TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2026
...in one small Virginia town: Purcellville could still be called a small American town.
More precisely, it's a fairly small Virginia town. The leading authority on the town offers this statistic:
Purcellville, Virginia
Purcellville is a town in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. The population was 8,929 according to the 2020 census. Purcellville is the major population center for Western Loudoun and the Loudoun Valley. Many of the older structures remaining in Purcellville reflect the Victorian architecture popular during the early twentieth century.
By our reckoning, that still counts as a fairly small town.
For the record, the town is located fifty miles west of Washington, D.C. We learned that in this report in the Washington Post—a report in which the Washington Post says it has spotted an unfortunate state of affairs:
‘Us versus them’: The battle that’s tearing a small Virginia town apart
The town council meeting had reached the point on the agenda where the public could speak on any topic, and emotions, to put it mildly, were a tad raw.
“It’s not too late to resign!” a woman shouted at the lawmakers, four of whom, including the mayor, are the focus of a recall campaign.
“Stop screwing our town!” a man railed.
“We are broke and sicker of you than ever!” someone else yelled.
Oof! According to the Washington Post, Purcellville currently finds itself split into a battle of "Us versus Them." In this case, the Us versus Them isn't Red versus Blue—but we were somewhat amused by that headline in the Post.
Can you possibly think of a larger polity which is also split into Us versus Them, though this time in a way which really is Red versus Blue? Which is split into Us versus Them is a baldly dangerous way? Which is split in this dangerous way in part due to corporate profit chasing?
The larger polity to which we refer is of course the United States of America! Its population is roughly 340 million, and it's very severely split into two tribes—the Red but also the Blue.
This dangerous state of antagonism is fueled by certain "cable news" corporate entities. On this campus, we regard the Fox News Channel as the worst of the lot, but the Blue American channel called MS NOW has been a part of this syndrome too.
(It can be hard for us Blues to apprehend that last point. Sic semper tribal vision!)
The Post is prepared to report on the tribal split in Purcellville. It's perhaps a bit less inclined to do so when it comes to the deeply dangerous split which obtains in that larger polity.
As for the New York Times, it refuses to report and discuss the conduct observed on the Fox News Channel, even when that conduct vastly departs from all traditional journalistic norms.
(For the record, those changes can be seen, and frequently are, as changes for the better. But when those changes as so extreme, they constitute obvious "news.")
We may have more of this tomorrow, but for today, we'll leave you with this:
Roughly eleven days ago, the sitting president reposted a brainless diatribe about the 2020 election. It ended with a sudden, now-famous ape shot.
Our question:
How frequently have viewers of the Fox News Channel ever heard that fact reported? Have viewers of the Fox News Channel ever heard about that Truth Social post at all?
Also, why is that the sort of thing you will never see reported by the New York Times or by any of its columnists? What keeps an intriguing question like that from being explored and reported?
We close today with our basic journalistic query:
Why is division newsworthy in one small town, but apparently nowhere else?
Tomorrow: What Wes Moore (correctly) said?
ReplyDeleteOkay, here goes:
- the 2020 election was rigged, and that's not even a controversy, it's common knowledge. And
- no one, except retarded BlueAnons, cares about what you call "now-famous ape shot".
And that's all there is to it, Bob. Capeesh? Case closed.
Full blown batshit crazy and still able to troll. Impressive.
DeleteNot.
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DeleteHit a nerve, Hillary?
When will trolls learn how to spell capisce? It is not Capeesh unless you are proclaiming your ignorance and lack of respect for Italians.
Delete"A Florida handyman who received a pardon from President Trump for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been convicted of multiple state charges of child molestation and exposing himself to children"
DeleteI hereby express outrage on behalf of trumptard and DiC.
So, you're just going to ignore the stolen election, Hector? It's common knowledge, I hear.
DeleteIf that Virginia town isn't split into Us versus Them along red/blue lines, then it isn't a good analogy to what is happening in national politics.
ReplyDeleteAs I have pointed out before, fewer people vote than do not vote, so the largest faction in the US is non-voters. Beyond that, Independents are the largest identified political faction, with more of them than either Republicans or Democrats. Independents do not split into red and blue leaners, but into single-issue voters and disengaged voters. So, our electorate is way more complicated than Somerby typically portrays it in his grossly oversimplified Us/Them model.
Why does Somerby do this oversimplification? Because his purpose here is to attack blue voters (Democrats) by (1) pretending he is blue himself, (2) calling us blues as bad as those we oppose, red or Republican voters, (3) criticizing blue candidates, and (4) taking positions opposed to what most blue voters hold on important issues such as racial equality, women's rights, diversity, immigration, progressive economic issues, unions and worker's rights, the environment and so on. The traditional left-wing issues.
Somerby today implies that there is something wrong with holding divergent views from others in your community, to take sides along an issue. But that is not only allow in our country but it is traditional. Candidates must distinguish themselves in voter's minds, so they heighten the ways in which they and their positions differ from others running. Even siblings do that within a family, to form an identity, so this is part of how humans think, not a bad thing. But Somerby, oddly, thinks we should be identical and all get along, in a kind of super-homogeneity and harmony that runs counter to the way any country operates, outside of some isolated buddhist communes. That isn't normal for most people, who want to be seen as themselves not an indistinguishable cog in a machine. That tendency is captured by the collectivist vs individualist dimension along which cultures vary worldwide (as cataloged by Hofstede and later Triandis). The USA is individualist.
But Somerby is not genuine in this theme, which he keeps returning to in order to criticize Democrats. It is his specious complaint used to disguise his actual motive for dissing the left. And it has nothing to do with journalism.
I'm an employees' rights lawyer who has read Somerby for decades, so I was very surprised to see you claim that Somerby opposes "unions and workers rights." I think your claim is completely made up. Am I wrong?
DeleteIf I'm right, could you tell us why you like to make up shit about Somerby?
The media doesn't tell me what to think. I form my opinions and then gravitate toward whichever media best meets my need for info on the topics that matter to me. I read a lot of different sources, not just one (the way presumably Fox viewers do). Somerby's view that we are all puppets assigned by journalists into red or blue silos is fundamentally wrong.
ReplyDeleteI believe people choose their political parties based on their personalities and perceived interests, then identify the candidates that fit their perspectives. I doubt media convinced anyone of much in terms of worldview, but does fill in details on specific issues and news. In that way it is useful to people but not formative of their views. If you took a red Fox viewer and assigned them to watch MS NOW for a month, at the end of that time, they would still be red and attached to Fox, perhaps angry at the slant they encountered elsewhere. I am absolutely certain I would not turn into a Republican if I watched Fox 24/7.
If Somerby believes that watching a channel forms people into political supporters, then why would he keep urging us blues to spend more time watching Fox, to understand how the other side thinks? His advice to do that means he wants us blues to turn into reds and that would only make sense if Somerby were himself red. (Personally, I think he is being paid and began to be a Trump influencer back in 2015 when Putin gave Trump money to pay people to back his campaign online.)
And Somerby is back to claiming that the NY Times should report on Fox News, as if it were a current event or newsworthy, and not just a propaganda outlet (like many only larger). If the NY Times devoted its limited resources to repeating what occurs on Fox, if only to criticize it), it would mean neglecting a lot of real news stories. Journalists have an ethical position that THEY do not make THEMSELVES the focus of their stories but are focued outward. Broadening that to journalism as a whole, it means journalism is not the focus of reporting, except for scholars like those at The Columbia Journalism Review and similar media analysts. Because Somerby does not read his comments, he gets to keep repeating his wrong-headed notions without accountability ad nauseum.
Somerby's claim that antagonism is bad should have addressed the disparity between red and blue voters, in which the right engages in hate speech against blue, which leads unstable people to engage in violence against blue candidates and pundits. That occurs disproportionately on the right and not the left (despite attempts to cover up that fact) because the left doesn't use hate but emphasizes non-violent opposition. Somerby thus should be focusing on how antagonism is expressed, not on the fact of strong disagreement across red/blue political parties. After all, ICE shot Pretti and Good, not vice versa.
If Somerby opposition to polarity is meant to dampen the resistance to Trump and his administration, then his purpose here is clear. He is trying to undermine opposition to Trump and Republicans before the midterms. Doing that in the name of peace and harmony is disingenuous if his purpose is to weaken the resolve on the left.
Opposition to the right is not dangerous. It is necessary because the policies and people on the right are themselves dangerous. They are destroying our democracy and eliminating important institutions that benefitted US voters and our world.
Pacifists were not well regarded during WWII, our last fight against fascism. Appeasement did not work to stop Hitler, it made him worse. You don't get a pedophile to stop abusing young girls by ignoring his behavior (boys will be boys after all). When the right says it wants a do-over because its candidate lost, you don't remake your election system to fix it for the losers. Somerby is ridiculous today.
DeleteThere was the same problem back then -- how do you tell a true pacifist from a concealed German agent trying undermine Allied resolve from within?
DeleteLord Haha broadcast messages very similar to Somerby's. Can't we all get along? Why are you fighting us when we are your brothers, etc.
Yes, using war analogies heightens the conflict, but we are fighting for our rights, to defend our constitution, not to get a playground built in the city square. A lot is at stake that Somerby doesn't ever acknowledge.
DeleteActually no. Tuning into the right wing hate machine has been proven to fuck up a moderate persons brain. It can be fixed by turning that nasty fucking billionaire paid bullshit off.
Delete"Roughly eleven days ago, the sitting president reposted a brainless diatribe about the 2020 election. It ended with a sudden, now-famous ape shot.
ReplyDeleteOur question:
How frequently have viewers of the Fox News Channel ever heard that fact reported? Have viewers of the Fox News Channel ever heard about that Truth Social post at all?"
How does reporting in the NY Times about the lack of reporting (about Trump misbehavior) at Fox change the views of those Fox viewers when they never read the NY Times and only watch Fox?
Wouldn't an increase in such reporting at the NY Times tend to deeper the division betweens red and blue tribes and thus work against Somerby's desire to lessen the divide because it is dangerous to be so polarized? How is that any kind of solution then?
Somerby assumes red voters (Fox viewers) do not know about Trump's misbehavior and other flaws. Is that really true? It seems likely they know who and what Trump is, how he misbehaves, but don't care or maybe even like what he does. That portrayal of the Obamas as apes is anti-woke and that is why red voters elected Trump -- to be anti-woke. It is why he immediately destroyed all DEI in govt, fired black and female employees in high positions (including the military), removed all signs of minority achievement from recognition (as in museums and displays in public buildings, statues in public places, schools, etc.). Why wouldn't Fox publicize that circulating image, especially when red voters send such memes to each other, post them on social media, red Trump's Truth Social feed, and see it on X (where it presumably came from to begin with). Fox is saving its airtime for other uses, given that they don't need such redundancy in an already saturated media space on the right.
Somerby wants us blue voters to go over and see the kinds of stuff on Fox that doesn't appear in our own blue media. Trying to sell us on the idea that it would improve Fox if we went there too, is just a con to get us to wander over to where we can be more easily propagandized.
And Somerby is able to con us gullible liberals into watching Fox by telling us that Fox is a garbage-can, corporate-propaganda, clown show -- do I have that right?
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ReplyDeleteJudge invokes George Orwell’s ‘1984’ in ordering restoration of Philadelphia slavery exhibit
Just think about what this pack of racists are trying to do
This wrong-headed judicial action is an attack on Freedom of Speech -- the Executive Branch's Freedom of Speech. The Executive Branch is freed to decided what to include in THEIR OWN exhibit. Some judge who doesn't like their choice does not have the Constitutional power to overrule their choices.
DeleteThis decision will be overruled IMO.
Go take a flying fuck, you fascist bastard
DeleteI believe that judge was appointed by Bush, you fucking fascist freak
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