Part II of @psychunseen’s excellent article on “illusory truth, lies, & political propaganda”. The “fire hose of falsehood” is described as the “shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions” in a way that is rapid, continuous, and repetitive. 1/
A while back I wrote a thread that describes how incredibly challenging it is to manage, to hold your ground, or to cling to some semblance of reality when the “fire hose of lies” is unleashed on you in a personal relationship: 2/
….3/….
….4/…..
…..as well as the collective effect that a constant barrage of the fire hose of falsehoods has when the “fire hose of lies” unleashed on society: 5/
From a logical/moral consistency standpoint, it’s virtually impossible to defend a lie with the truth. But when the head of the political/societal food chain is as pathologically disordered and as pathologically dishonest as Trump… 6/washingtonpost.com/graphics/polit…
…...it results in half of the country existing/operating in a perpetual state of logical/moral inconsistency. Once realized, this goes a long way to understanding how/why so many people have pissed away reputations they've spent decades building. 7/
There’s been a progression of factors over time that has created a fertile environment for propaganda and disinformation. One factor is the binary “crossfire” format of programming during the 1990’s…8/
….that not only politicized what should be non-political (scientific) issues (climate change), but also created the false perception of 50-50 propositions even where they didn’t exist. 9/
Another factor is the effective execution of a strategy by a highly partisan, agenda-driven news network (FOX) to convince half of the country that they couldn’t trust the mainstream media, or any media for that matter, because of “bias”. 10/
The logical inconsistencies used in the justification and acceptance of the right wing media authoritarians’ monopolization of viewer/consumer attention is pretty astounding….11/
….12/….
….13/….
….….but cognitive processes/functions such as confirmation bias fill those logical gaps….14/….
Furthermore, Trump’s self-preservational assault on the truth ("Fake News") and on journalism ("enemy of the people") has had a dual effect. First, it's effectively scared Republican supporters away from any news source that exposes Trump’s dysfunction/pathology/corruption…15/
…..And second, Trump’s self-preservational assault on the truth (“Fake News”) and on journalism (“enemy of the people”) has created justification and validation for his supporters’ bias-confirming behaviors. 16/
Using this fire hose of lies, FOX has effectively herded their viewers/consumers into a corner, to the point where they have essentially created a “captured audience”. 17/ 
This “captured audience” literally believes that all of FOX’s competitors’ “products” would harm them, and that only FOX’s “product” is safe for consumption,….even while Fox itself is often “polluting”, and in some cases “poisoning” its product/consumers. 18/
Imagine if Coke lied and claimed that Pepsi was unsafe for consumption, while simultaneously adding ingredients that not only harmed its consumers, but that actually caused addiction (indoctrination) in those consumers? This is essentially the strategy that Fox has employed. 19/
Furthermore, market forces have pushed Fox’s already “aggressive” business model in an even more extreme direction because the “demand and supply” pressures of Right wing consumers have basically put Fox in a position of either supplying those consumers with what they want,….20/
…or risk losing them to even farther Right, more extreme, “news” organizations (Breitbart/Infowars) that use guerrilla tactics to make a name for themselves, and who continually put pressure on FOX to not be outflanked by the extremely aggressive tone/angle of the content. 21/
This results in a self-reinforcing dynamic where Right wing media consumers increasingly demand biased, aggressive content...which is happily supplied by media outlets/personalities who scare consumers with threats about the dangers of listening to alternate sources of news…22/
….which exacerbates the consumers’ bias, whets their appetite for “aggressive” content…..and repeat.
This self-reinforcing dynamic not only has the effect of perpetuating ignorance (having “zero” knowledge of a topic),…23/
This self-reinforcing dynamic not only has the effect of perpetuating ignorance (having “zero” knowledge of a topic),…23/
….but by DISinforming people it literally creates a “less-than-zero” effect because people’s opinions are being manipulated in a way that, if starting at “zero” (no knowledge), disinformation campaigns actually push people in the opposite direction from the truth. 24/
I pointed this out in a thread about disinformation where research showed: 25/
…26/….
As a result, disinformation campaigns have the dual effect of creating a perception of infallibility or moral righteousness for those who seek out or need it….: 27/
…..while also providing emotional gratification for those who do not…28/
Unfortunately, due to the politicization/polarization of EVERYTHING, this toxicity isn’t contained w/in the Executive Branch because Congressional Republicans & the Right Wing media (some forced, most willingly) defend/endorse Trump’s pathologically disordered delusions/lies…29/
…. or face the wrath of the Right Wing constituents/media consumers who, after decades of conditioning by the GOP/Media are so whipped up into a frenzy that the Republicans won’t dare stand up to Trump for fear of being voted out,…30/
….and the Right Wing media (if there is any) rarely dare to broadcast conflicting news (the truth) for fear of losing viewership or their jobs. So the country is stuck in a situation where… 31/
….years of lies and manipulation has created a hysterical, mob-mentality in half of the country that has become so intense that those who created it (GOP/media) have lost control of it and have no other choice than to continue to feed it…32/
….This only intensifies the demands of the mob….which prevents the GOP/Media from having the ability to stand up to it… so they feed it…..and repeat. 33/
During the Impeachment hearings Hannity ran a promo teaser for his show where he referred to the Democrats opening statement of the impeachment case as “Three Days of Lies!”……which itself was an obvious lie. 34/
One of the dangerous consequences of the "fire hose of lies":
....If they can get people to the point where it seems like we can’t believe anything.....then they can get away with everything.
We are seeing this in real time with Trump. 35/
....If they can get people to the point where it seems like we can’t believe anything.....then they can get away with everything.
We are seeing this in real time with Trump. 35/
Article form: 36/ patreon.com/posts/33876951
