The hardest part of 11/9 for most of us to understand was how so many people could have ACTUALLY VOTED FOD DONALD TRUMP, and accepting that we have a REALLY BIG PROBLEM in that we have a large percentage of the popularance who simply refused to accept reality. They live in a fantasy world where any facts that don’t match their beliefs are “Fake News”. How the hell do you debate these people? I know several people including people with real jobs with responsibilies who believe Obama wasnt born in America.
It’s Weaponized Misinformation. Retired whit men – even ones who were basically smartish when they were still working – have the TV on Fox since constantly. They fell for that Time magazine “Ice Age” cover hoax, even using it in arguments to prove that there is no evidence of global warming. They are so sure that it was true, I guess, because the message has been repeated so many times and so loudly that they just believe it now. This isn’t an accident, it is a deliberate effort to form wrong beliefs in otherwise good people and it OUGHT TO BE A FELONY. They have been literally brainwashed to the extent that if they hear it on Fox, it’s true and if they repeat it, they’ve won the debate.
You cannot debate the. Sure, you can try to point out the fallacies, but you simply cannot compete with 24 hours of screaming skulls on the idiot box. I think these Fox News watcher guys truly believe that they have some kind of special insight into things that other people don’t have, because they, very clearly, believe they are super special to begin with. They are also constantly surrounded by a buffer of other people who believe they are right about everything. If you have a bunch of people constantly telling you that you are right, you probably have no reason to believe you are wrong. They are not unlike the burgeoning number of Flat Earthers. People aren’t just “flat earthers” because they believe the world is flat. The primary draw there is feeling like you and all your other friends are so very clever that you have figured something out that no “expert” could previously do. You are smarter than the so-called experts, who have the gall to call you stupid and poorly informed. That feels better than just agreeing with the “experts.” It’s also the appeal of a guys like Alex Jones (“fake news” purveyor, procurer, and also a pimp/exposer of Hillary Clinton’s child sex ring/professional exorcist/ trucker-speed salesman), actually semi-apologized for Pizzagate, but did so by blaming other media outlets and trying to suggest that they took it as seriously as he did. Which, Breitbart aside, they did not.
There are also usually some existing prejudices and regional antagonisms, which are exacerbated by the splintering of media, so they seek out those which validate them. If they live in a mostly lily-white rural area, and some of the things they keep hearing about “big cities” – and in particular the minority populations there – bear very little resemblance to what those of us who have spent years living in them know to be true. It’s exacerbated by Fox News telling them what they want to hear. Add in that most of these places are experiencing a decline in population, as well as watching the better-paid jobs that used to not require much in the way of education disappear, and they’ll lash out at what they “think” is the cause.
We’ve all known people who believe these kinds of things, who will smugly instruct you to “Do your research!”, as if they are so much smarter and better at looking things up than you are. More often than not, this “research” involves watching Fox News lunatics coming up with absurd theories that make no sense. But being “in the know” — especially when you are someone that people have never thought of as an intellectual powerhouse — is a powerful, powerful drug. I wish all the teevee stations went off the air at midnight and test patterns were all you could see, like it was when I was a kid. The hungry maw of 24/7 content always needs feeding, so this is the poisonous junk we get.
Thing is though, I think that many actual journalists and legitimate media outlets, being of rational mind like you and I, see this fake news mongering as a peripheral phenomenon. I mean, who doesn’t have a batshit crazy uncle or in-law or whatever, right? I’m not sure that the MM realize how truly pandemic this really is. You keep reassuring yourself that anyone with sound mind couldn’t reasonably believe this kind of crap but when you see that ‘unhinged’ look in the eyes of one of your love ones when they’re spouting off about this tripe, it’s shocking because you can see that they’re actually ‘white knuckling’ it and will continue to do so even with bloody fingers. It has literally become their ‘raison d’être’…It’s truly alarming.
I don’t remember life-afflicting imbecile jackasses on this level being interviewed on broadcast news or really given any platform at all when I was a kid. I don’t remember it in the 70s either. In the eighties, people like Schlafly or Falwell were about as baleful as it got. WHAT THE HELL CHANGED? Say, when was that pesky thing about journalisms ethics thingy thing struck down? Fairness Doctrine or such what? With symbolic perfection, it was Reagan who got rid of it. Remember, he convinced people that trees cause pollution. AND THEN “MY OPINION COUNTS AS MUCH AS YOUR FACT” BECAME A THING.
Trump burns up air time and American people’s valuable time that could be spend doing ANYTHING ELSE, bitching about the media and how it it is FAKE, and about how the longstanding journalistic necessity of using unnamed sources is incorrect and immoral:
“I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there. Let their name be put out”.
Wait, are the sources “made-up,” or are they unnamed? God, he is so stupid. “A source says that Donald Trump is a horrible, horrible yoo-man being.” Let ’em say it to my face! All sources say that. Saying it to yr face right now, Pussgrab Snowflake Fcker”. “No unnamed sources” is funny because Trump gets his lumpy knickers all a-twist about unnamed sources when they say things that are mean, or things he doesn’t want the American public to know. For instance, he’s all wee-weed up about the “unnamed sources” that told the failing New York Times and fake news CNN that his presidential campaign was in “constant contact” with the Russians last year. Trump’s people even went to the FBI to cry and beg them to be “unnamed sources” and tell the media that all the Russia stories are lies! Wait what? It’s OK to do “unnamed sources” when it benefits Trump? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Basically, “Real News” does whatever the fck Trump administration wants it to, after all, which is why all reporting the president doesn’t like is “Fake”. I mean, CNN is often really REALLY DUMB news, but it’s almost never completely fake, at least not since they stopped wondering whether a black hole eated the airliner. Now all Trump needs to do is feel slighted a little more, whine about fake news, and avidly watch CNN some more to see if they talk about Donald Trump enough. E’s saying he has a right to a free propaganda outlet, basically.
“Fake News”, according to Trump and Fox news is:
The New York Times
The Washington Post
CNN
NBC News
MSNBC
CBS News
ABC News
BBC News
Financial Times
L.A. Times
USA Today
NPR
PBS
The New Yorker
The Economist
All of these Fake News sites hide their lies behind their “sources”, “quotes” and “facts”. They only report on things that have happened, instead of looking beyond actual events, peeling back the onion and reporting on the deeper truth that cannot be exposed via “sources”, “quotes” and “facts”.
Since Roger Ailes shed his mortal coil, finally, we have the chance to rebuild the world. (I don’t think that’s too dramatic, because a nuclear-armed world where truth is irrelevant cannot last long.) As we do that, let’s beat them electorally, and mock them mercilessly, and IF they get violent, knock them to Mars.
The End.