Doublethink, Doubledown, Deprogram: Ramifications of "the Big Lie"

[Dill]

The MSM calls it "the Big Lie"--Trump's claim that he won the election by millions of votes, but it was stolen from him by massive, Dem-coordinated voter fraud, especially in swing states.  Deep, cult-like belief in this lie motivated thousands to march on the Capitol building when Trump urged them to “Stop the Steal,” and to storm it to take their country back when Mike Pence betrayed the Dear Leader.

For a brief moment, on Jan. 7, it seemed as if many Congressional Republicans and all Democrats were united in condemnation of the attempted  coup, and in assigning Trump major responsibility for it. Before the week was out, however, the old divisions returned, and responses to the Capitol insurrection have divided into very different narratives which authorize very different consequences.

On the one hand, Dems continue to see the Lie as the primary motivation of the insurrectionists. Given this immense shock and immediate threat to the peaceful, democratic transfer of power, most Dems approved (at least as short term measures) when Facebook and Twitter banned Trump and some supporters and Parler was de-platformed and still agree that Right Wing Domestic Terrorism is still a threat.

For Dems, the Big Lie is still a problem.  It may have originated with Trump, but it was amplified by powerful Republican lawmakers and a Right Wing Media Machine, including especially but not only Fox News. And it has not gone away, but continues to animate Trump’s base, who accordingly continue to influence their Congressmen. Given this fear, some have gone so far as to analogize the Capitol rioters to cultists and speculate whether anything short of de-programming could turn them from the Big Lie. There is a danger that the Republican party is becoming an openly illiberal one, ready to openly negate democratic norms and challenge rule of law to maintain minority power, as the historian of fascism Timothy Snyder warns in his NYT essay, "The American Abyss." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html

On the other hand, for Trump supporters in Congress and the media the Big Lie is not a Big Issue, and for many of the rank and file it is not even a lie. Rather, the issue is the “threat to our freedoms” now posed by censorship of conservative ideas on social media in response to the Capitol insurrection. E.g., Fox’s Maria Bartiromo, who lost 10% of her Twitter followers, warned that the MSM press has morphed into “state media,” signaling we are falling under totalitarianism. “It feels like Communist China” with a "left-wing mob" which is "unhinged and hysterical and spewing lies." https://www.mediaite.com/news/it-does-feel-like-communist-china-maria-bartiromo-complains-about-losing-twitter-followers-josh-hawley-facing-donor-book-deal-pullouts/. This appears to flip traditional conservative defenses of free speech as the right to freedom from government, not private-sector censorship.

My take: the political and media machinery which disseminated and amplified the Big lie is the same machinery which also folded the Russia Investigation into a “witchhunt” and Trump’s first impeachment into a “hoax” narrative. Since long before Benghazi, the credibility of that machinery has depended upon negating the credibility of the MSM. The people operating it to maintain power cannot very well undercut its credibility by clearly affirming that the election was legitimate--as the MSM had all along maintained.

This is a structural incapacity, and that is why for the last two weeks Fox News has not offered segments and commentators explicitly addressing the Big Lie. Discussion of Trump's culpability has been limited to the words of his rally speech, which clearly do not include "I hereby incite you to violence." The speculative comments about "deprogramming" the most fanatical of the Capitol insurgents have been generalized to an attack on all Trump supporters/Republicans, as the ban on seditious speech has been generalized as a threat to all Conservative speech.

And there has been a cascade of creative equivalence regarding "censorship" and Dem hypocrisy: Maxine Waters urging Dems to “get in the face” of Republican lawmakers equates to Trump’s “Stop the Steal” message to an angry mob; Dems, “silent” about ANTIFA and BLM violence, are now hypocritically upset that rioters broke into the Capitol, whereas Republican conservatives always and unequivocally condemn all violence; Rand Paul says no Republicans called for Sander’s impeachment when his rhetoric incited a supporter to shoot Scalise; Tulsi Gabbard told Tucker that Facebook, Twitter, John Brennan and Adam Schiff are "domestic enemies" and a greater threat to our democracy than the insurrectionists.  https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tulsi-gabbard-brennan-schiff-domestic-terror-capitol-rioters

Hannity assures us that the second impeachment trial, like the first, is a “hoax.” After all, Dems have been calling for his impeachment since his election. Once again Trump hate is substituted for Trump actions as the "real" motivation for criticizing Trump.

So now it seems quite possible that material/political conditions which gave rise to and sustained the Big Lie through out 2020 will remain pretty much in place. There will be real consequences only for those acted on the Lie by breaching the Capitol. The threat of right wing political violence continues to be a very real one, if the prominent Republicans active in promoting the Lie can denounce "violence" but not the message that inspired it.

The Right to Free Speech in the U.S. has, over the course of U.S. history, been shaped and defined sometimes in response to perceived threats to individual freedom and sometimes in response to public safety. Now that private sector efforts to combat seditious speech are conflated with state control to rouse a defense of "our freedoms," I am wondering whether or what contested conceptions of free speech may eventually settle into U.S. law.  Whose rights most need to protection now--the individual's or the public's?

[NATI BENGALS]

There needs to be rules. Spew all the bullshit you want on platforms that will allow it. But fox“news”, one America”news”network, “news”max all have one thing in common. False advertising. The majority of their programming is not news. Same goes for cnn and msnbc but to a much lesser extent.

24/7 “news” channels that are not actually news but are actually highly partisan bullshit dividing the country need to be changed. Like I said people can spew all the bullshit they want in the appropriate places so I am not limiting anyone’s speech. Just so happens the appropriate place isn’t a network labeling themselves as a source of news.

When I first started paying attention to what guy like O Riley and Glenn beck were saying in the early 2000s I was horrified about the damage they were doing to my country. It’s so much worse now than ever.

[Dill]

(01-27-2021, 11:19 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: There needs to be rules. Spew all the bullshit you want on platforms that will allow it. But fox“news”, one America”news”network, “news”max all have one thing in common. False advertising. The majority of their programming is not news. Same goes for cnn and msnbc but to a much lesser extent.

24/7 “news” channels that are not actually news but are actually highly partisan bullshit dividing the country need to be changed. Like I said people can spew all the bullshit they want in the appropriate places so I am not limiting anyone’s speech. Just so happens the appropriate place isn’t a network labeling themselves as a source of news.

When I first started paying attention to what guy like O Riley and Glenn beck were saying in the early 2000s I was horrified about the damage they were doing to my country. It’s so much worse now than ever.

When anyone mentions "rules," though, he is cast as depriving us of our "freedoms."  Even someone like Evangelical Republican and former CIA director John Brennan gets defined as "far left" when he suggests seditious speech should be investigated. 

If you say it is fine to spew "partisan bullshit" in the appropriate places, the spewers will not agree with your characterization of their "false advertising" as not news. Rather, your views will be more proof that liberals are trying to shut down free speech.    

Like you I am alarmed at mass disinformation, but in the U.S., at least at this conjuncture, raising the alarm about disinformation fuels the disinformation fire.  It provides "evidence" that liberals want to suppress dissent.

So I don't think we are going to get "rules," or at least not until we hit rock bottom.

I do speculate about other means of contesting or containing disinformation which don't involve legal censorship, but they unfortunately require the consent of people who don't want that disinformation contained.

[Belsnickel]

All I know is that our current media situation is ******.

I did have a longer response all typed up. I read it, hated it, and deleted it for this.

[Dill]

(01-28-2021, 07:55 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: All I know is that our current media situation is ******.

I did have a longer response all typed up. I read it, hated it, and deleted it for this.

Well, it is ****ed in the sense that--

1. an ongoing massive, media-led disinformation campaign like the world has never seen prompted a mob to sack the U.S. Capitol building, sending Congressmen fleeing for their lives as they attempted to complete peaceful transfer of power,

2. That disinformation campaign, and its media supports, continue as before, shaping the beliefs and actions of millions, and

3. There may be nothing we can do about that legally, so long as disinformation is protected speech.

The majority of Americans still live outside the bubble, but it is still possible for a minority to regain power, as was the case the last four years.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(01-28-2021, 12:06 PM)Dill Wrote: Well, it is ****ed in the sense that--

1. an ongoing massive, media-led disinformation campaign like the world has never seen prompted a mob to sack the U.S. Capitol building, sending Congressmen fleeing for their lives as they attempted to complete peaceful transfer of power,

2. That disinformation campaign, and its media supports, continue as before, shaping the beliefs and actions of millions, and

3. There may be nothing we can do about that legally, so long as disinformation is protected speech.

The majority of Americans still live outside the bubble, but it is still possible for a minority to regain power, as was the case the last four years.

Your complete failure to acknowledge how the "mainstream" media is completely failing us makes the premise of your thread less than credible.  I don't even think you realize how blatantly one sided your position(s) is.  Bel is correct, journalism is in the garbage can almost entirely across the board.  It probably doesn't help that pretty much every mainstream media organization is owned by a handful of huge corporations.

[GMDino]

(01-28-2021, 07:55 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: All I know is that our current media situation is ******.

I did have a longer response all typed up. I read it, hated it, and deleted it for this.

Define "media".

I think there are still good reporters and good news out there.  They just get lumped in with "Project Veritas" and all the "news" sites on the internet that aren't really news.

Sites that are designed to look like "local news" but are not real.

Then you have the blending of opinion/news which has been going on for decades now.

I have a friend, business owner, she will post a story and I'll show her where the AP and other sources have looked into it and it is either false or misreported in her link and her response, virtually every time, is that how we can tell who is REALLY telling the truth?  I mean it COULD be the site called "Patriots for Trump and America" or it could be the AP....right?  

The "media" might be a crapshow but the news is still out the news is still out there and good...it's just harder to find.

[Belsnickel]

(01-28-2021, 02:16 PM)GMDino Wrote: Define "media".

I think there are still good reporters and good news out there.  They just get lumped in with "Project Veritas" and all the "news" sites on the internet that aren't really news.

Sites that are designed to look like "local news" but are not real.

Then you have the blending of opinion/news which has been going on for decades now.

I have a friend, business owner, she will post a story and I'll show her where the AP and other sources have looked into it and it is either false or misreported in her link and her response, virtually every time, is that how we can tell who is REALLY telling the truth?  I mean it COULD be the site called "Patriots for Trump and America" or it could be the AP....right?  

The "media" might be a crapshow but the news is still out the news is still out there and good...it's just harder to find.

So, when I talk about the media I am mostly referring to the companies that push out the information. The monetization of the news is what is at fault. There are many good individual reporters out there, and I love following them on social media, but the companies they work for gatekeep things to such an extent that it makes it difficult for them to do the jobs they were trained to do. In addition, money is put behind the sensational stories because they get clicks rather than the important stories. This skews everything that is out there.

[Dill]

(01-28-2021, 12:53 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Your complete failure to acknowledge how the "mainstream" media is completely failing us makes the premise of your thread less than credible.  I don't even think you realize how blatantly one sided your position(s) is.  Bel is correct, journalism is in the garbage can almost entirely across the board.  It probably doesn't help that pretty much every mainstream media organization is owned by a handful of huge corporations.

If the MSM had failed to expose Trump's unfitness for office long before he had a chance to prove it, and if they had failed to expose Trump/GOP claims of voter fraud as themselves fraudulent, then perhaps one could speak of an MSM "completely failing us."  But they did that job, and did it reasonably well. 

The claim that the MSM is "failing us" is in fact just a long term talking point of the Right, first articulated by Agnew and Nixon and reaching its crescendo under Trump. It is received truth only for a segment of voters, and only because it has been so long and often repeated.

But that unsupported claim has a special prominence in right-wing discourse now, where it serves to mitigate Right-Wing Media culpability in both the Capitol violence and the fact that tens of millions of voters continue to believe the election was stolen, making the country barely governable, if at all.

Many people turned to Trump, Fox, Breitbart, and OANN for "the truth"--so the story goes--because they couldn't get it from the MSM or "liberal" media. And therefore the liberal/MSM are ultimately to blame for what happened on Jan. 6.  (E.g., Megyn Kelly
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/535647-megyn-kelly-says-media-partly-to-blame-for-capitol-riot-they-couldnt-check.)

Arguing that the MSM "is completely failing us" begs some serious definitional questions--like what counts as "failing," and how is that measured, if not by accuracy in reporting, especially investigative reporting.  

[Dill]

(01-28-2021, 02:29 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: So, when I talk about the media I am mostly referring to the companies that push out the information. The monetization of the news is what is at fault. There are many good individual reporters out there, and I love following them on social media, but the companies they work for gatekeep things to such an extent that it makes it difficult for them to do the jobs they were trained to do. In addition, money is put behind the sensational stories because they get clicks rather than the important stories. This skews everything that is out there.

Sure, that's how news works in a capitalist system. News becomes a commodity, subject to market forces--especially demand.

But a lot of what we know about that "monetization of the news" comes from journalists who are doing their job.

When we focus on a specific issue, like why so many millions of Americans believe Biden was not legitimately elected, that is certainly an effect of that "monetization" you refer to--of news tailored to maintain revenue. 

But when I look at the investigative reporting of the NYT and WaPo, I see quite a lot of valuable work which honors high journalistic standards. 

One could argue, in line with the theme of this thread, that the kind of objections which drive millions away from MSM media are not the "gatekeeping" you refer to so much as adherence to standards, which emphasize validating sources and excluding or questioning "news" based in rumor. 

Once some newsgroups lowers such standards and give disaffected viewerships what they want, you get the current media environment, in which bubbles of confirmation bias in the guise of news thrive and bad journalism displaces good precisely because the demand for good is withering.

[Dill]

(01-28-2021, 02:16 PM)GMDino Wrote: I have a friend, business owner, she will post a story and I'll show her where the AP and other sources have looked into it and it is either false or misreported in her link and her response, virtually every time, is that how we can tell who is REALLY telling the truth?  I mean it COULD be the site called "Patriots for Trump and America" or it could be the AP....right?  

The "media" might be a crapshow but the news is still out the news is still out there and good...it's just harder to find.

That anecdote hits the nail on the head.

Millions of people, perhaps proportionally more than 20 or 30 years ago, have difficulty vetting sources, as if the sources' publication on the internet alone grants them all a presumed and presumably equal validity. 

As I mentioned above, the success of Right-Wing Media has depended in part on fostering this kind of paralysis before competing sources, that so what is true or factual comes down to a feeling, not further critical investigation. 

That is why we see application of journalistic, scientific, and ethical standards frequently attacked as "liberal bias" and presented as "opinion" in a world where opinions are all equal.  

[*Nately120*]

Anything that gives you information you don't agree with is being totally unfair. I'm reminded of this any time I watch "My 600lb Life" and one of the participates says with a straight face that the scale is clearly wrong because they totally are nothing but kale and steamed fish for the past 2 months and there is NO WAY they put on an additional 100lbs.

Side note, I'm pretty sure the ruler I used to measure my penis is biased towards my mean-spirited ex-wife.

[Dill]

(01-28-2021, 02:29 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: So, when I talk about the media I am mostly referring to the companies that push out the information. The monetization of the news is what is at fault. There are many good individual reporters out there, and I love following them on social media, but the companies they work for gatekeep things to such an extent that it makes it difficult for them to do the jobs they were trained to do. In addition, money is put behind the sensational stories because they get clicks rather than the important stories. This skews everything that is out there.

Recently fired Fox analyst Chris Stireworth agrees with you:
Op-Ed: I called Arizona for Biden on Fox News. Here’s what I learned.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-01-28/fox-news-chris-stirewalt-firing-arizona

Ratings, combined with scads of market research, tell them what keeps viewers entranced and what makes them pick up their remotes. It’s no different from the pressure online outlets face to serve up items that will generate clicks and steer consumers ever deeper into the maw of “you might be interested in” content.

Whatever the platform, the competitive advantage belongs to those who can best habituate consumers, which in the stunted, data-obsessed thinking of our time, means avoiding at almost any cost impinging on the reality so painstakingly built around them. As outlets have increasingly prioritized habituation over information, consumers have unsurprisingly become ever more sensitive to any interruption of their daily diet.

The rebellion on the populist right against the results of the 2020 election was partly a cynical, knowing effort by political operators and their hype men in the media to steal an election or at least get rich trying. But it was also the tragic consequence of the informational malnourishment so badly afflicting the nation.

When I defended the call for Biden in the Arizona election, I became a target of murderous rage from consumers who were furious at not having their views confirmed.

Having been cosseted by self-validating coverage for so long, many Americans now consider any news that might suggest that they are in error or that their side has been defeated as an attack on them personally. The lie that Trump won the 2020 election wasn’t nearly as much aimed at the opposing party as it was at the news outlets that stated the obvious, incontrovertible fact.

While there is still a lucrative market for a balanced offering of news and opinion at high-end outlets, much of the mainstream is increasingly bent toward flattery and fluff. Most stories are morally complicated and don’t have white hats and black hats. Defeats have many causes and victories are never complete. Reporting these stories requires skill and dispassion. But hearing them requires something of consumers, too: Enough humility to be open to learning something new.

[*jason*]

(01-28-2021, 05:11 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Anything that gives you information you don't agree with is being totally unfair. I'm reminded of this any time I watch "My 600lb Life" and one of the participates says with a straight face that the scale is clearly wrong because they totally are nothing but kale and steamed fish for the past 2 months and there is NO WAY they put on an additional 100lbs.

Side note, I'm pretty sure the ruler I used to measure my penis is biased towards my mean-spirited ex-wife.

Use a tape measure... The metal hook adds about and 1/8 of an inch. Pro hack my friend.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(01-28-2021, 02:52 PM)Dill Wrote: If the MSM had failed to expose Trump's unfitness for office long before he had a chance to prove it, and if they had failed to expose Trump/GOP claims of voter fraud as themselves fraudulent, then perhaps one could speak of an MSM "completely failing us."  But they did that job, and did it reasonably well. 

The claim that the MSM is "failing us" is in fact just a long term talking point of the Right, first articulated by Agnew and Nixon and reaching its crescendo under Trump. It is received truth only for a segment of voters, and only because it has been so long and often repeated.

No, it's not.  The journalism profession has taken a nose dive in quality and this isn't debateable.  You can't ignore it by covering your eyes to it and stating "it's the Right".

Quote:But that unsupported claim has a special prominence in right-wing discourse now, where it serves to mitigate Right-Wing Media culpability in both the Capitol violence and the fact that tens of millions of voters continue to believe the election was stolen, making the country barely governable, if at all.

Except it's not unsupported, at all.

Quote:Many people turned to Trump, Fox, Breitbart, and OANN for "the truth"--so the story goes--because they couldn't get it from the MSM or "liberal" media. And therefore the liberal/MSM are ultimately to blame for what happened on Jan. 6.  (E.g., Megyn Kelly
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/535647-megyn-kelly-says-media-partly-to-blame-for-capitol-riot-they-couldnt-check.)

Arguing that the MSM "is completely failing us" begs some serious definitional questions--like what counts as "failing," and how is that measured, if not by accuracy in reporting, especially investigative reporting.  

Reporting false information, putting spins on hard news items, using different words and terms (both deliberately bad and good) depending on the person or people being reported on.  I could go on.

Seriously, if can can seriously type that the media is doing a good job and you have no idea why anyone would think otherwise then your ignorance on this topic makes your opinion on it less than useless.

[*michaelsean*]

(01-28-2021, 05:11 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Anything that gives you information you don't agree with is being totally unfair. I'm reminded of this any time I watch "My 600lb Life" and one of the participates says with a straight face that the scale is clearly wrong because they totally are nothing but kale and steamed fish for the past 2 months and there is NO WAY they put on an additional 100lbs.

Side note, I'm pretty sure the ruler I used to measure my penis is biased towards my mean-spirited ex-wife.

Best show ever. The delusion is hard to imagine. “You gained 36 pounds.” “ I know I’m not supposed to, but sometimes I snuck an apple between meals.”

[*michaelsean*]

(01-27-2021, 11:19 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: There needs to be rules. Spew all the bullshit you want on platforms that will allow it. But fox“news”, one America”news”network, “news”max all have one thing in common. False advertising. The majority of their programming is not news. Same goes for cnn and msnbc but to a much lesser extent.

24/7 “news” channels that are not actually news but are actually highly partisan bullshit dividing the country need to be changed. Like I said people can spew all the bullshit they want in the appropriate places so I am not limiting anyone’s speech. Just so happens the appropriate place isn’t a network labeling themselves as a source of news.

When I first started paying attention to what guy like O Riley and Glenn beck were saying in the early 2000s I was horrified about the damage they were doing to my country. It’s so much worse now than ever.

So what are the appropriate places where you’re not limiting speech?

[hollodero]

(01-28-2021, 10:37 PM)michaelsean Wrote: So what are the appropriate places where you’re not limiting speech?

One could very well tie the word "news" to certain standards of factual accuracy.

Eg. if Tucker argues in court that no reasonable viewer could possibly regard his comments on his show as truth, then the label "news" should be taken away from his show. That does not limit his rights of free speech, but his right to claim they are an accurate representation of facts.

[NATI BENGALS]

(01-28-2021, 10:37 PM)michaelsean Wrote: So what are the appropriate places where you’re not limiting speech?

Zip tie guys mom’s basement. Qmoron shamans mom’s basement. Platforms where the business owner isn’t afraid to be linked to domestic terrorism and accepts the financial and legal liability that may come with it. A trailer park on Alabama. Mar a lago. There a a bunch.

Don’t try McDonalds or White Castle. I went and starting talking to a bunch of people about how we need to over throw the gov kill the dems and my Anti-cannibal-satanist views and I got kicked out. So not everywhere.

[GMDino]

(01-28-2021, 02:29 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: So, when I talk about the media I am mostly referring to the companies that push out the information. The monetization of the news is what is at fault. There are many good individual reporters out there, and I love following them on social media, but the companies they work for gatekeep things to such an extent that it makes it difficult for them to do the jobs they were trained to do. In addition, money is put behind the sensational stories because they get clicks rather than the important stories. This skews everything that is out there.

I figured that was what "media" meant and I was making a more generic response than directly to you to be fair.  Your post just gave me the jumping off point.

It's the never ending story of needing to make money to put out the product and the adjusting the product to make the money.

That's why I don't lump real news in with "the media".  There are good, honest journalists out there but they get swamped over by the loud, attention seeking "media".

I think the more closed-minded will see anything they think is "fake news" just because they disagree with it, with no research into it, and then lump it all together.  And that's wrong in my book.