Even if one were to simplify things and say that both sides hate each other, then sure ok. But what exactly is each side mad about? One side wants equal and fair treatment, wages, and a basic quality of life that isn’t a hellscape. The other wants less rules, less taxes, more guns, and privileged treatment to a select few.
TLDR; Equality and quality of life vs selfishness and oppression.
The biggest thing I am mad about is exactly what Uygur says needs to stop. Attacking people for being trans, Muslim, etc. – with a lot of cetera. Does he really want me to stop being mad at people who disagree with him on not attacking them? Or is he just doing a thoughtless both-sides reflex where if one are Nazis, the other must somehow be too, even if that makes no sense?
I can’t fathom the cluelessness it takes to believe that if the left stops believing the right are bigots, they’ll stop acting like bigots. It’s victim-blaming of the highest order, blaming the left’s reaction to the right’s hate for the hate existing in the first place. How can a grown-ass adult seriously hold this belief? Is he just trolling?
ETA: Hell, let’s follow this logic through, Cenk. If someone is falsely accused of being a sexist and racist and reacts to that by actually becoming racist and sexist, do you think that’s a reasonable response that just goes to show what a normal, morally-upstanding person they were until the mean old lefties picked on them? It’s not the defense you seem to imagine. Jesus.
I can do “hate the sin not the sinner” up to a certain point, but there are a lot of bigots who aren’t just thoughtlessly prejudiced but genuinely delight in cruelty and the chance to hurt other people, and they can go to hell.
They might, at least in the same sense they might call it “conjured up the information from beyond the stars,” but I’m going to hazard a guess that most of them do not.
I’m in some online book groups, and I can always tell when someone describes a book they’re recommending by pasting a Regurgitative AI summary of it. Cold, lifeless crap.
I’ve noticed more of these reasonable-sounding calls for all of us to indulge false equivalency ostensibly in the name of “civility” and “empathy”, usually with a “so much for the tolerant left” shot at the platform’s or outlet’s regular readers. It’s reminiscent of this post at the old place from the troll Slide, citing “non-violent communication” (NVC). “Non-dualism” is another descriptor for this, but it amounts to the same attempt to ask us to tolerate intolerance and ignore Popper’s Paradox.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw this post on MeFi by user “violet blue” (I believe this is the same attention-seeker who got into a kerfluffle with Xeni years ago) asking for the same thing. They too reacted in bad faith when people dared to have an in-depth conversation about conversation (one that they started). Like Slide, violet was ironically(?) not interested in a real discussion.
Unfortunately, moderators operating in good faith seem prone to falling for this kind of Bothsidesist BS. Really, if it isn’t trolling it’s (as in Cenk’s case) another form of the CYA “obedience in advance” we’ve seen coming from corporate media and various billionaires and corporations. Something to watch for in Internet forums (not this one, of course) as illiberal democracy and kakistocracy takes hold in the U.S