OK, I think we’re done here. Apparently, we do not have a shared understanding of what “were told *by the right and left* their country is a dumpster fire” means.

An authoritarian cult is furiously dismantling our government. It’s irresponsible to assert that rhetorical excesses from the left and right are equally to blame.

I am of course aware of both of those phenomena. I don’t dispute that some people on the “left” say irresponsible things. My original objection was to your both sides-ism. Trump repeatedly trashed the US. Harris never did. No one of any stature on the left ever spoke as negatively as Trump.

I also know a lot of people, some of whom say silly things, but I don’t use the limited pool of my acquaintance to make sweeping, evidence-free generalizations about American politics.

Come on, Brian, it’s a huge exaggeration to claim that the left and right are equally responsible for the depth of misinformation circulating in this country. What figure on the left, of any real stature, has used the same rhetoric as Trump in trashing the US?