Michael Flynn, recently pardoned, and Trump's very first choice to lead the national security team for the United States, is calling for Trump to impose martial law and have the military conduct a re-vote. Just your run of the mill partisan disagreement I guess, both sides, yada yada yada......
Michael Flynn, recently pardoned, and Trump's very first choice to lead the national security team for the United States, is calling for Trump to impose martial law and have the military conduct a re-vote. Just your run of the mill partisan disagreement I guess, both sides, yada yada yada......
One time, when I was debating a right winger (not on these forums, but elsewhere), he made the surprising argument (at least it was surprising to me) that the reason the United States never had a military coup was due to Second Amendment activism. Basically, having a lot of guns among the civilian population somehow keeps the military in check and prevents them from consolidating a coup.
It's an interesting argument, I must say. I'm not really convinced by it, though. You can't go up against tanks and helicopters with guns and pistols. Well, you can, but you're probably not going to win that encounter.
Michael Flynn, recently pardoned, and Trump's very first choice to lead the national security team for the United States, is calling for Trump to impose martial law and have the military conduct a re-vote. Just your run of the mill partisan disagreement I guess, both sides, yada yada yada......
One time, when I was debating a right winger (not on these forums, but elsewhere), he made the surprising argument (at least it was surprising to me) that the reason the United States never had a military coup was due to Second Amendment activism. Basically, having a lot of guns among the civilian population somehow keeps the military in check and prevents them from consolidating a coup.
It's an interesting argument, I must say. I'm not really convinced by it, though. You can't go up against tanks and helicopters with guns and pistols. Well, you can, but you're probably not going to win that encounter.
I think that's just a way to pat oneself on the back and say, "I'M the reason we have democracy," taking credit for the achievements of an entire nation.
I've always found that kind of faux-macho posturing to be really petty and pathetic.
I think that's just a way to pat oneself on the back and say, "I'M the reason we have democracy," taking credit for the achievements of an entire nation.
I've always found that kind of faux-macho posturing to be really petty and pathetic.
Interestingly enough, when I replied to him that you can't go up against tanks and helicopters with mere rifles and pistols, he mentioned the Viet Cong as an example of how an under-equipped military force may defeat an enemy that has much more resources and firepower.
Never in a million years would I have expected a right winger to use the example of the Viet Cong to defend the core of their argument.
I think an armed population could be able to wear down a military occupation using those kinds of tactics. But let’s face it: if you look at the people who argue for the 2A for this specific reason, they are the ones most likely to support an actual military coup.
I mean, this was NOT a close election. Biden is going to end up winning by almost 8 million votes and 5%. Yeah, the margins in the 5 states we have paid the most attention to were pretty thin. But overall, on a 50 state scale, this is as close to a wipeout as you are going to get in America circa 2020.
Not surprisingly, the size of the Biden victory has only fueled the conspiracy. As I have been saying, the number one reason people give about why they believe the election was stolen from Trump is some variation of "there is no way Biden could have won by that much, he was in his basement the whole campaign."
This is the danger of cutting yourself off from all non-reaffirming news sources. I may not LIKE right-wing media, but I follow it, and watch and listen to it when I can so I know what the other side of the battlefield looks like (I can't do it nearly as much as I used to, where I used to regularly listen to hours of conservative talk during commutes). The ecosystem that started with Limbaugh and FOX has only moved further and further right, and it's become so insulated that these folks are basically a bunch of bubble boys, completely untethered from reality, because they've created their own.
It's incredible how detached society has become in some respects. For example - conservative voters are likely to say "the worst has already passed us" with respect to covid19. We just had 2800 people die yesterday. There are 100,000 hospitalizations due to COVID in the US right now. 40,000 people have died since election day.
It's wild how choice of news source and political belief structure reinforce convenient beliefs that are just so clearly opposed to reality.
It's so much worse than I could have ever imagined, and I dont really have any reason to believe it wont get worse in the future.
It's going to take so long before Biden can do anything concrete, and even then state and local officials on the right are going to resist. Tens of thousands will die in the meantime, and Biden will enter office with the pandemic still raging.
It's going to take so long before Biden can do anything concrete, and even then state and local officials on the right are going to resist. Tens of thousands will die in the meantime, and Biden will enter office with the pandemic still raging.
I thought it would get to 2000 deaths a day. Somehow, we seem to have skipped right over 2100-2500 a day, and gone right to 2800.
This isn't just people dying. Many who survive will have lifelong complications. Nurses are stressed to the breaking point. Even 911 services in certain areas are having trouble keeping up with the calls for ambulances. The economic impact is obvious.
We have no excuse for this ending up as bad as the 1918 pandemic. We have all the benefits of scientific advancements, but more importantly, it's not like we've been forced into our apartments/homes with nothing but a candle and some books for 9 months. We have infinite ways to entertain ourselves that don't involve bars and restaurants. Food can be delivered. Really, ANYTHING can be delivered. And everyone can wear a mask.
We've proven incapable as a society to make decisions for the greater good. The President has made the problem worse, but that's only because the inclination among a certain set of the public was there to exploit to begin with.
Michael Flynn, recently pardoned, and Trump's very first choice to lead the national security team for the United States, is calling for Trump to impose martial law and have the military conduct a re-vote. Just your run of the mill partisan disagreement I guess, both sides, yada yada yada......
One time, when I was debating a right winger (not on these forums, but elsewhere), he made the surprising argument (at least it was surprising to me) that the reason the United States never had a military coup was due to Second Amendment activism. Basically, having a lot of guns among the civilian population somehow keeps the military in check and prevents them from consolidating a coup.
It's an interesting argument, I must say. I'm not really convinced by it, though. You can't go up against tanks and helicopters with guns and pistols. Well, you can, but you're probably not going to win that encounter.
It's going to take so long before Biden can do anything concrete, and even then state and local officials on the right are going to resist. Tens of thousands will die in the meantime, and Biden will enter office with the pandemic still raging.
I thought it would get to 2000 deaths a day. Somehow, we seem to have skipped right over 2100-2500 a day, and gone right to 2800.
Next week is going to be hellish. The two week mark after Thanksgiving is going to be awful.
I actually appreciate the clarity in this moment. It's been obvious for four years, but they all know it themselves. It's just a long list of perceived slights and grievances. And for that, an extra 200,000 people had to die.
What are cucks? I don’t understand, was it an autocorrect gone wrong? What was the word you were looking for?
A cuck is, essentially, a man whose woman cheats on him and he doesn't do anything about it, or, in some cases, enjoys it. It is a derogatory term used mostly online by conservative males as a blanket putdown of liberal males. To imply they are "alpha" and those on the left are "beta". It says more about the mindset and inner turmoil of the people who throw the term out than it does about who they are throwing it at. @smeagolheart is simply turning their language around on them here as it has proved fairly effective in making this and other alt-right buzzwords (see soyboy, libtard, white knight, SJW, and virtue signaling) pretty much laughable if used by someone unironically.
There is truly nothing more ridiculous in the history of modern political discourse than the idea that liberals a.) drink nothing by soy milk (I have never even seen a glass of soy milk, much less drank one) and b.) the idea that there would be anything wrong with it if they did. Generally, anyone who defends a woman in any situation for ANY reason online will get labeled with these terms in the comments. I have to assume most of the people making them are 16-year old boys who have alot of growing up to do. If you're doing it beyond the age of 21, re-examine your life.
Another way to say it: Cuck is short for cuckold. Which is what @jjstraka34 defined.
Just a dumb/weird internet slang pejorative thrown around on 4chan and related websites.
I dont give most online commenters the credit of being only 16 and naïve. I've known entirely too many 50 and 60 somethings that cant help but get baited by facebook comments/articles designed to get a rouse out of them a foment some fictional culture war.
Lol. These GOP fools have only have themselves to blame as one by one, they are all testing positive for COVID-19. They ignored public health recommendations. They politicized masks. They gathered in large numbers and refused to physically distance.
I don't think I have ever seen Rudy Giuliani wear a mask, not one time. The president's lawyer has appeared maskless during meetings that are part of the president's coup attempt to overturn the election results with state officials.
And of course he has to call it the china virus because he's an asshole. It's the Trump virus since he's so pro-virus he's doing everything he can possibly do to make sure Americans get sick.
My great aunt on my dad's side in her 90s has contracted it in her assisted living facility. My uncle on my mom's side who has multiple comorbidities has it as well, which likely means my aunt will get it too. It's absolutely out of control, and I suspect it's about to get even more real for others just like it is for me very shortly. Hard to even put into words the anger at what some portion of the population and the government has done to make this exponentially worse. I thought I'd never be as angry about anything as I was about Iraq. Those now seem like the halcyon days.
The abdication of responsibility is nothing less than manslaughter at this point. Trump hasn't even MENTIONED the virus since the election. And I was assured by every conservative I know the virus would "disappear" after the election. What a pathetic, dangerous state of affairs. Joe Biden is walking into a mine field. The election was only about avoiding total destruction. Everything is still broken almost beyond repair.
My great aunt onnmy dad's side in her 90s has contracted it in her assisted living facility. My uncle one my mom's side who has multiple comorbidities has it as well, which likely means my aunt will get it too. It's absolutely out of control, and I suspect it's about to get even more real for others just like it is for me very shortly. Hard to even put into words the anger at what some portion of the population and the government has done to make this exponentially worse. I thought I'd never be as angry about anything as I was about Iraq. Those now seem like the halcyon days.
The abdication of responsibility is nothing less than manslaughter at this point. Trump hasn't even MENTIONED the virus since the election. And I was assured by every conservative I know the virus would "disappear" after the election. What a pathetic, dangerous state of affairs. Joe Biden is walking into a mine field. The election was only about avoiding total destruction. Everything is still broken almost beyond repair.
And if Dems win both Georgia Senate seats they'll be able to get very little done because they will be held hostage the to whims of Joe Mancin who doesn't want to do anything. If they lose one or both seats then Joe Biden just won't be able to get anything at all done for four years anyway.
We're looking at Joe Biden getting nothing done or Joe Biden getting damn little done.
So for four years we'll have total to only moderate failure while Trump holds rallies across the country inciting violence and ignorance while raking in cash from people so that he can run again in 2024.
My great aunt onnmy dad's side in her 90s has contracted it in her assisted living facility. My uncle one my mom's side who has multiple comorbidities has it as well, which likely means my aunt will get it too. It's absolutely out of control, and I suspect it's about to get even more real for others just like it is for me very shortly. Hard to even put into words the anger at what some portion of the population and the government has done to make this exponentially worse. I thought I'd never be as angry about anything as I was about Iraq. Those now seem like the halcyon days.
The abdication of responsibility is nothing less than manslaughter at this point. Trump hasn't even MENTIONED the virus since the election. And I was assured by every conservative I know the virus would "disappear" after the election. What a pathetic, dangerous state of affairs. Joe Biden is walking into a mine field. The election was only about avoiding total destruction. Everything is still broken almost beyond repair.
And if Dems win both Georgia Senate seats they'll be able to get very little done because they will be held hostage the to whims of Joe Mancin who doesn't want to do anything. If they lose one or both seats then Joe Biden just won't be able to get anything at all done for four years anyway.
We're looking at Joe Biden getting nothing done or Joe Biden getting damn little done.
So for four years we'll have total to only moderate failure while Trump holds rallies across the country inciting violence and ignorance while raking in cash from people so that he can run again in 2024.
An important note -- two years, not four. The Senate map is not favorable looking, atm, for Republicans in 2022.
I know recent midterms have been bad for the party in the presidency. But nothing is guaranteed and who knows if Republicans can mobilize voters without Trump on the ballot.
Just felt it important to highlight that folks shouldn't lose hope. Serious progress has always been hard won. And 2022 will be important. I do agree with your points about Manchin (of course what other Dem could win in WV?)
Right wing radio and TV are gearing up for four years of "stolen election" propaganda.
Obviously, they have no problem lying. What's one more whopper of a lie to them.
Trump will do his harmful rallies sponging money off of fools that absorb this messaging. Right wing media like Limbaugh, Fox and OANN will spread the "stolen election" lie. Why not? People believe what they want to believe and they have been told to hate Democrats and they do. So these hateful people, fed anti-Democrat propaganda, really want to believe that their hero Trump didn't lose the election. People will repeat the lie over and over again and their media echo chambers, unbound by actual integrity or reality, will reinforce this messaging into their credulous brains.
Oh yeah and courts are packed with unqualified radical right politicians picked specifically to hold the country back and transfer more power from people to corporations. If the Republicans get the Senate, while their media continues to lie that Biden "stole the election", why would they be inclined to allow Biden put anyone on the courts at all.
Ross Douthat has a very nuanced and more complex take on the voter fraud conspiracy theories than I've seen elsewhere: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/opinion/sunday/trump-election-fraud.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Normally the explanation for "why do so many people think the election was rigged" is a simple "people see stuff on social media and repeat it if they like it." Douthat discusses the intellectual background of the idea in more depth than other folks.
I'm still not sure what the cure is, though. Douthat himself ends with the depressing idea that he has no real power to refute the conspiracy in the eyes of the folks who believe it, simply because he writes for the New York Times and the believers would assume he's a liberal pawn or something (Douthat is a conservative).
He says that one might be able to shake the conspiracy by undermining its key points, but I'm not confident that that's true. Even if you convince one person (which by itself is a labor-intensive process), they won't repeat the idea to their friends unless it makes them feel good. A refutation of a pro-Trump idea will never go viral in the pro-Trump bubble, and believers neither read nor trust other sources of information.
Why should Trump supporters believe that their guy lost fair and square when it just makes you feel depressed and defeated? Why shouldn't they believe the election was stolen, if it makes them feel like they were right all along?
We spend so much time thinking about facts that we forget that humans actually run on emotions.
Ross Douthat has a very nuanced and more complex take on the voter fraud conspiracy theories than I've seen elsewhere: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/opinion/sunday/trump-election-fraud.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Normally the explanation for "why do so many people think the election was rigged" is a simple "people see stuff on social media and repeat it if they like it." Douthat discusses the intellectual background of the idea in more depth than other folks.
I'm still not sure what the cure is, though. Douthat himself ends with the depressing idea that he has no real power to refute the conspiracy in the eyes of the folks who believe it, simply because he writes for the New York Times and the believers would assume he's a liberal pawn or something (Douthat is a conservative).
He says that one might be able to shake the conspiracy by undermining its key points, but I'm not confident that that's true. Even if you convince one person (which by itself is a labor-intensive process), they won't repeat the idea to their friends unless it makes them feel good. A refutation of a pro-Trump idea will never go viral in the pro-Trump bubble, and believers neither read nor trust other sources of information.
Why should Trump supporters believe that their guy lost fair and square when it just makes you feel depressed and defeated? Why shouldn't they believe the election was stolen, if it makes them feel like they were right all along?
We spend so much time thinking about facts that we forget that humans actually run on emotions.
I was depressed and defeated when the Vikings lost the NFC Championship games in heartbreaking fashion in 1998 and 2009. I didn't deny that the Falcons and Saints actually won. I don't know when dealing with less than ideal news by denying it's existence became a healthy human reflex. But this squares perfectly with that thread by the nurse in SD who says she has seen COVID-19 patients literally go far as to suggest they might have LUNG CANCER rather than admit the virus exists and is going to kill them.
There is a canyon-sized gap between being emotional and completely untethering yourself from reality. Emotion for me (in the above case) was ripping down my Vikings banner in my room in 1998 and not watching any sports TV for the next two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl I was positive we were going to be in. Everyone needs to throw a fit every once in awhile. This is not that. Because the people who believe Trump won the election and also think COVID-19 is either a hoax or overplayed are a circular venn diagram. We can call it an American problem if we like, but, buy and large, it's a CONSERVATIVE American problem. Because they've been pumping raw sewage into their brain and calling it "news" for over 3 decades. This is the result.
But aside from all that, this country is just incredibly dumb, collectively, divorced from any politics whatsoever. It's basically a population that has willfully and happily lobotomized itself, and I honestly spend alot of time wondering how society even functions on a day to day basis.
And really, since it's so prominent in our culture, we can use my above sports analogy to extrapolate a bit here. When someone's team loses a game, you will frequently see a SIZABLE portion of that fan base blame EVERY loss on the refs. I glance at a Vikings game thread comment section while watching the game most weeks, and the amount of posts that insinuate there is any ongoing conspiracy against the team being carried out by referees on a weekly basis is pretty hefty.
He says that one might be able to shake the conspiracy by undermining its key points, but I'm not confident that that's true.
It wouldn't work. By the time you refute the key points, he'll have made 1000 more claims that are lies. Trump's method of propaganda is not consistent. It doesn't have to be. That's how you can look at something he says today and it be the complete opposite of what he said an hour ago and his supporters will buy into both positions. That's why it's hard to get a good press secretary because he doesn't have any positions, he says whatever he thinks he needs to say to get through the next five minutes.
He uses the Firehose of Falsehood propaganda technique
The firehose of falsehood, or firehosing, is a propaganda technique in which a large number of messages are broadcast rapidly, repetitively, and continuously over multiple channels (such as news and social media) without regard for truth or consistency.
You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic. - Robert A. Heinlein
It's like whack a mole. You know down one lie and a dozen more come up. Also he'll never admit he was lying or wrong even in the face of reality. So you've disproven one thing in the meantime he's lied a dozen more lies AND won't admit the original lie was wrong, he'll just keep lying about it anyway.
What's this mean to his supporters? They buy him. They believe in him, not what he says. They believe what he says sure but they don't care if it's different than what he said 5 minutes ago. It's a cult of personality.
A long time ago I read that people will believe a claim more if they simply hear it repeated more often. Maybe it's a mechanism that helps people absorb accepted wisdom faster, but it also means that political messaging can become convincing through sheer force of repetition.
And campaign donations let you pay to repeat a message on the TV and flood the homes of millions of people with whatever you want them to believe. You can actually pay to change people's beliefs.
A long time ago I read that people will believe a claim more if they simply hear it repeated more often. Maybe it's a mechanism that helps people absorb accepted wisdom faster, but it also means that political messaging can become convincing through sheer force of repetition.
And campaign donations let you pay to repeat a message on the TV and flood the homes of millions of people with whatever you want them to believe. You can actually pay to change people's beliefs.
Conservative media understands this at it's very core. For decades, the agenda each day was essentially set by Roger Ailes and Limbaugh, and the rest would follow suit. Ailes is gone and Limbaugh is likely following shortly, but the lesson got through. Hammer home 2 or 3 topics a day, and just repeat the key phrases over and over and over again on every show around the country. This is why buzzwords like "Benghazi", "Solyndra", "Fast and Furious" and now, at long last, "Dominion" become scandals in and of themselves. Most people who repeat them couldn't tell you what the controversy is actually about.
As you mentioned, just hearing the words are meant to provoke an emotional response. All any of them actually mean is "liberals are evil and must be stopped by any means necessary". And we now know that "any means necessary" literally means the end of democracy if need be. I saw a clip of a fairly popular MAGA Youtuber on Right Wing Watch today, and his message to liberals was to prepare for four years of Trump whether they like it or not. The entire point of his argument seemed to be insinuating "it doesn't matter who gets the most votes, it matters whose side is more willing to kill people to stay in power". I realize 99.9% of this is people being blowhards (if you went by Youtube comment sections you'd think war had already broken out in the streets). But it only takes one or two guys.
The repetition point really is key. I share the same concern about how you can possibly persuade so many people who believe in disinformation. There's a subset that can be reached imo. There's also a subset that simply cannot be.
It's not a mere short term repetition, such as Trump's recent assertions about the election. It's multi-decade long project that has come to fruition. Tens of millions of Americans who refuse to trust any information that comes from CNN, NYT, NPR or really any non-conservative outlet. I just don't think you can expect to combat certain levels of entrenchment.
At the end of the day, the only solution I can offer is the slow, arduous, and unpleasant work of winning elections.
Comments
One time, when I was debating a right winger (not on these forums, but elsewhere), he made the surprising argument (at least it was surprising to me) that the reason the United States never had a military coup was due to Second Amendment activism. Basically, having a lot of guns among the civilian population somehow keeps the military in check and prevents them from consolidating a coup.
It's an interesting argument, I must say. I'm not really convinced by it, though. You can't go up against tanks and helicopters with guns and pistols. Well, you can, but you're probably not going to win that encounter.
I've always found that kind of faux-macho posturing to be really petty and pathetic.
Interestingly enough, when I replied to him that you can't go up against tanks and helicopters with mere rifles and pistols, he mentioned the Viet Cong as an example of how an under-equipped military force may defeat an enemy that has much more resources and firepower.
Never in a million years would I have expected a right winger to use the example of the Viet Cong to defend the core of their argument.
Ba dum tiss.
Poor girl but she chose to be a part of this shit show.
Not surprisingly, the size of the Biden victory has only fueled the conspiracy. As I have been saying, the number one reason people give about why they believe the election was stolen from Trump is some variation of "there is no way Biden could have won by that much, he was in his basement the whole campaign."
This is the danger of cutting yourself off from all non-reaffirming news sources. I may not LIKE right-wing media, but I follow it, and watch and listen to it when I can so I know what the other side of the battlefield looks like (I can't do it nearly as much as I used to, where I used to regularly listen to hours of conservative talk during commutes). The ecosystem that started with Limbaugh and FOX has only moved further and further right, and it's become so insulated that these folks are basically a bunch of bubble boys, completely untethered from reality, because they've created their own.
It's wild how choice of news source and political belief structure reinforce convenient beliefs that are just so clearly opposed to reality.
It's so much worse than I could have ever imagined, and I dont really have any reason to believe it wont get worse in the future.
I thought it would get to 2000 deaths a day. Somehow, we seem to have skipped right over 2100-2500 a day, and gone right to 2800.
This isn't just people dying. Many who survive will have lifelong complications. Nurses are stressed to the breaking point. Even 911 services in certain areas are having trouble keeping up with the calls for ambulances. The economic impact is obvious.
We have no excuse for this ending up as bad as the 1918 pandemic. We have all the benefits of scientific advancements, but more importantly, it's not like we've been forced into our apartments/homes with nothing but a candle and some books for 9 months. We have infinite ways to entertain ourselves that don't involve bars and restaurants. Food can be delivered. Really, ANYTHING can be delivered. And everyone can wear a mask.
We've proven incapable as a society to make decisions for the greater good. The President has made the problem worse, but that's only because the inclination among a certain set of the public was there to exploit to begin with.
Also, drones.
Next week is going to be hellish. The two week mark after Thanksgiving is going to be awful.
These people might not be around to vote in January.
Also he's taking names (lol) of the 25 Republicans who ARE NOT cucks and congratulated Joe Biden.
The rest of Congressional Republicans are too pathetic and weak to admit that Trump lost the election. Cowards.
Republicans are dangerous cowards trying to destroy America. This is not hyperbole. Trump lost and he's pressuring state Republicans to overturn the election. This is a coup.
I actually appreciate the clarity in this moment. It's been obvious for four years, but they all know it themselves. It's just a long list of perceived slights and grievances. And for that, an extra 200,000 people had to die.
What are cucks? I don’t understand, was it an autocorrect gone wrong? What was the word you were looking for?
A cuck is, essentially, a man whose woman cheats on him and he doesn't do anything about it, or, in some cases, enjoys it. It is a derogatory term used mostly online by conservative males as a blanket putdown of liberal males. To imply they are "alpha" and those on the left are "beta". It says more about the mindset and inner turmoil of the people who throw the term out than it does about who they are throwing it at. @smeagolheart is simply turning their language around on them here as it has proved fairly effective in making this and other alt-right buzzwords (see soyboy, libtard, white knight, SJW, and virtue signaling) pretty much laughable if used by someone unironically.
There is truly nothing more ridiculous in the history of modern political discourse than the idea that liberals a.) drink nothing by soy milk (I have never even seen a glass of soy milk, much less drank one) and b.) the idea that there would be anything wrong with it if they did. Generally, anyone who defends a woman in any situation for ANY reason online will get labeled with these terms in the comments. I have to assume most of the people making them are 16-year old boys who have alot of growing up to do. If you're doing it beyond the age of 21, re-examine your life.
Just a dumb/weird internet slang pejorative thrown around on 4chan and related websites.
I dont give most online commenters the credit of being only 16 and naïve. I've known entirely too many 50 and 60 somethings that cant help but get baited by facebook comments/articles designed to get a rouse out of them a foment some fictional culture war.
I don't think I have ever seen Rudy Giuliani wear a mask, not one time. The president's lawyer has appeared maskless during meetings that are part of the president's coup attempt to overturn the election results with state officials.
And of course he has to call it the china virus because he's an asshole. It's the Trump virus since he's so pro-virus he's doing everything he can possibly do to make sure Americans get sick.
The abdication of responsibility is nothing less than manslaughter at this point. Trump hasn't even MENTIONED the virus since the election. And I was assured by every conservative I know the virus would "disappear" after the election. What a pathetic, dangerous state of affairs. Joe Biden is walking into a mine field. The election was only about avoiding total destruction. Everything is still broken almost beyond repair.
And if Dems win both Georgia Senate seats they'll be able to get very little done because they will be held hostage the to whims of Joe Mancin who doesn't want to do anything. If they lose one or both seats then Joe Biden just won't be able to get anything at all done for four years anyway.
We're looking at Joe Biden getting nothing done or Joe Biden getting damn little done.
So for four years we'll have total to only moderate failure while Trump holds rallies across the country inciting violence and ignorance while raking in cash from people so that he can run again in 2024.
An important note -- two years, not four. The Senate map is not favorable looking, atm, for Republicans in 2022.
I know recent midterms have been bad for the party in the presidency. But nothing is guaranteed and who knows if Republicans can mobilize voters without Trump on the ballot.
Just felt it important to highlight that folks shouldn't lose hope. Serious progress has always been hard won. And 2022 will be important. I do agree with your points about Manchin (of course what other Dem could win in WV?)
Obviously, they have no problem lying. What's one more whopper of a lie to them.
Trump will do his harmful rallies sponging money off of fools that absorb this messaging. Right wing media like Limbaugh, Fox and OANN will spread the "stolen election" lie. Why not? People believe what they want to believe and they have been told to hate Democrats and they do. So these hateful people, fed anti-Democrat propaganda, really want to believe that their hero Trump didn't lose the election. People will repeat the lie over and over again and their media echo chambers, unbound by actual integrity or reality, will reinforce this messaging into their credulous brains.
Oh yeah and courts are packed with unqualified radical right politicians picked specifically to hold the country back and transfer more power from people to corporations. If the Republicans get the Senate, while their media continues to lie that Biden "stole the election", why would they be inclined to allow Biden put anyone on the courts at all.
This country is so screwed.
Normally the explanation for "why do so many people think the election was rigged" is a simple "people see stuff on social media and repeat it if they like it." Douthat discusses the intellectual background of the idea in more depth than other folks.
I'm still not sure what the cure is, though. Douthat himself ends with the depressing idea that he has no real power to refute the conspiracy in the eyes of the folks who believe it, simply because he writes for the New York Times and the believers would assume he's a liberal pawn or something (Douthat is a conservative).
He says that one might be able to shake the conspiracy by undermining its key points, but I'm not confident that that's true. Even if you convince one person (which by itself is a labor-intensive process), they won't repeat the idea to their friends unless it makes them feel good. A refutation of a pro-Trump idea will never go viral in the pro-Trump bubble, and believers neither read nor trust other sources of information.
Why should Trump supporters believe that their guy lost fair and square when it just makes you feel depressed and defeated? Why shouldn't they believe the election was stolen, if it makes them feel like they were right all along?
We spend so much time thinking about facts that we forget that humans actually run on emotions.
I was depressed and defeated when the Vikings lost the NFC Championship games in heartbreaking fashion in 1998 and 2009. I didn't deny that the Falcons and Saints actually won. I don't know when dealing with less than ideal news by denying it's existence became a healthy human reflex. But this squares perfectly with that thread by the nurse in SD who says she has seen COVID-19 patients literally go far as to suggest they might have LUNG CANCER rather than admit the virus exists and is going to kill them.
There is a canyon-sized gap between being emotional and completely untethering yourself from reality. Emotion for me (in the above case) was ripping down my Vikings banner in my room in 1998 and not watching any sports TV for the next two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl I was positive we were going to be in. Everyone needs to throw a fit every once in awhile. This is not that. Because the people who believe Trump won the election and also think COVID-19 is either a hoax or overplayed are a circular venn diagram. We can call it an American problem if we like, but, buy and large, it's a CONSERVATIVE American problem. Because they've been pumping raw sewage into their brain and calling it "news" for over 3 decades. This is the result.
But aside from all that, this country is just incredibly dumb, collectively, divorced from any politics whatsoever. It's basically a population that has willfully and happily lobotomized itself, and I honestly spend alot of time wondering how society even functions on a day to day basis.
And really, since it's so prominent in our culture, we can use my above sports analogy to extrapolate a bit here. When someone's team loses a game, you will frequently see a SIZABLE portion of that fan base blame EVERY loss on the refs. I glance at a Vikings game thread comment section while watching the game most weeks, and the amount of posts that insinuate there is any ongoing conspiracy against the team being carried out by referees on a weekly basis is pretty hefty.
It wouldn't work. By the time you refute the key points, he'll have made 1000 more claims that are lies. Trump's method of propaganda is not consistent. It doesn't have to be. That's how you can look at something he says today and it be the complete opposite of what he said an hour ago and his supporters will buy into both positions. That's why it's hard to get a good press secretary because he doesn't have any positions, he says whatever he thinks he needs to say to get through the next five minutes.
He uses the Firehose of Falsehood propaganda technique
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood
It's like whack a mole. You know down one lie and a dozen more come up. Also he'll never admit he was lying or wrong even in the face of reality. So you've disproven one thing in the meantime he's lied a dozen more lies AND won't admit the original lie was wrong, he'll just keep lying about it anyway.
What's this mean to his supporters? They buy him. They believe in him, not what he says. They believe what he says sure but they don't care if it's different than what he said 5 minutes ago. It's a cult of personality.
And campaign donations let you pay to repeat a message on the TV and flood the homes of millions of people with whatever you want them to believe. You can actually pay to change people's beliefs.
Conservative media understands this at it's very core. For decades, the agenda each day was essentially set by Roger Ailes and Limbaugh, and the rest would follow suit. Ailes is gone and Limbaugh is likely following shortly, but the lesson got through. Hammer home 2 or 3 topics a day, and just repeat the key phrases over and over and over again on every show around the country. This is why buzzwords like "Benghazi", "Solyndra", "Fast and Furious" and now, at long last, "Dominion" become scandals in and of themselves. Most people who repeat them couldn't tell you what the controversy is actually about.
As you mentioned, just hearing the words are meant to provoke an emotional response. All any of them actually mean is "liberals are evil and must be stopped by any means necessary". And we now know that "any means necessary" literally means the end of democracy if need be. I saw a clip of a fairly popular MAGA Youtuber on Right Wing Watch today, and his message to liberals was to prepare for four years of Trump whether they like it or not. The entire point of his argument seemed to be insinuating "it doesn't matter who gets the most votes, it matters whose side is more willing to kill people to stay in power". I realize 99.9% of this is people being blowhards (if you went by Youtube comment sections you'd think war had already broken out in the streets). But it only takes one or two guys.
It's not a mere short term repetition, such as Trump's recent assertions about the election. It's multi-decade long project that has come to fruition. Tens of millions of Americans who refuse to trust any information that comes from CNN, NYT, NPR or really any non-conservative outlet. I just don't think you can expect to combat certain levels of entrenchment.
At the end of the day, the only solution I can offer is the slow, arduous, and unpleasant work of winning elections.