremacy or white nationalist group's group's increased during Trump's administration. At the same time race based violence increased.
We know after January 6 that the recruitment of military and law enforcement into violent and racist groups was successful.
While we're answering each others questions, I'm still wondering what it was about the Obama speech that you referenced was unbecoming a former president or that you felt was too divisive or should be condemned. You haven't specified why that speech should be criticized by liberals.
So, are we to believe your first source, Gallup polling? It's unclear why you posted that article, btw.
Or should we trust your "additional reading", which apparently is the SPCL? And, not surprising they say hate groups increased, as they count people like Ben Carson as an extremist.
Even so, they didn't blame racism against Obama as the reason for the increase:
"The rise in numbers is due to changing racial demographics, a bad economy, and a divisive political atmosphere. "
Two Americans were captured in Ukraine and abused by Russians and used in Propaganda.
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RT had been largely taken off the air in the United States and banned by the European Union in March after Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s armies invaded Ukraine. But in June, its version of the captives’ story appeared on Rumble, a video-sharing platform that stepped in this year and began carrying RT’s live feed, in addition to its clips. There, a glum-looking Mr. Huynh says they joined the fight in Ukraine after being duped by “propaganda from the West” that “Russian forces were indiscriminately killing civilians.”
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Rumble has become a leading destination for conservative content by positioning itself as a platform for unfettered speech, an alternative to the content moderation — or “censorship,” to many on the right — of mainstream social media sites like facebook and Twitter. Last year, Rumble received a major investment from a venture capital firm co-founded by J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio. The firm, Narya Capital, got a seat on Rumble’s board, and its more than seven million shares place it among the company’s top 10 shareholders, according to securities filings. Mr. Vance also took a personal Rumble stake worth between $100,000 and $250,000, his financial disclosures show.
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Narya is backed by the prime patron of Mr. Vance’s Senate campaign, the billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel. And it was Mr. Thiel who played a leading role in Narya’s Rumble investment last year, becoming what the platform’s chief executive described as its first outside investor.
The investment fits into an enduring narrative of Mr. Thiel, who has expressed skepticism of democracy and advocated keeping the airwaves open for hard-right voices since his student days at Stanford. It also helps illuminate the relationship between Mr. Vance and Mr. Thiel, who mentored the candidate in his Silicon Valley business empire and has contributed more than $15 million to his campaign and affiliated political action committees. (Mr. Thiel has contributed another $15 million to support the candidacy of another protégé, the Republican Senate candidate in Arizona, Blake Masters.)
I think it's important to pay attention to which politicians and political causes are supported by the antidemocracy money and voices.
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Asked about Rumble’s hosting of RT, the Vance campaign issued a statement. “J.D. does not play an active role at Rumble, nor does he set Rumble’s content moderation policies,” the campaign said. “It’s a dishonest straw man to suggest that just because someone believes in free speech rights online that they also personally endorse that speech. It’s embarrassing that an industry like the media, which relies on the First Amendment, has so much trouble comprehending that.” Mr. Thiel’s spokesman did not comment.
Even so, Rumble is serving as a platform for RT’s Russia-friendly content at a time of growing unhappiness on the right — and also from some voices on the left — about the Biden administration’s expansive arming of Ukraine. The House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy of California, has said that if his party wins back the House next month, it will resist writing “a blank check” to the Ukrainian government. While Russia’s war has been broadly condemned in the West, several influential conservative pundits, including Tucker Carlson on Fox, have often been reluctant to criticize Mr. Putin.
And we can't forget that Trump is a big fan of Putin over Zelensky.
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So, are we to believe your first source, Gallup polling? It's unclear why you posted that article, btw.
Or should we trust your "additional reading", which apparently is the SPCL? And, not surprising they say hate groups increased, as they count people like Ben Carson as an extremist.
Even so, they didn't blame racism against Obama as the reason for the increase:
"The rise in numbers is due to changing racial demographics, a bad economy, and a divisive political atmosphere. "
Anyway, thanks for starting my day with a laugh.
I'm "glad" that you find the subject of racism in our American conservative political commentary so amusing.
I think liberal outrage is more reactionary to events such as Chavin killing George Floyd and the violent protests afterward and Roe vs. Wade being overturned and the threats to the Justices afterward.
I had a feeling when I used the SPLC in my post above someone would respond with their controversies. "A while back" is 2019.
The New Yorker gets a "left media bias" from Allsides.
Their lead story is about Pennsylvania:
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In the state’s midterms—which could determine the balance of the Senate and the integrity of the Presidential race in 2024—Democrats are fighting for the vote. Republicans are fighting to undermine it.
I think liberal outrage is more reactionary to events such as Chavin killing George Floyd and the violent protests afterward and Roe vs. Wade being overturned and the threats to the Justices afterward.
Another example would be the election of a Republican president.
toomuchbaloney
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Here is an interesting opinion;
In the Political Talk Show Race, Outrage Is Winning https://nyti.ms/3TSBNvb
"There is no liberal counterpart"...
We see the outrage echoed here. For instance, are we generally upset by Obama's recent speeches in contrast to Trump's? Or Biden's communications as compared to other President's?
These are perilous times.