Since Joe Biden became the president, Republicans consultants and politicians have been desperate to find a way to attack him. But nothing has worked, his approval rating has consistently been above 50%. So instead, right-wing elites have decided to completely embrace trolling.
The important thing to realize is that GOP elites are trolling everyone, including their own supporters. This is vital because as Biden has embraced stimulus spending and family support, he's forced the right to defend its greatest weakness: their anti-government views
Polls have shown for decades that Republican voters aren't interested in slashing the government. Biden's economic agenda has put GOP elites into the position of defending billionaire tax cheats like Jeff Bezos. Literally: dailykos.com/stories/2021/7…
So instead of talking about spending and policy (where their views are horribly unpopular), Republican elites have been churning out fake controversies like nonsense about "cancel culture" assassinating Mr. Potato Head or Dr. Seus:
These fake controversies are designed to give Republicans a cultural populism as a substitute for actual policies that would help people. But the lies have to become increasingly unhinged to be successful at motivating people as @AngieMaxwell1 told me:
It's certainly true that an increasingly unhinged GOP is more dangerous to the republic, but it's also one that's easier to see as exploitative and absurd. Scott Adams, the Dilbert guy, has been mocked ruthlessly and deservedly for this thread a year ago:
The unhinged lying about Trump's election loss has also made the liars vulnerable to lawsuits. And they're raging about this as Mike Lindell did to the Daily Show about being boycotted by Fox News:
Journalists are also figuring out to stop booking Trumpy liars or if they do, to calmly debunk their falsehoods. It's proving enraging to the Trump representatives as the excellent CBSN anchor @LanaZak showed in March.
We should not under any case underestimate the threat of right-wing authoritarianism (see the article for a Tucker Carlson discussion claiming conservatives will simply have to become fascists), the strategy for countering the lies has finally become clear...
1) Sue the most malignant & influential liars (Trump, Lindell, etc) 2) Deplatform them also & get social media to stop promoting disinfo 3) Routinely point out the manipulation strategy so that the target audience can see it 4) Force GOP to defend its abhorrent economic views
The way forward won't be easy, but it's now visible. We're going to be publishing a lot of material in the months ahead at @DiscoverFlux about ways to move forward on each of these points.
One thing I'd like to see tech journalists declare independence from is their blatant pro-Apple bias.
I'm going to review this iPad pro review to show you what I mean, and why most tech sites' star ratings are utterly worthless laptopmag.com/reviews/ipad-p…
The iPad Pro 12.9 has some nice aspects, but it has a lot of negatives. But you never see tech sites ding Apple for the negatives.
The biggest negative of iPads is that they are drastically overpriced for what they can do. You have to pay a minimum of $1,000 US for...
A tablet that comes with none of the following:
-Storage card slots
-Upgradeable internal storage
-Keyboard
-Stylus
-A headphone jack
-More than a single port
-An OS that can actually open files
-An ability to boot third-party OSes
1/x If you really want to see how things are in GOP politics, don't listen to talking head shows, just read the articles at Townhall written by party loyalists who want sore loser Trump to go away & then scroll down to the comments.
The article in question, by @RebeccaRoseGold, is a fairly neutral writeup for the crybaby speech the exprez delivered. It was massively triggering to the supposedly "tough" and "manly" Townhall audience.
The #1 voted comment whines that she invaded his safe space
"Douglas" gets some pushback but doubles down by implying that anything Trump claims is a "hoax" or a "crime" should be assumed to be so. No quotation marks allowed according to little Douglas.
Right-wing media audiences expect total devotion to the great leader
@DiscoverFlux As many political observers have noted, the filibuster tactic in the U.S. Senate has blocked many progressive bills from becoming laws.
Its institutional effect is even more pronounced, however, because it's enabled Mitch McConnell to create his own form of "triangulation"
In politics, triangulation means manufacturing a new political position that makes your own look more moderate or reasonable. This is exactly what McConnell's done w/the filibuster. He's convinced many people (incl Kyrsten Sinema) that it keeps the Senate centrist.
1/x I haven't published anything about growing up in fundamentalist Mormonism until today.
Most people outside the sect have no idea how weird it really is. Here's a story of the day I almost sold my soul--to God flux.community/matthew-sheffi…
In the LDS religion, adherents are forced to give everything they have to the church. My father took things several steps further and made his kids promise to become perfect or be cast into hell. It was a very disturbing experience and the first time I didn't believe.
The idea came to my father on a trip we took to a field in northwest Missouri where Mormons believe that Adam from the Bible lived after being cast out of the Garden of Eden, which was also in Missouri, dontcha know
Lots of people outside of the white evangelical subculture couldn't believe that the "family values" crowd would be so loyal to a casino owner and habitual adulterer like Donald Trump.