I think that some of it is that most people don't really carefully analyze the sum total what a politician has said or is saying and all the other related material. Which is reasonable -- I mean, I know that this is a politics forum, but for most people, following politics is not a huge part of what they do. It'd be really inefficient, in fact, if they did.
I think that a lot of support for politicians has more to do whether they've made statements that a potential voter agrees with in the very limited material about them that that voter sees. Not just for Trump, but for any politician.
So if you're asking someone about Trump, they're making something of a gut call based on the limited material they see of him.
Honestly, I think that the more-interesting issue here isn't really Trump, but the fact that Trump's tactics have worked fairly well. The problem here isn't really Trump. He's just a symptom of having a political decision process that can be gamed the way he's gamed it. We do not want to encourage politicians who lose an election to have an incentive to make bogus claims that the election was rigged, because part of what we want the political system to do is to permit coming to a consensus as to leadership. That undermines that.
But there's nothing unique about Trump that permits him to do that. If he could do it, then so could another politician. And I would imagine that sooner or later, more people probably will, if they think that it is to their advantage.
That is, I think what probably needs to be fixed is the system.
A lot of people lost their fucking minds over the course of the pandemic. My mother (formerly an intelligent and compassionate professional who owned a business in the banking and finance space) got pushed down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole over the course of the pandemic, and became a total and complete fucking moron that only gets their ‘facts’ from far-right blogs, youtube videos, and facebook posts that ‘own the libs’.
I am no longer surprised with the level of enthusiasm these people have for intellectual poison.
She started down the path towards being an idiot before the pandemic. Every phonecall was some new bullshit that she’d latch on to, and when I calmly tried to explain how actually worked, she’d lose her shit, scream at me, and hang up. The isolation and disinformation campaigns throughout the pandemic broke her brain.
A lot of people’s social lives are breaking down, and generally the loudest voices are right wing conspiracies. It’s not that they’re dumb, it’s that often the only people willing to acknowledge that society isn’t working are reactionary as hell
Usually these people are already right wing. But there have been some bleak stories of hippie adjacent people having their minds break during the pandemic and entered suicide pacts.
The amount of “left wing” unvaccinated hippies is astounding, and from there it seems like the right wing conspiracies slip in. Hippies are basically yuppies with a coat of mud though in my experience.
What is interesting is the latest Newsmax article wasn’t being bias anymore, actually using sentences like Trump appointed officials say there was no evidence and whatnot
Sure the bottom of the article said it was from the AP but I am not sure if Newsmax is covering their butss or is purposefully copy pasted AP so their fan base, er, users, will get more outraged.
What's cute is this "display of weakness" will eat at him until he calls a fox news morning show and emails them the "report." Everyone knew he'd back down, but he also has no impulse control and will do it anyway
You’re assuming there is anything more than lies, which I highly doubt. There’s no evidence. There’s no report. There are no documents. There are only weak verbal lies.
What the fuck, this article never even told me what the one weird trick was! Oh well, back to what I was doing before… God damnit, they put their homepage in my back history!
I like to imagine he has a serious sharpie problem. He’s completely hooked on sniffing sharpies all day long. It starts with a one-pack, and before you know it, you’re getting bulk discounts by pretending to work in academia. The feeling when you twist off the cap of a new sharpie? Can’t be beat.
Already happening. At one MAGA site someone posted, “These jurors have signed their death warrant by falsely indicting President Trump”. Still waiting to see some of those “very fine people” MAGAs Trump said exist.
Grand jury names and addresses are public information in Georgia. It is admirable that the grand jury participants indicted Trump despite knowing they would almost certainly be subject to harassment and death threats from Trump’s MAGA goons.
The university had signed an offer letter in a public ceremony saying it would hire her as director in a tenured position to revive its journalism program. Soon afterward it reneged on the offer amid right-wing backlash over her work for The New York Times and interest in diversity, equity and inclusion.
The Texas A&M System acknowledged in its review that system and university administrators made mistakes in the hiring process, as certain procedures were not followed. Race and gender were not involved in any of the decisions made, the university said.
“The (Office of General Counsel) did not identify any other evidence that race was a factor in the internal hiring process. In addition, there was no evidence of gender as a factor in the hiring process,” the internal report said.
Some of the documents released with the report show what McElroy was up against.
"A win for Aggies! The leftwing "journalism" professor/DEI advocate that A&M tried to recruit won't be taking the job. After she was exposed by @Texas Scorecard for her racist beliefs, she decided staying at UT was a better fit," says a photo of a tweet under the name Michael Quinn Sullivan, the publisher of Texas Scorecard, a far-right website. The site published stories about her hiring that focused on her diversity work. The tweet that was part of a text from a board member included a photo of a Texas Tribune story about the hiring mess.
They scream and shout about "cancel culture" while pulling shit like this. Add it to the pile of right-wing hypocrisy.
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