Capitol Hearings: Competing Narratives

[hollodero]

(07-29-2021, 01:43 PM)Dill Wrote: I do see a contrast here with the impeachments, though.

Remember, the first one hung on explaining some basics of diplomacy. 

Also, the phone call lent itself to gaslighting, as did some of Trump's comments inciting the insurrection. 

I think that in all these cases, the counter narrative is critical. The first impeachment was more susceptible to that than the second, or the current hearings. 

The goal is to ultimately make this about Trump hate, and a "leftist" effort to destroy Trump's good name and all the good work he has done for the country so he cannot come back n 2024 and finish it. 

Making it about Trump hate requires systematically converting points against Trump and his party into false equivalences, designed first to create "no difference" between Dem and Repubs and then to cast any push for accountability as a double standard--Dems were "against" the police back when and no they are "for" police when it suits them. Biden "supported" Antifa; Harris supported "rioters"; "violence" on "both sides" but more died in the Floyd riots than at the Capitol, etc. Now suddenly Dems want accountability. 

Well, as for the bolded, there we differ again. I think the counter narrative does not really matter at all. I guess most people that were pro Trump in the first place would accept any counternarrative that comes along, and if it were that all Democrats are disguised aliens or sent by satan. They just need something to say, and how much sense it makes isn't all that important, as long as the group goes along. It isn't so much about the issue in the first place - which goes indeed for both sides, actually. Liberals don't care all that much about double standards either if it suits them not to. (That I think one side is way worse goes without saying, for I said it so often.)

I also never noticed that people mind too much about glaring double standards or false equivalencies or anything of that matter. Those that are pro conservatives stay pro conservatives, and even those that define their attitude by saying "both sides are equally bad" stay on that course. And if Trump shot someone on the streets, then they would believe in Clintoncides to even out the score. These stances all became too defining for many people's identities to just rethink them or throw them overboard because a false equivalency comes along. Or a hundred.

Btw. for me, seldomly was something so clear-cut than the first impeachment. It wasn't really about diplomacy that much. As I saw it, it was about a president blocking Congress-approved funds to pressure a country fighting a common foe into producing made-up charges against a domestic opponent. One does not need to be versed in diplomacy to know that this is wrong (or that forcing an ambassador out by smear campaigns from Giuliani and all that stuff that went along with it was wrong). The commen counternarratives hardly touched the case at hand at all and went along the lines of "Adam Schiff wants nude pictures of Trump" and lots of other stuff that was equally asinine (the hearings are held secretly! Scandal! Oh no, the hearings are a public theater! Scandal! Republicans are not allowed to speak! and whatnot) and made little sense. Oh yeah, outing the whistleblower was important. All bad, pointless counternarratives. It did not matter.