zlacker

I'd agree there are aspects of how we say things which can reinforce how to react about it, but I don't think that's a good primary way to teach how to engage with polarizing content and certainly not via the way of avoidance of the types of statements bigstrat2003 laid out. I.e. there are very reasonable, particularly historical, examples of belief of potential threats to democracy which turned out to be true, so I don't inherently have a problem with that kind of discussion. I actually think calling that kind of statement as the problem would actually drive more extremism.

At the same time, I do believe there are ways to share such statements while also reinforcing healthy ways to react at the same time. kryogen1c's example ending in "he should be assassinated" crosses the line from bigstrat2003's talk of apocalyptic claims to direct calls to violence about them - the latter of which I agree is bad teaching (but I'd still rather people be encouraged to openly talk about those kinds of statements too, rather than be directly pressured to internalize or echo chamber them).

This is why the first question posed about the statement from kryogen1c was "Who/what is defining assassination as a reasonable response to that threat". The follow on questions were only added to help highlight there is no reasonable answer to that question because it's the call to assassination which is inherently problematic, not the claim someone is a threat to the democracy here. The latter (talking about perceived threats) is good, if not best, to talk about directly and openly. It's the former (calling for assassination about it) which is inherently incompatible with a stable society.