With credit to @vexwerewolf.bsky.social for the evergreen observation (with particular contemporary relevance): "Right-wingers literally straight-up admitting 'it's harder to discredit the left because the left is almost always telling the truth.'"
One of the tactics that is dizzying to hear is when conservatives just spout what sounds like gibberish like they are improvising new lyrics to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire"
Most likely get it from radio and tv where meatheads just start stating whatever they want never answering questions
May I ask, do you have more of a screenshot of the original conservative posting this? Are you willing to say who it was, and when? Asking because in this day and age of AI and really, just photoshop, people could claim the original post is fake. It's what a former friend of mine would do. :(
Media-illiterate, low-info voters flock to MAGA like moths to a dumpster fire—too lazy to think, happy to be spoon-fed pablum while being told it’s caviar. 🤡🔥🐑 #Sheeple
I was just thinking about how well never be able to trust government statistics. They’re going to fire half of govt employees and say the unemployment rate dropped to 1%.
Goes well with the “flooding the zone with shit” Bannon strat and “fake news”. So dangerous to democracy. If nothing is true or verifiable then they can seem true. So similar to the Nazi’s in the 20s, I can’t believe we are here.
Actually, this is a very valid point, because most of my left friends will bow out momentarily whilst they research and fact check with verifiable sources, and end up spinning because there is so much coming at one time. It is hard to keep up, and it is on purpose.
I’ve noticed this when countering Rs/trumpers—Throw facts and logic at them, and they got nothing to counter it with except paranoia and talking points they heard. They then always turn to name-calling and usually just walk away. I like to think they know they lost, deep inside.
I've found it helps to come at them sideways.
Like,
"I'm worried about bird flu and I'm wondering if you have heard anything about how this administration is preparing for another pandemic."
This approach:
Doesn't attack the CULTist
and
Invites them to seek their own research.
I feel so much for censored-name person though. You absolute precious baby. You seem young so I'll assume you are, and all I can say is I hope you'll see the light because it's better in the long term in all regards but I'm so sorry for how painful it will be to your sense of self. Good luck <3
Just... imagine what it would be like to be able to argue your side with sources you were confident in the verifiability of. If you knew when you were in an argument and your favorite content creator had a good comeback, that you could refer direct to their source & look good doing it. It's amazing
More seriously I'm reminded of some blogger or commentator, I'll have to track down who it was... who basically argued that conservatism's problem & the main driver of its evolution over time was that it was *proven wrong* by various sciences bit by bit
Like "there was a time a reasonable, well-informed, inquisitive person could believe X, Y, Z conservative beliefs bc they were legit possibilities in their relevant field of inquiry... but as time went by those fields disproved X, Y, even Z & the only option was for conservatism to reject inquiry"
(given I don't remember who said this I can't say how faithfully I'm relaying it, but 1 caveat I'll say for my own rephrasing is that it's very possible "conservative" is doing some work there, same way that what you call alternative medicine that works is "medicine". Mb should've said "right-wing")
I debate creationists. In those discussions it is oft mentioned that 150 years ago most people were creationists of some sort because we simply knew very little about the world or the universe. It was rational to be a creationist.
That changed, & creationism underwent a shift to denialism.
When there’s a significant portion of a population believing $100,000,000 was spent on 3,000,000,000 rubbers for a country with less than 1,000,000 men that society is unlikely to survive.🥴
That's what you say; but given the sheer amount of data that indicates that you're wrong, makes you ignorable. Yes, the left gets into petty factional fights at the drop of a hat. But on the whole, as noted, it tends to be more fact-based. You'll have to do better than that to get listened to.
What disgusts me the most is that they see this as some kind of team sport. Like it's football. They bring up these disingenuous points for no other reason than to be contrarians. The same people will also scream "FACTS DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS" 🤦
I was going to disagree w/ this, since propaganda is a neutral term describing a wide range of persuasive discourse, regardless of truth or falsehood — but then I remembered that MAGA has turned objective reality into a partisan talking point, so nothing means anything anymore. I’m depressed.
the most effective propaganda is often the kind that is true and verifiable. propaganda is political messaging, the fact that it's usually false is incidental and not a defining characteristic.
further, there are a variety propaganda techniques to mislead without using false statements
it's useful to consider the more common and less charged propaganda of commercial advertising. it's full of true but manipulative statements. it's verifiable and irrelevant that your bowl full of sugar is "part of a balanced breakfast". that's propaganda.
This is one huge reason I switched parties in 2006. I voted for Bush twice and defending those decisions, even back then, to liberals was rough to say the least. All I had was what the church told me and Rush Limbaugh. Nothing added up. I was tired of always being wrong. So glad I came to the light!
It is a class war. The issue we’re pointing it out is in the original post, the right acts as though we are the enemy when in fact we’re both on the same side of the class war. Both of us are going to be completely fucked.
We all need to be the hero here. We have to be doing something to save democracy. Some Actions:join @indivisible.org @genderjustice.us donate to @aclu.org or support @pbsnews.bsky.social or @npr.org volunteer at the food shelfs . Government is a safeguard not a start up.
if we lived in calmer times, it would be almost fascinating seeing the ways people bend observable reality to avoid realisations they don't want to have. all that text is just "my political opponents are often correct" torn up and stitched back together into a reality affirming monster
How do you have reasonable discussions and debates with foes who admittedly do not live in or argee with reality? How does one speak in a civil manner to a person committed to an admitted lie and resists logic and evidence?
@raskin.house.gov Please start a class action suit against Trump as you described on The Weekend! Millions of us are waiting for a leader and event that will bring us together in force.This would generate huge energy and could be a beginning of the end - our SOLIDARITY! Please be our Lech Walesa!
Remember the old adage?
Sticking to just telling the truth is much easier. Than keeping your lies straight.
People can read those who are genuine with them. True caring shines through.
This is similar to how Bolsonaro said recently that the Clean Record Act (a Brazilian law that renders politicians ineligible for 8 years if they’ve been convicted) is only a way of persecuting right-wingers
This is project 2025 plan (origins found in butterfly revolution / NRx) to dismantle the pillars of cathedral. Snippet below. Read more on pinned article on my profile.
or as an older Iranian generation say "they want us to collapse our lives to force us back to herding goats because that's when their theology last made sense"
I have a similar problem convincing people of my chocolate cake and gravy weight loss diet -- I have to work twice as hard as those lettuce and chicken jerks.
So far, only Liberals have actually said and repeated it, but the day is coming when some incautious Conservative will forget the disadvantages of saying the quiet part out loud, and will just claim Wilhoit's Law for an official motto.
The only issue i have with this post is there is no indication of who posted this reddit comment or their actual political affiliation, so this can't really be called a "gotcha"
We can presume this is reality, but not that it is a right winger admitting anything
We live in seriously fucked-up times when this sort of discussion is real. That honestly sounds like the plot line of an episode of The Droids where the mob is trying to undermine the rebels. WTF is going on with people when they are literally trying to defend lies.
Something to keep in mind about MAGA is they seldom lie outright. There's usually a kernel of a fact in everything.
So when a news outlet or fact checker gets something wrong that mistake is amplified and used as an example of why they can't be trusted.
This looks at the fact checkers.
Their determination of whether something is a fact or propaganda depends on if it fits their agenda or not. Those pesky reference books always get in the way. Which reminds me - everyone should add to your personal library when you can.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: They turned "facts don't care about your feelings" into a slogan because they knew it would distract us. We would chase our tails researching facts and statistics to argue with them when they never cared about facts to begin with.
Facts are a problem for MAGA. They always have been a problem for MAGA, so they make crap up and repeat it, then the media repeats what they made up. "People are saying..." And then Democrats waste time explaining that just because people and the media are repeating something, doesn't make it true!!
What worries me is between gutting universities and LLM produced sludge, we might indeed have “studies” that “prove” utter nonsense in a decade or so. And the only rigorous science we will have will be devoted to harming people.
Educated people cannot be brainwashed and there goal is to make the United States Uneducated and we the American people cannot allow that to happen!!!!!
That has been clear for decades. Unfortunately, their efforts have been largely successful. When you have lots of money to spout endless bullshit, the money and bullshit can win.
>It's really hard to defeat these guys because it's almost like they dedicated their entire worldview to trying to figure out what the truth is and then building functioning human societies around that, and the best we've got is to parasitize that 'till things go to 💩 and then blame them for it
The joke is that the disinformation eventually becomes the "truth" and whatever actual data is collected is then shaped or disregarded to fit the resulting narrative
Unfortunately, the fascist secret weapon is Brandolini's Law: “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than the energy expended to produce it.” They spill more and more shit, and no one has the resources to counter it before the next flood of shit arrives.
"people on the right have to work harder"? They just lie and make up whatever fits their agenda. That's significantly easier than doing research or caring about the truth. That's exactly why there's so much more right wing propaganda, it's so easy to make (that and it's often funded by billionaires)
Steven Crowder talked about this in his deposition. He admits that his show almost always uses left and liberal outlets for sourcing because they were accurate and data-driven.
That darn truth of verifiable facts and information. Always getting in their way. What's a MAGA billionaire White Supremest Christian Nationalist to do?
I'll tell you what to do. Go suck it you Cristo-fascist SOBs and live in the real world.
Great observation and so true. I just don’t understand people who think this is a good way to function in the world. They have zero morals and still have the nerve to call themselves Christians. SMH.
there has to be a global movement to protect indepedence of global reasearch, so that research data are not on any server the can fall into hands of rouge states or private rouge companies ready to be complied with the state, it needs to be owned by civic movements like and follow model of wikipedia
Also insane to me they think they have to "work harder" when they're just making shit up and lying, and holding an allegiance to truth is somehow easier.
It can feel as every fact that you're glad they're promoting will be abandoned the moment its not in the emotional spotlight as they run to another one that is equally important but treated as the only one that matters
as far back as the Nixon administration, this was known---universities that teach good scientific methodology and accurate information produce more critical thinking individuals. Unfortunately , it was why Nixon pushed to make going to university cost money rather than be free.
Years ago, David Brock wrote an entire book about this (Blinded by the Right), showcasing how the left uses fact-based journalists to prove their points, while the Right used folks from thinktanks who would just make shit up.
And it’s much, much worse today.
The original anonymous post looks made up. For example, it's ridiculously easy to find academic evidence that market economies are better for everyone's prosperity. It's ridiculously easy to find evidence that censorship is bad.
Well I am a on the democrat side, they are actually close to a legitimate issue that fact checkers have with covering democratic misinformation and it isn't because democrats really are always accurate. It is that leftwingers as much as we tend to hate it rely on interpretation of good sources
It's also why conservatives will often appeal to 'common sense'.
Funny thing about 'common sense', it's almost always completely wrong especially when concerning the science and medical fields.
Because your 'common sense' is just your uninformed opinion laundered through flowery language.
That's like that thing that stupid thing the Newsweek site has now, the fairness meter, and every time I look at an article it's buried at "Left Leaning".
Went looking for the original source of this quote and (maybe?) found it in the comments on this. Might be troll copypasta (although I think the diagnosis of why education & science are right wing targets is correct).
Damn looks like it could well have been a troll indeed. Oh well, can't complain when something that seems too perfect to be true turns out to not be I guess - on an evidentiary level I bet we could prove that something that "seems to good to be true" is unnecessary to prove a position anyway ;)
Um. It's not "left-leaning propaganda" if it's backed up by the truth and facts. I hope that guy can get himself out of that pretzel he twisted himself into.
@jessicacalarco.bsky.social we can’t fix it if we are in denial. We will lose again in mid terms and 2028. Fact: trump is dishonest horrible liar who doesn’t care about us. Also fact: msm lied about biden mental status, Kamala word salads, Gaza genocide. We need to attack ourselves or they win.
Comments
Most likely get it from radio and tv where meatheads just start stating whatever they want never answering questions
Like,
"I'm worried about bird flu and I'm wondering if you have heard anything about how this administration is preparing for another pandemic."
This approach:
Doesn't attack the CULTist
and
Invites them to seek their own research.
“It’s a well known fact that reality has a liberal bias”
Colbert: Reality has a liberal bias
More seriously I'm reminded of some blogger or commentator, I'll have to track down who it was... who basically argued that conservatism's problem & the main driver of its evolution over time was that it was *proven wrong* by various sciences bit by bit
That changed, & creationism underwent a shift to denialism.
State: EQUALITY
Never let the state rule science & education, never let equality become the concentration camp of liberty.
Who the fuck asked you?
Damn you boys last like someone kicked you in the balls for smallest stuff
further, there are a variety propaganda techniques to mislead without using false statements
Make sure to read the alt-text
Also, love that you used data as plural 😍
LOL … sob
Not new.
But fascinating the knots they twist into to avoid saying “progressives rarely lie and conservatives mostly lie”
Sticking to just telling the truth is much easier. Than keeping your lies straight.
People can read those who are genuine with them. True caring shines through.
✅Growth-"Mantras and slogans replace all individual thought and offer collective 'one-ness.'"
✅Isolation-"The cult isolates its members from the world beyond, depicting the outside as corrupt, evil, and violent."
🙏 Please listen to facts.
📣 Break Free!
We can presume this is reality, but not that it is a right winger admitting anything
So when a news outlet or fact checker gets something wrong that mistake is amplified and used as an example of why they can't be trusted.
This looks at the fact checkers.
It's just too rich not to know, so much opportunity for fun.😂
https://bsky.app/profile/axedame.bsky.social/post/3lat4ufn2ls2p
Orwell, you sum bitch
lie steal cheat repeat
https://generalstrikeus.com/strikecard
all wealth comes from labor
I'll tell you what to do. Go suck it you Cristo-fascist SOBs and live in the real world.
Critical Thinking ALWAYS BEATS white Jeebus “logic”
Facts that are sound mixed with ones that are based on emotion.
@electiontruth.bsky.social
@smartelections.bsky.social
https://electiontruthalliance.org/clark-county%2C-nv
https://smartelections.us/2024-election-update
And it’s much, much worse today.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Funny thing about 'common sense', it's almost always completely wrong especially when concerning the science and medical fields.
Because your 'common sense' is just your uninformed opinion laundered through flowery language.
The Left beginsnwhere Capitalism ends.
Facts have a well-known liberal bias.
EXCELLENT-IMPORTANT
#WhyTheRightAttacks
THE LEFT re:
#Science #Education
Yes! Thank You!
@jessicacalarco.bsky.social