The Right-Wing Disinformation Machine

[RedDenver]

28 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

@JJ Husker @RedDenver

 

The problem is, this all is working like a cult. 
 

It starts with simply constantly watching Fox news telling them all other news outlets are lying to you. Then, you get wound up in Hannity and Tucker. From there, you start searching the internet and find people like Shapiro. Then, it’s someone else that’s  worse….then someone else. 
 

The early ones, say just enough that’s true to draw you in and build a fantasy around it. Each level gets more and more outrageous. 
 

Honestly, it’s so systematic, that it seems planned out. I’ve started wondering, if that’s the case, who really is behind it?  If you step back, you see who the players are. But, who is the wizard behind the curtain that pulls people like @Notre Dame Joe further and further in?  This all started as early as the late 80s. 

 

Im beginning to believe it’s people outside our government. The Republican politicians are just power hungry people who partly have gone down this hole and also, now don’t have a choice because their base is so in to it. Sad thing is, now we see people like MTG and Kari Lake that are full throttle into it. 
 

But who?  Have to admit, I’m becoming less and less positive about America’s future. That makes me sad when I think of my children…and their children. Our generation has really f#&%ed things up. 

I think it's mostly people within our country who simply want power and influence.

[JJ Husker]

48 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

@JJ Husker @RedDenver

 

The problem is, this all is working like a cult. 
 

It starts with simply constantly watching Fox news telling them all other news outlets are lying to you. Then, you get wound up in Hannity and Tucker. From there, you start searching the internet and find people like Shapiro. Then, it’s someone else that’s  worse….then someone else. 
 

The early ones, say just enough that’s true to draw you in and build a fantasy around it. Each level gets more and more outrageous. 
 

Honestly, it’s so systematic, that it seems planned out. I’ve started wondering, if that’s the case, who really is behind it?  If you step back, you see who the players are. But, who is the wizard behind the curtain that pulls people like @Notre Dame Joe further and further in?  This all started as early as the late 80s. 

 

Im beginning to believe it’s people outside our government. The Republican politicians are just power hungry people who partly have gone down this hole and also, now don’t have a choice because their base is so in to it. Sad thing is, now we see people like MTG and Kari Lake that are full throttle into it. 
 

But who?  Have to admit, I’m becoming less and less positive about America’s future. That makes me sad when I think of my children…and their children. Our generation has really f#&%ed things up. 

I agree with all of this but a minimal amount of smarts and fact checking would seem to solve the whole problem. At some point people need to be responsible for what they will believe. There’s a lot of BS out there for sure, so much that it does make you wonder, but it shouldn’t be that difficult to sniff it out. What concerns me more is the lack of critical thinking than some big boogie man pulling the strings.

[Danny Bateman]

2 hours ago, JJ Husker said:

I agree with all of this but a minimal amount of smarts and fact checking would seem to solve the whole problem. At some point people need to be responsible for what they will believe. There’s a lot of BS out there for sure, so much that it does make you wonder, but it shouldn’t be that difficult to sniff it out. What concerns me more is the lack of critical thinking than some big boogie man pulling the strings.

 

Lucky for us, dismantling a rigorous education system that fosters critical thinking is also a core tenet of the GOP platform!

[funhusker]

3 hours ago, JJ Husker said:

I agree with all of this but a minimal amount of smarts and fact checking would seem to solve the whole problem. At some point people need to be responsible for what they will believe. There’s a lot of BS out there for sure, so much that it does make you wonder, but it shouldn’t be that difficult to sniff it out. What concerns me more is the lack of critical thinking than some big boogie man pulling the strings.

An overwhelming number of Americans believe a man that died 2000 years ago rose from the dead and is going to come back to Earth and turn it into a perfect world.  Just because someone they trusted told them this.

 

Humans aren’t as smart as we think we are.

[BigRedBuster]

3 hours ago, JJ Husker said:

I agree with all of this but a minimal amount of smarts and fact checking would seem to solve the whole problem. At some point people need to be responsible for what they will believe. There’s a lot of BS out there for sure, so much that it does make you wonder, but it shouldn’t be that difficult to sniff it out. What concerns me more is the lack of critical thinking than some big boogie man pulling the strings.

Figuring out who is responsible for this might be the easy part. But fixing it isn’t, because too many Americans have started down this path. 
 

And, I’m not convinced it’s that easy to realize who is controlling it. 

[Goal-line]

4 hours ago, RedDenver said:

I think it's mostly people within our country who simply want power and influence.

Called greed. 

[commando]

[Guy Chamberlin]

For years I've recoiled when folks invoked words like Nazi, fascism, brainwashed, and coup in their political arguments; the kind of lazy exaggeration that keeps the larger argument from being taken seriously. 

 

Now they are perfectly accurate words for describing our situation. 

 

It blows me away.

 

I have also been a huge opponent of most conspiracy theories, as they likewise use over-dramatics and questionable means and motives to distract from the more believable theory, which is typically pursued in broad daylight.

 

But if I'm piecing together the players, the storylines, the trajectory and everything already public, I would never discount the possibility of a rightwing orchestrated false-flag assassination of Donald Trump, pinned on the unhinged Democratic left. It would solve all sorts of problems for them. 

[BigRedBuster]

It's interesting when they start eating their own.

[TGHusker]

10 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

It's interesting when they start eating their own.

One of the quotes notes basically that we need to vote back in an authoritarian (trump) as he is the ONLY one who can save the country from becoming an Authoritarian state.    Kind of sounds like trump's "I'm the Messiah" 2016 speech:  "I'm the Only ONE who can fix Washington"

[Guy Chamberlin]

We can repost the unhinged responses of Trump loyalists and call them the Republican "base" but if the orders are coming down for Fox and Newsmax and GOP leadership to start building an off-ramp that does not include Donald Trump as the presumptive 2024 candidate, the vast majority of Trumpists will follow.

 

They will still blame the leftist witch hunt, still declare Trump a mistreated martyr, but they will start getting comfortable with Ron DeSantis and others as carriers of the Trump torch. 

 

Trump could remain the party icon/mascot without having to drag the party down by making it constantly dance around him. It could work out well for Trump: he could hold the same rallies, craft the same fundraising schemes, and trumpet his personal political endorsements without having to actually run for President. He would be what he has always wanted to be: a celebrity. 

 

But it would mean at some point Donald Trump would have to accept Ron DeSantis taking his place, and that's typically the situation where Trump would declare DeSantis and his supporters betrayers and mutineers, because that's what toxic narcissists do. 

 

The Trump "base" would shrink down to 20% or less at that point, just enough to lose the election for Republicans. 

 

Don't kid yourself: many in the GOP would love either the espionage or insurrection charge to remove Trump from the election for them. 

[Scarlet]

4 hours ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

For years I've recoiled when folks invoked words like Nazi, fascism, brainwashed, and coup in their political arguments; the kind of lazy exaggeration that keeps the larger argument from being taken seriously. 

 

Now they are perfectly accurate words for describing our situation. 

 

It blows me away.

 

Am I reading this right?  You're just now coming to this conclusion?  

[Guy Chamberlin]

1 hour ago, Scarlet said:

Am I reading this right?  You're just now coming to this conclusion?  

 

I thought the sizable portion of the Republican Party that wanted Trump out of the way would have been much more successful by now, and I did not see them totally buckling to either the language or actions of the extreme wingnuts.  It didn't make sense electorally, and it still doesn't, but they have circled their wagons around a civil war. 

 

One does like to figure in a bit of pragmatism and historical precedent. That we have reached this level of fevered irrationality? An actual call to end democracy? All that subtext now being screeched aloud? Yeah. It surprised me. 

[Scarlet]

18 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

I thought the sizable portion of the Republican Party that wanted Trump out of the way would have been much more successful by now, and I did not see them totally buckling to either the language or actions of the extreme wingnuts.  It didn't make sense electorally, and it still doesn't, but they have circled their wagons around a civil war. 

 

One does like to figure in a bit of pragmatism and historical precedent. That we have reached this level of fevered irrationality? An actual call to end democracy? All that subtext now being screeched aloud? Yeah. It surprised me. 

Thanks.  I can see that.  That's why I started the "What's the future of the Republican Party?" thread way back when.  I was hoping against hope that since Trump was defeated maybe sanity would hold and democracy would prevail but they've only doubled down on their extremism.   

[BigRedBuster]

3 hours ago, Scarlet said:

Thanks.  I can see that.  That's why I started the "What's the future of the Republican Party?" thread way back when.  I was hoping against hope that since Trump was defeated maybe sanity would hold and democracy would prevail but they've only doubled down on their extremism.   

That’s the most frustrating part of this. We would hope that the party and voters would see what a total mess trump is and turn in a different direction. But….they haven’t.