Ministry of Truth?

[hollodero]

(05-12-2022, 11:04 PM)StrictlyBiz Wrote: Sorry guys, couldn't find the time to reply quickly. Life happens.

It does indeed. I usually don't count on getting any response, glad if I do.

(05-12-2022, 11:04 PM)StrictlyBiz Wrote: I've been sold the 'this is the worst thing, the world is going to end' propaganda for decades now. I used to buy into it. And believe it of not, from both sides of the political aisle as my 'political pendulum' as I call it, swung in my youth before finally settling in the center.

I certainly can see that. I would argue, however, that aside from what political actors try to put forth there is some kind of objective measure stick that allows us to call some things particularly bad or worse than some other things. Your lines read like a plea for not reaching such conclusions ever.

(05-12-2022, 11:04 PM)StrictlyBiz Wrote: Im a child of the 80s, so I grew up fearing the Russians and being petrified that they would nuke us at a moments notice. It was irrational. So I tend to not overreact to Russian fear mongering. That's not to say that they aren't political adversaries and that they aren't actively engaged in trying to influence our politics. But if you think we aren't reciprocating just as strongly, you're naive. In the end it's political gamesmanship and it's always been there. 

I don't know about reciprocating or to which degree it happens, eg. if there is an US led fake news propaganda campaign going on in Russia. At the very least this is an asymmetrical fight then. Russia is not a democracy as the US is and does not have the sort of free media one could so easily plant misinformation in. Putin plants his own.
As for the nukes, I cannot quite call the fears irrational. Russia has those things, after all. I seem to remember that in the 80s we (all the west) as a whole did not regard ourselves to be certainly doomed, but there were fears, and I'd call that perfectly rational. I'd rather say our politics acted accordingly and avoided a possible catastrophy.

(05-12-2022, 11:04 PM)StrictlyBiz Wrote: Maybe you've forgotten about the 2000 election and the controversy surrounding it. There were quite a lot of Democrats who thought that Bush stole the election. This article from July 2001 states that in a poll, 33% of Democrats believed that Bush stole the election and 52% of African Americans believed so. Just imagine those numbers if social media existed. They probably would be damn near the 60-70 percent you cited. 
Yet, the Republic survived. 

Sure. I will say though that these were quite extraordinary circumstances, and quite different ones. The outcome was outright bizarre. And it was clear that whoever ends up losing (I seem to remember most people blamed the SC and not so much Bush, we in Europe blamed stupid voting machines) will have a hard time to accept that. I can't really blame Democrats for that too much, as a whole. I'm sure many overdid it though. The complaints of democrats were at least based on something real and observable that actually took place. Trump's complaints are solely based on lies.
Regarding that, I'd count among the most significant differences that Al Gore was not running around beforehand to declare he either wins or the election is rigged, or talked about millions of illegal votes, or called governors so they find him some votes, he conceded in time, and he also did not incite a Capitol storming; and that both candidates were not demagogues and authoritarians like Trump imho is.

As for survival of the Republic, the way I see it, that at all times depends on many people being vigilant and wanting the Republic to survive. When it comes to the more hardcore Trump supporters (and their mouthpieces in politics), I am not so sure they want that. At the very least, I'd say it's not a law of nature or a given that the Republic always will survive no matter what.

(05-12-2022, 11:04 PM)StrictlyBiz Wrote: Looney crack-pot people who peddle in conspiracies have always been there. Social media and the internet just put them in your face making you believe that it's worse than it is. 

Ah well, but they do also sit in Congress now and not just on lunatics.org. Ms. Marjorie imho is a poster child for something unprecedented in that regard. But it sure can not be reduced to her alone as well.

(05-12-2022, 11:04 PM)StrictlyBiz Wrote: Again, if you don't think that this cuts both ways, you're naive. If you think the left has boundaries, or worse, just doesn't engage in vilifying the right, you're living in an echo chamber and need to diversify where you get your information. 

Oh I would never make the claim that this doesn't cut both ways. For sure democrats are into the unfairly villifying people game, and I don't like it, and I know there'd be examples too many to mention for it. I would, however, vigorously state that the left has some boundaries the right these days has not (apologies for the generalization). Starting with the respective news networks. And with Trump and defending him on all turns. Which is where I already run into problems, for I could create a list reaching to the moon and back of things Trump said and tweeted that imho no democrat would ever say or could ever get away with. Falling in love with Kim, musing about shooting people and not lose votes or repeatedly insinuating a insubordinate TV host had killed an intern, for example, but I should not even start, again, moon and back. But it's a nice exercise to just randomly open an article of "Trumps 100 worst tweets", "100 most offensive sayings" or anything like that, just pick any of them out and just imagine for a second Hillary, Biden or Obama had said those things. Or the instances where Trump called into FOX news to ramble on about the wildest conspiracies, only to have the hosts call him objectively the greatest genius ever. Bizarre beyond belief and unique to one side these days.
Of course, there's also inciting an insurrection and telling tales of election fraud and all that, but these things became commonplace now. Still, a boundary as of now not crossed by the other side. And it doesn't hurt Trump one bit it seems, all the blatant lies and conspiracies that I'd still regard as unprecedented. Which, to me, is the scary part.