Anyone else find this terrifying?

[HPFA]

twitter.com/sanglesey/status/854580175530594305

What road are we heading down here???

No. It is just media posturing and hype, big brash headlines sell newspapers, twas ever thus.

I don't see a problem. As Flumpernickel says, its just media hype, doing what they do. What's terrifying about it?

I find it very strange that you are happy with headlines which are straight out of Stalin's copybook.

here we go...

Yes it's a slippery slope.

"twas ever thus"
... was it though? I know certain papers have always traded on outrage, but it does seem to me as though things have got much more extreme in recent years.
I suppose it is a combination of shrinking ad revenues and increased competition, they have to shout louder and louder to keep the same level of profit. We get increasingly de-sensitised to their shouting, so they have to work harder to shock, and on and on in a nightmarish positive feedback loop.

I do think that many of the front pages we see today would not have been acceptable a few years ago.

I am a huge fan of Orwell but I don't find this worrying. People, from both sides of the argument are far more tolerant than the press want us to believe.

On the other hand....

twitter.com/Prork/status/854623931621400576

Its really shitty behaviour

But its the mail so they do have form

It's a crass and awful headline.

What I find increasingly hard to understand though, is why many of the same people who will throw their hands up in horror at it, will also be flinging around insults on these threads, telling people they despise them for voting differently, calling Theresa May a bitch, a dictator and all sorts of other nasty, hyperbolic insults, wishing politicians dead (have seen all these in last 24 hours on here). And then will get all snotty and personally insulting if you object.

I find it really, really depressing. If people want political discourse to climb out of the gutter, they really need to practice what they preach.

wrong

Can you honestly not see the difference between a countrywide popular newspaper head line

And people posting their opinions on a forum

I disagree obviously with personal attacks on posters

rufus I can see the difference, but I think they are connected. It seems to me that, at the moment, political discussion has deteriorated to such a degree that it is really damaging to our democracy. Like most things, it's always easier to criticise others than look at our own behaviour.

I think what people post on an internet forum matters. Things I have read on MN have massively affected my political thinking (both v positively but also in making me realise how much many on the liberal left despise people like me - who considers myself on the liberal left). Also, its clear that what people are saying on here is reflected in their lives. So many posters seem to be bemoaning the division the referendum has caused as if it was an Act of God and as if "the division" is an entity rather than it being how we choose to speak to and treat each other, and under our control.

I would like to be able to discuss politics and the election but it seems to be getting increasingly impossible unless you are wholesale in one camp or another - and saying that I don't even know what the camps are, I just know that I am not in one.

This worries and depresses me far more than ridiculous Daily Mail headlines.

I am a card carrying Remoaner, but I agree with you WrongTrouser, the DM headlines and the name calling on public forums are two aspects of the same depressing problem.

So yes, we all have to take responsibility for our contribution to this debate, but given the reach of the DailyFail, I would say that the way they have been poisoning the public discourse is particularly despicable.

Demonising half the population is not remotely comparable to someone saying that it wouldn't have been the end of the world if a politician had died in an accident entirely of their own making

I haven't seen a single person call for his death, or threaten him in the westminstenders thread and it is highly slanderous to suggest so.

This is the British Fascist Party supporting Mail you are talking about - the paper that gave away free pairs of tickets to Mosley's Olympia stadium showpiece rally that notoriously ended in violence, initiated by his supporters and henchmen. The tickets were a prize for the best entry that completed the sentence "I love the Blackshirts because..."

We've been here before. Both papers have a fondness for fascism.

I haven't seen a single person call for his death, or threaten him in the westminstenders thread and it is highly slanderous to suggest so

I didn't say this. I said "wishing politicians dead"

But I agree with you that "demonising half the population" is not a good thing, whichever half that should be. So perhaps everyone who is doing it needs to stop.

I do think getting into a tit-for-tat about who on which side has been nastier to whom is kind of missing the point though.

Figment Indeed. But two wrongs don't make a right. And I have to say that much of the intolerance, bigotry, attempts at silencing opposing views and other tactics and characteristics traditionally associated with fascism, seem to be emminating from other directions and from people who really should know better.

wondering what would have happened had fate been different and saying you would not have shed a tear is not the same as wishing someone dead.

I can't be arsed to argue about this and I'm tired of people who only get upset when the argument is coming from the other side (how often is divisive language tackled on the Brexit Arms ).

I also disagree- now is the time to fight fire with fire. It's pointless trying to gently reason with people who will only shout and scream and call you a traitor. Now is not the time for gentle persuasion and delicacies. The leave vote did away with all such niceties- it is now apparent that the public are more easily swayed by the daily mail, a bus and a racist poster than any amount of reasoned political debate.

Sorry, hope that doesn't sound like I'm advocating violence- I'm talking solely about discourse! What I mean is that it's pointless to try and start a discussion with people intent on Brexit if you're a remainer. We might as well pour our energies into those that voted remain, which is 48% of voters, after all.

I also disagree- now is the time to fight fire with fire. It's pointless trying to gently reason with people who will only shout and scream and call you a traitor. Now is not the time for gentle persuasion and delicacies. The leave vote did away with all such niceties- it is now apparent that the public are more easily swayed by the daily mail, a bus and a racist poster than any amount of reasoned political debate

I just don't agree with what you are saying here. I have never shouted, screamed or called anyone a traitor re Brexit. You are putting all leave voters into one box with the poster, the bus, Farage etc. But people voted leave for all sorts of reasons. Most leave voters can't stand Farage (see the Farage effect and why Carswell defected to Ukip). If you want to pretend that amongst the 17 million leave voters there is no-one who has thought through the issues and come to a reasoned conclusion, well, I'm afraid that is an uninformed conclusion.

What I mean is that it's pointless to try and start a discussion with people intent on Brexit if you're a remainer. We might as well pour our energies into those that voted remain, which is 48% of voters, after all

In a way I admire your frankness as I think a lot of remainers believe this but don't say it. Can you not see that this will lead to a lot of political problems? I don't know which party you will support in the GE but imagine Labour or LibDems. Are you happy for these parties to treat leave voters (whatever other political beliefs they have) as some sort of untouchables? Do you think that is going to help get this country sorted out?

And as I see it you have shouty people on one extreme, some equipped with a lot of money, newspapers etc, going on about traitors and enemies of the people and shouty people on the other extreme, some also with a lot of money and newspapers going on about idiots and racists and all the rest, and then in the middle you have most other people who either do or don't want to leave the EU, who are neither traitors nor enemies of the people nor idiots nor racists and do not believe that other people who voted differently to them are these things but are being driven out if the political discussion by the shouty people on both sides. I don't think this is good for democracy.

Are they the same people though wrong?
I feel pretty passionate about certain political issues, but I don't like death threats etc against any politician - even the ones I despise.

I disagree with Bolshy though - we need the more reasonable leavers to stand up with us against the hard right, and against the racists (yes, most leavers aren't racist but some of the pro-leave rhetoric was).

Are you happy for these parties to treat leave voters (whatever other political beliefs they have) as some sort of untouchables? Do you think that is going to help get this country sorted out?

By the same token, May and the right wing of the Tory party, who sound as though they are going to be the only ones bar Ken Clarke left, seem more than happy to ignore the 48% of the population who voted Remain. We haven't gone away, nor have we become turncoats like Theresa May. I don't see an easy solution but I know that she is not the right person to reconcile people's differences. My only hope is that they believe their own hype so much, make a complete and utter shambles of Brexit, because they are too pig-headed to talk to experts and listen to advice, that eventually the blame for the mess attaches to them and only them. The only problem is that an awful lot of innocent people are going to bear the brunt of it.

I don't think any left wing or centre paper has gone on about traitors, enemies of the people etc. in the way that the Mail and Express have done.

Can you not see that this will lead to a lot of political problems? I don't know which party you will support in the GE but imagine Labour or LibDems. Are you happy for these parties to treat leave voters (whatever other political beliefs they have) as some sort of untouchables? Do you think that is going to help get this country sorted out?
We already have 'a lot of political problems' due, IMO, to all parties treating remain voters as if they didn't exist. There's been no acknowledgement from any party that the vote was exceptionally close and having the mainstream press talking about 'enemies of the people' and 'saboteurs' is doing nothing but fan the flames of division. I'd like you to answer your own question: do you think that is going to help get this country sorted out?

Gah - slow typist. I see Peregrina has made more or less the same point while I was typing!