Taylor Swift may be the hottest ticket this summer, but her listeners don’t share her country roots. That space has been captured by a series of anthems singing the blue-collar blues, songs that are a lot closer to—and a lot more correct—about what is bugging everyday Americans.
American music has always been an echo chamber for popular culture. The Jazz Age was a rebellious response to the high-brow Victorian Gilded Age. Rock ’n’ roll was the rallying cry of baby boomers.
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The International Chess Federation has barred transgender individuals who are biological men from competing in its women’s only events pending “further analysis.”
The decision will not affect the open play tournaments, CNN reported. The majority of FIDE’s events are open play, while only a handful of events are exclusive to women.
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Rev. Dr. Rebecca Todd Peters, an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church-USA (PC-USA), recently treated a Unitarian Universalist congregation to a fiery sermon. Was it about heaven, hell, salvation, and the need to repent and believe the Gospel — messages that one would think members of a non-Christian group such as the latter would need from a Christian minister? No. Instead, she thundered from the pulpit that abortion, all abortion, anytime up through birth, is essentially good, including her own two abortions, for which, she assured everyone, she “felt no guilt, no shame, no sin.”
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Memorization and recitation became part of my life through a club I was part of in middle and high school. With the club, I had the opportunity to recite patriotic speeches and poems along with chapters from the Bible in front of an audience of veterans, law enforcement officers, and first responders just about every month. I loved seeing how the words recited touched the people listening.
Almost without fail, after we spoke, adults would come over to thank us, amazed by the fact that we could remember so much and recite it with such confidence. Often, people said something along the lines of “I never thought kids could do that” or “That’s more than I would ever be able to do.”
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Anyone suggesting there is no role for unions in America today might first consider a fact of history: more than a century ago, when oligarchs and the companies they owned had treated workers as if they were livestock, reduced to living in squalid pens with rationed food and water, it was unions that organized these workers to resist. It was unions who gave these workers back their humanity, and negotiated collective bargaining agreements and laws that eliminated child labor, enforced workplace safety, established an 8-hour work day, paid overtime, health benefits, and retirement pensions.
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Target reported Wednesday that it was lowering its sales and profit expectations for the rest of the year, with the company having faced conservative backlash earlier in the quarter over the release of LGBT products for kids, according to Target’s second quarter earnings report.
Target lowered its sales and profit expectations for the rest of the year after its quarterly sales fell for the first time in six years, declining 5.4%, while it announced it expected its share price to clock in between $7.00 to $8.00 as opposed to the previously expected $7.75 to $8.75, according to the earnings report. The decrease in expectations follows backlash from conservatives after the company announced a Pride Month collection in May that included LGBT merchandise marketed to kids.
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The conversation about the new book, The Adversity of Diversity with author and all-star panelist Carol Swain continues in-studio on Wednesday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report. Swain dives into the ‘why’ of her newest work and details how CEO’s and business owners now embroiled in the untenable web of DEI and CRT can escape its grip and return to the core mission of their business. TRANSCRIPT Michael Patrick Leahy: 7:33 AM – broadcasting live from our studios on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee in studio. Aaron Gulbransen, the Executive Director of the Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition; and our very good friend, former professor at Vanderbilt University, all-star panelists here on The Tennessee Star Report and author of new book, The Adversity of Diversity. Carol, you were talking during the break about how our listeners can help move you towards The New York Times bestseller list. What’s the best way for them to do that? Carol Swain: The best way to do that is to purchase the book at an independent bookstore. Amazon doesn’t count and unfortunately, Christian bookstores don’t count – and this is only for the first week or so. It’s important to get orders from all…
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Author and all-star panelist Dr. Carol M. Swain joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to introduce listeners to her brand-new book: The Adversity of Diversity: How Real Unity Training can Promote Healing in a Post-Affirmative Action World. TRANSCRIPT Michael Patrick Leahy: 7:18 AM; in studio, the executive director of Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition, Aaron Gulbransen; and our very good friend, all-star panelist friend – longtime friend – former Vanderbilt professor, esteemed colleague, Carol Swain. Good morning, Carol. Carol Swain: Good morning. Always. It’s a pleasure to be here. Michael Patrick Leahy: It’s always great to see you. You have a new book out? Carol Swain: I do. And the official release state is today and the title is, The Adversity of Diversity: How Real Unity Training can Promote Healing in a Post-Affirmative Action World. Michael Patrick Leahy: What a great title – and so needed. Alan Dershowitz wrote the foreword on this. Carol Swain: He did, and I should mention that my friend Mike Towle is the collaborator. So he, I had a co-author with the book because we had to get it out very quickly. And the book is important. You know I have –…
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An increasing number of restaurants and bars across the country are keeping a stock of Naloxone, an antidote to fentanyl and opioid overdoses, according to The New York Times.
Local officials and nonprofit organizations are ramping up efforts to more bars and restaurants as overdoses become all too common in public spaces, according to the NYT. Between February 2022 and February 2023, there were more than 105,000 reported drug overdoses in the U.S., according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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In Wisconsin, a group of parents are expressing outrage over what they believe to be injuries caused to their daughters due to a “transgender” athlete participating in their sports practice.
According to Fox News, the parents said that their daughters have begun coming home from practice with bruises and welts that they had never seen before. Due to confidentiality concerns, the parents have not yet revealed which school their daughters attend, nor which sport they play. All that is known for now is that they are located somewhere in the Green Bay Area Public School District.
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Ohio Republican Rep. Max Miller on Tuesday issued an apology after a heated Twitter exchange in which he appeared to condemn an activist in hist state for expressing a basic statement of her Christian faith.
“I posted something earlier that conveyed a message I did not intend. I will not try to hide my mistake or run from it. I sincerely apologize to Lizzie and to everyone who read my post,” Miller stated. He did not clarify what his intended message was.
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According to a large survey of high school graduates, the share of young men identifying as conservative is rapidly increasing compared to previous decades. The left loves to trumpet their successes with “the youth vote”, but the reality is there is a growing gender gap that will have broad-reaching political implications for decades to come.
New research from the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future survey of 12th grade high school students shows just how vast the gender partisan gap has grown among young men and women.
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Two affiliated Catholic colleges in Minnesota adopted a policy for the new academic year allowing “non-binary, gender-fluid, and gender-nonconforming individuals” to enroll in a men’s or women’s college based on the sex with which they identify.
The colleges’ previous policy only explicitly referred to “transgender” students, except in a “frequently asked question” that noted non-binary students must “consistently live and identify” as either a man or a woman.
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Gov. Glenn Youngkin is leading a ‘Parents Matter’ town hall tour across the commonwealth to engage Virginia parents on crucial issues impacting youth.
The tour began over a month ago in Salem, and since then, the governor has spoken at Bristow, Richmond and Fredericksburg – areas that lean heavily Democratic.
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A concerned parent shared a photo with The Tennessee Star this week depicting an LGBT pride flag at Dan Mills Elementary School in Nashville, which he said is on display for children as young as four years old.
The pride flag is emblazoned with the words “MNPS for All,” and hangs above a poster that breaks students into groups by race and sexual orientation, noting that each group is “loved.”
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The Mission America Foundation, chaired by Aaron Spradlin, engages in search and rescue operations and many other efforts on the ground in the middle of hairy situations in order to save life and liberty from the modern-day slavery known as child and human trafficking.
This puts the individuals who work with them squarely in the physical crosshairs of murderous gangs, cartels, Chinese mafia, and corrupt politicians.
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A class action status has now been granted to a lawsuit alleging that Arizona’s laws concerning the alteration of birth certificates discriminate against transgender individuals, especially minors.
The lawsuit was originally filed against Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) on behalf of three Arizona families, and the court’s decision means its eventual ruling will now “apply to all transgender individuals born in Arizona” who wish to change their birth certificate to reflect their chosen gender identity.
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Presidential candidate and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called out President Joe Biden for opposing efforts to protect parental rights while ignoring his own granddaughter on Saturday at the Iowa State Fair.
DeSantis slammed Democrats for seeing parents as a roadblock to “indoctrination” in the school system during his Fair-Side Chat in Iowa, making a jab at Biden for taking “four and a half years to acknowledge” his granddaughter, Navy Joan Roberts. Biden opposed Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” bill, which bars discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade or “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards,” when DeSantis signed it into law in March 2022.
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The following is a condensed version of “One Generation Passeth Away, and Another Cometh” by Sam Negus, published at Law & Liberty.
Three millennia ago, King Solomon wrote that “folly is bound up in the heart of a child.” It has ever been thus: the rueful old lament the apparent decadence of the young. In her new book Generations, social scientist Jean Twenge suggests an obvious explanation for this ageless trend: “It might be because they [are] always right. With technology making life progressively less physically taxing, each generation is softer…”
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A Catholic Massachusetts couple filed a federal lawsuit this week that makes the claim they were rejected as potential foster parents because of their faith beliefs about marriage and sexuality.
The couple, Mike and Kitty Burke of Southampton, said in their complaint they were told by a state employee of the Department of Children and Families (DCF) their religious beliefs conflict with the state’s policy requiring them to affirm same-sex relationships and gender ideology.
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Knoxville’s utility company, Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB), announced this week that its fiber internet has expanded to more than 4,100 South Knoxville homes and businesses.
KUB Fiber, a municipally-run broadband network, is the largest municipal fiber network in the nation, approved unanimously by the Knoxville City Council in 2021. The project, worth over $700 million, is expected to expand over the next seven years and install approximately 5,000 miles of fiber.
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Pope Francis is warning about the possible adverse effects of artificial intelligence and the need to monitor the technology in his message for World Day of Peace.
The cautionary message came Tuesday when the Vatican released the theme of the pope’s message for World Day of Peace, which is Sept. 21.
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It is popularly held that the younger generations are becoming increasingly liberal while conservatives dominate the older demographics. While this tends to be true, a recent survey conducted on seniors in high school demonstrates nuances.
The University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future survey found that young girls are driving the youthful push toward liberalism, while boys are increasingly becoming far more likely to identify as conservative.
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Suicide deaths in the United States hit an all-time high in 2022, increasing about 2.6% to 49,449 deaths last year.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the provisional estimates on Thursday.
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The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) stated Thursday in a press release it opposes the decision by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to reaffirm transgender medical interventions for children and teens, but supports AAP’s claim it will be reviewing the latest evidence pertaining to the highly controversial treatments.
Last week, AAP reaffirmed its support for providing children and teens with transgender hormones and surgeries – called “gender-affirming care” by the transgender medical industry – while it simultaneously announced it would review medical research on the life-altering treatments.
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Over 25 million pounds of invasive carp have been removed by commercial harvest since 2018 in five Tennessee reservoirs, according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA).
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National Catholic leaders said the FBI’s probe of Catholics, as revealed by documents obtained by the House Judiciary Committee, went far beyond a so-called rogue agent in a single field office in Richmond, as was explained in testimony by agency Director Christopher Wray.
The leaders of Catholic civil rights groups reacted to a letter to Wray sent Wednesday by Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government Chairman Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), who informed the FBI director evidence obtained by the Judiciary Committee shows the agency’s “assessment of traditional Catholics as potential domestic terrorists” was developed through information obtained “from around the country,” rather than from an isolated source.
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Smartphones are the new cigarettes: They should not be in the hands of children.
Conservatives often hesitate to use the force of government to ban something, even if it is clearly harmful. Avoid the nanny state, let the free market handle it, and so on. But what if we have a crisis?
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Anti-life groups promoting abortion-on-demand in Arizona announced Tuesday they will seek to amend the state’s constitution to enshrine a right to abortion in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn Roe v. Wade.
A new political action committee (PAC) that calls itself Arizona for Abortion Access filed to collect signatures with the goal of getting the Arizona Abortion Access Act on the ballot in 2024, KTARNews reported.
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The City of Atlanta has the second most generous indoor and outdoor living spaces out of the 50 largest U.S. cities, according to recent research analyzed by online nationwide self-storage search website StorageCafe.
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The Arizona Board of Regents announced Tuesday the state’s public universities have ended the use of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) statements in job hirings in the wake of an exposé by the Goldwater Institute that showed the taxpayer-funded schools were using unconstitutional political litmus tests to screen out conservative-leaning candidates.
A report Tuesday at Arizona Republic said the state’s public universities “have dropped the use of diversity, equity and inclusion statements in job applications, a move that follows demands by the conservative Goldwater Institute.”
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The City of Nashville has the most generous yard sizes of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, according to recent research analyzed by online nationwide self-storage search website StorageCafe.
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More than a dozen communities across the state participated in Brave Books’ first annual “See You at the Library” event over the weekend, a national movement to “bring traditional Christian and American values back into the public space,” local event organizers told Alpha News.
“When we saw Brave Books was looking for people to host story hours at their local libraries, we thought it would be an awesome way to connect with the community, educate parents how low our literacy rates are, and bring an hour of fun to families right in their local library,” said Britni Granquist with Dakota County Moms for Liberty, which helped organize five story hours across the south metro attracting more than 600 attendees.
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The faith-based film Jesus Revolution soared to popularity on the big screen in early 2023, and now has become an immediate hit on Netflix, landing in the streaming service’s Top 10 in the United States.
The film, which first hit theaters February 24, debuted on Netflix on July 31 and, by the next morning, was ranked in the number 8 spot of the top 10 movies viewed in the United States, reported What to Watch.
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National pro-life leader and former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson spelled out Sunday what could await pregnant teens in Ohio should a proposed constitutional amendment allow them to obtain abortions without parental consent.
Johnson spoke to a large crowd at a Rosary Rally, organized by Catholics for Catholics, to encourage Ohioans to vote “yes” on Issue 1 on Tuesday.
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The Sound of Freedom is a wonderful and eye-opening movie. We’ve constantly urged people to see the movie and if you haven’t yet, go grab your tickets to see it right now.
For many, it has become similar to the Sinner’s Prayer moment in the life of a Christian.
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At least 408,000 students without legal documentation to be in the country enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities, yet another system impacted by the surge in illegal immigration, according to a new study.
The new report by the American Immigration Council and the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education, found that undocumented migrants now account for nearly 2 percent of the higher education population.
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The national unemployment rate dipped to 3.5 percent in July, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, once again hitting more than 50-year lows.
It’s still peak employment as far as the eye can see. Even with the past two years’ high inflation dropping dramatically and disinflation usually correlating with higher unemployment and a recession, that simply has not occurred yet, despite all the warning signs typically associated with an economic slowdown or downturn.
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The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is gaining steam in recent years and has been pushing the Democratic Party to the left, particularly in deep blue cities, advocating for policies that even moderate Democrats disagree with.
Democratic Socialists make up the left flank of the Democratic Party, supporting abolishing prisons, aggressive climate policies, rent controls and radical racial equity policies, according to the Democratic Socialist website. They’ve been aggressively adding to their membership over the past few years, as well as gaining ground in key deep blue cities such as New York City, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, calling for radical policy changes and opposing mainstream Democrats.
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Why are the most radical groups in America, from BLM to the ACLU, suddenly so enthused about politics in Ohio?
After all, Ohio is a generally traditional, center-right state. But these leftists now seek to abuse the process of representative government in Ohio by compelling binding state constitutional referendums in lower turnout election cycles to inflict liberal policies that would never survive the normal lawmaking process.
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Alpha News journalist Sheila Qualls recently hosted a townhall panel discussion on the failures of Minnesota’s public education system.
Qualls is the host of the podcast “Trapped!: Chaos in the Classroom,” in which she investigates the public school system in Minnesota through interviews with students, parents, teachers, administrators, and school board members.
The townhall panel she hosted consisted of retired teachers, a school board member, a current private school educator, and a parents group director.
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An LGBTQ activist organization awarded more than 70 public and charter schools throughout the U.S. and Canada thousands of dollars to promote gender ideology, support “Gender Sexuality Alliance” (GSA) clubs and put on Pride Week celebrations, according to the group’s website.
Throughout 2023, the “It Gets Better Project” has awarded at least 56 U.S. and 15 Canadian public and charter schools $10,000 each for a total of $625,000 in grants to fund LGBTQ initiatives, according to the organization’s website. Some school districts throughout the country are using the grants they received to fund “gender transition closets” and work with with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group that describes itself as a “leading-edge Order of queer and trans nuns,” to take transgender students “back-to-school shopping.”
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Elon Musk says that his fight with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be live-streamed on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter that Musk owns.
“Zuck v Musk fight will be live-streamed on 𝕏. All proceeds will go to charity for veterans,” Musk wrote on X early Sunday morning.
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Legendary singer, actress and philanthropist Dolly Parton is coming to Washington state to celebrate the expansion to every county of her Imagination Library program, which provides books to children ages 5 and younger.
While in the Evergreen State on Aug. 15, she will hold a fireside chat, perform and recognize those who helped the initiative cover the entire state, according to a Wednesday news release from Imagination Library.
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A nonprofit organization is launching a new historical theme park to bring American history to life and to reveal some inspiring stories that counter the Left’s narrative that the nation’s promise does not apply to women and racial minorities.
“Youth today are in the middle of an educational firestorm,” Dennis Leavitt, chief executive officer of the nonprofit United We Pledge, told The Daily Signal. He said his organization, based in St. George, Utah, aims to “light a fire in youth that causes them to become better Americans” through the project, known as Liberty Village.
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The media has been full of headlines declaring how hot July was in Phoenix. The media reported multiple heat records broken in July, including the number of days above 110 degrees. Articles point to “climate change” as the reason. However, most accounts omitted key details, failing to provide the full context.
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The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) reaffirmed its support Thursday for providing children with transgender hormones and surgeries – so-called “gender-affirming care” – at the same time it announced a review of medical research on the life-altering treatments.
The medical organization reaffirmed its 2018 position on the provision of the hormone drugs and surgeries to young people who say they are uncomfortable with their biological sex.
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Foundation for Freedom Online Executive Director Mike Benz breaks down exactly how Big Tech, Big Government, and the Deep State are working together to impose speech restrictions on the people of the United States and across the globe.
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An organization of faithful Catholics has drawn the nation’s top Catholic speakers to its Ohio prayer rally Sunday to “save children from abortion up to birth and genital mutilation without parental consent,” as allowed by the proposed ballot amendment to the state constitution known as Issue 1.
Catholics for Catholics, a group that helped organize the Los Angeles Dodgers prayer rally to protest the club’s decision to honor the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an anti-Catholic group of queer and transgender “nuns,” has now orchestrated the “Rosary Rally” that seeks to defeat “the diabolical effort to codify abortion-on-demand and genital mutilation in the Ohio State constitution.”
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Hate and fear might as well be the GOP’s motto. And while there was a time when a liberal like me saying that would be accurately labeled hyperbolic, that time has passed. Show me what, aside from hate and fear, the modern Republican Party is all about.
Columnist Rex Huppke, writing for USA Today, July 16, 2023
Huppke’s comment is something we hear all the time. The campaign to dehumanize MAGA Republicans as hatemongers and fearmongers is a staple of the liberal media, is the playbook for Democrat politicians all the way up to President Biden, and is supported by almost the entire academic community. This dehumanization campaign isn’t restricted to Democrats. Establishment Republicans either equivocate, or explicitly join Democrats in demonizing MAGA Republicans.
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