Capitol Hearings: Competing Narratives

[Dill]

(07-29-2021, 03:17 PM)hollodero Wrote: 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.

Cordial disagreement with the bolded: Roy Moore and Al Franken are out of politics because “glaring double standards” do matter. The allegation of such is a primary driver of electorate anger, especially on the right. I’d say EVERYONE minds.

People have become more accepting of double standards in case of their own people, especially on the Right,* in part because they believe the other side “gets away with it,”** and if they are not playing by the rules we cannot either. It’s no accident that Hannity, Ingraham and Tucker hammer the “liberal hypocrisy” point across every segment every night of their programs.
 
And from where/whence do they continue to receive their information about Clintoncides, which are part of the larger anti-liberal counternarrative which began in the 80s? You reference here a counter-narrative, yes, a faux scandal to balance out a very real one. Your shooting example is only hypothetical at the moment—but the Clintoncide counter-narrative is already there, a false equivalence ready for use.
 
Yes, these stances become "all too defining for many people's identities to just rethink them or throw them overboard," and yes, you have to create a total worldview before the glaring double standards can be embraced and normalized.  But that certainly doesn’t mean the factual basis of each stance is equally factual. (I know you agree with me on that.) A stance based on alternative facts requires constant maintenance, and the creation of false equivalences is a priority method for achieving that, as is the undermining of tradition journalistic authority to the point that Trump becomes more trustworthy than the journalism-is-dead NYT. 

But if I understand you, you are saying people, "pro-conservatives," would just keep their views and support for Trump, somehow, with or without the equivalences and counter-narratives? Even if the MSM were not "biased" and the Clintons were not "corrupt" and there wasn't a "deep state" out to get Trump and a failed FBI coup and there hadn't been riots last summer, even near the White House? 
 
*Hillary, Biden and AOC cannot shoot someone on 5th avenue and count on continued support from the Dem base. Same if they steer an insurrection to the Capitol or pay off a porn star.
 
**Remember all of the Clinton scandals which ended with no indictments, not to mention a set of Benghazi hearings targeting Hillary. This did not signal the scandals were bogus, but that “the establishment” always got Hillary off. One standard for the Clintons, another for everyone else. Thus ANGER! If Hillary always got off for her crimes then Trump should too.