A few days ago, Vox reported that
Attacks on the “fake news” media have become a staple of the Trump administration — and nearly half of voters, including the vast majority of Republicans, believe the president when he claims that the media is making up stories about him.
Forty-six percent of voters believe that major news organizations fabricate stories about Trump, while 37 percent do not and 17 percent are undecided, according to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll.
Note that the question was focused on “major” news organizations–journalism outlets with institutional commitments to verification and accuracy. The questions weren’t about dubious websites or partisan outlets.
A study by an organization called Study Soup, with which I am unfamiliar, found that Limbaugh, Breitbart and Fox News–rather than traditional media– were seen as the biggest purveyors of “fake news.” This particular study asked people whether they’d been personally duped; I suppose it is plausible that people who recognize that they’ve been fooled by dubious reporting would subsequently be less trusting of all media.
Americans across the political spectrum, led by Republicans, admit they have been duped by “fake news,” or partisan propaganda and outright fabrications, a new national study has found.
“In a heartening display of humility, many of our participants admitted they feared they’d been duped by fake news before. In fact, nearly 56 percent of Republicans said they had probably or definitely been deceived, and over 46 percent of Democrats said the same,” said the analysis accompanying the survey of 1,000 Americans by the education company StudySoup.com.
The study did find that Trump’s constant calling-out of specific media sources affected public perceptions of the accuracy of those sources. That shouldn’t surprise us. There is a famous Joseph Goebbels quote, describing the propaganda tactic known as “The Big Lie.”
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
The Big Lie is an all-purpose propaganda technique. According to Wikipedia,
The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”
So this is how the Big Lie works.
You begin with a hypothesis that has a certain surface plausibility. You find an ally whose background suggests that he’s an “expert”; out of thin air, he devises “data.” You write articles in sympathetic publications, repeating the data endlessly; in time, some of these publications make your cause their own. Like-minded congressmen pick up your mantra and invite you to testify at hearings.
You’re chosen for an investigative panel related to your topic. When other panel members, after inspecting your evidence, reject your thesis, you claim that they did so for ideological reasons. This, too, is repeated by your allies. Soon, the echo chamber you created drowns out dissenting views…
The success of the Big Lie rests on two characteristics of human nature. First, people have a tendency to believe a big lie more easily than a little one; most of us are familiar with”little white lies,” but we find it hard to believe that someone would invent an enormous (and more easily refuted) fiction. Second, if you repeat even a ridiculous lie frequently enough, people will sooner or later believe it.
So–accuse respected journalists of “fake” news.
Does media bias exist? Of course–although the bias is usually toward conflict, not ideology. (Conflict, after all, is what makes something newsworthy, or at least interesting.) And reporters are human–they see things through their own “lenses,” no matter how hard they try for total objectivity.
Credible journalists do not, however, simply fabricate stories.
That so many Americans believe mainstream news outlets are manufacturing reports out of whole cloth is disquieting, to put it mildly. It’s one thing to be leery of conspiracy websites and partisan propaganda. When people don’t believe anything, from any source, there is no civic common ground. Without agreed-upon facts, we become uneasy; we can’t communicate.
That distrust creates an environment conducive to authoritarianism. Which is, of course, the point.
Perhaps the good news is that ‘news’ from whatever source becomes less important and one must rely on internal guidelines. The bad news, so few have figured that out and started looking at their personal ethics.
When people currently make references to authoritarianism with 45 to his supporters, his supporters refuse to even consider the possibility that he is behaving like an autocrat.
It seems to me that his supporters are the kind of people who prefer to be followers and to have someone tell them what they should believe, rather than to try to figure out whether he is telling the truth or not.
What I am unable to wrap my head around is why those media sources choose to support him. Is it because it brings them a lot more revenue than if they were reporting the actual truth? If so, then I still don’t understand why they are choosing to help create a terrible atmosphere for their children and grandchildren to grow up in.
Thoughts anyone?
The few Trump supporters I have spoken with are Fox News viewers; some others do not have cable so only get the local version of Fox News and do not have access to CNN or MSNBC with all news all day. They have not seen the endless broadcasts of Trump in action, his speeches, his continuing rallies or his Tweets. They rely on word-of-mouth for the most part to make up their minds for them. My daughter-in-law is/was one of those supporters who allowed her son-in-law to tell her who to vote for on November 8, 2016. After several visits with me over the past few months, I almost always have my TV tuned to MSNBC, she told me recently that she always leaves my house angry and often afraid of the man she voted for after seeing him in action and who he really is.
Media bias of course exists; it is part of all of us as it is human nature. But seeing the actual broadcasts of and by Trump and his minions cannot be misconstrued as “fake news”. The broadcasts daily, after original reporting of decisions and actions by Trump and our Congress, have become live action “Op Ed” reporting; their personal views of the action and predicting/guessing what will be the results. Most of their programming has become “fillers”; repeated “Breaking News” on the same issue from their viewpoint.
Trump’s repeated accusations of “fake news” are the age-old question of, “Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?”
Greed, they control the “story”, they can lead the sheep where they want.
These days, the Big Lie has been subsumed by Post Truth Politics.
Dear Ms. Kennedy,
With our technology, and understanding of human behavior over some many years since the invention of radio we have seen a steady increase in the application of psychological warfare on the Public at large. This can be proven by turning on a TV (muted) observing with a stop watch the amount of time a ‘show’ interval lasts and then timing the Commercial content presented – not HOW MANY TIMES that same ad repeats in one show. – I was writing and had a bit of deja vu there!… But this is the world we live in – brainwashing is not total – but enough for saturation – even the ‘anti-trump’ news is washing it down with apologetics for him and his ilk… I have seen enough to know – we are in trouble as a ‘free people’ and with all I see – I figure we have two options – complete collapse with a gradual rebuild of our collective society – or an absolute dictatorship by the Capitalist machine behind the state. (not the banks not industry – the MONEY. and who owns that money? it sure ain’t you or me!) – However I am happy to say I own my own printing press – three to be exact. Handbills may soon be in order…!
One of the new wrinkles brought into American politics by Donny Johnny and his reverse Robin Hood band is to lie lavishly and obviously and often with no pretense even of truth. While that technique has become very obvious, the part harder to unravel is why does it work? What kind of voter prefers that to truth?
I think maybe it’s voters who have no alligiance to the concept of America nor the achievement that it was (only “libtards” think that way) and consider the government as their right to impose what’s best for themselves on others. In other words they have been sold tyranny as personally beneficial and government of liars is in their minds not good but useful. They are Trumps themselves or miniature Pences, McConnells or Ryans.
Unfortunately that leaves us liberals talking to ourselves.
The impact of all this isn’t really an amazing phenomenon to me personally. Many of my oldest friends, people that I’ve known since we were kids and who are rational people, have bought into this hook line and sinker. They didn’t like Barack Obama, they hate Hillary Clinton, they all are more or less in agreement that government is working all out against them, and they don’t like what I’m trying to explain to them-the great lie or the great lies. They are determined in their beliefs as the cement on my driveway is hard.
I am at a loss as to how we reach these people who are the ones that Donald Trump only cares about. Logical argument don’t work. References from history don’t work. Nothing works sent this is what they feel, their beliefs and hearing anything to the contrary from whoever it is, even old friends that they have to know are doing so out of concern, ends up being deeply offensive to them. While I have deeply held beliefs that it been nurtured since my childhood through adulthood I am open to them being challenged and actually encourage it because I might learn something in the process. I just wish fervently that I could reach my friends not to destroy their belief systems, not to hurt their feelings but to enlighten them as to what is happening and how it is happening with me holding what seems to an increasingly forlorn hope that I can reach them somehow.
This deeply disturbs me and I’m sure most of us of experience the same thing because we care about these people, they’re integral parts of our life experiences that you don’t really wanted to throw away if you can avoid it. So you post things on Facebook were you try to engage them in conversation if they’re physically here that the prognosis remains grim. Paula span a good deal of my life reading about other countries wrapping themselves apart over all sorts of reasons I guess I never thought that it would happen here, egged on by a foreign powers cyber intrusion into our daily lives, nor from a president that is complicit in it happening. He is a grim thing to think about given all the real crises that are externally driven that we have to face, a government that it every level seems to be driven by forces where our input his both overlooked and not desired; drowned out by money, greed, and other forms of avarice.
Moving to Tahiti or at least Australia looks better and better every day and yet been from a family that is fought in virtually every war this country is ever fought going back to the American Revolution my first inclination is to stand right here as an American and fight this in any way I can.
With apologies for my ramblings I bid you good day.
I find it interesting that it was said of our first President that he cannot tell a lie, while our latest President apparently cannot tell the truth.
The media’s fascination with the train wreck is largely responsible for where we are today. They gave the candidate unrelenting, unchallenging, 24 hour a day coverage. One report was that he received over $2 billion in free publicity and no one pointed out his inaccuracies or his lies while that was happening. It may not have been fake, but it also certainly wasn’t “journalism”.
Nancy,
“What I am unable to wrap my head around is why those media sources choose to support him. Is it because it brings them a lot more revenue than if they were reporting the actual truth? If so, then I still don’t understand why they are choosing to help create a terrible atmosphere for their children and grandchildren to grow up in.
Thoughts anyone?”
I don’t agree with the term “fake news.” The Trump supporters would be more accurate if they called it “chickenshit news.” America is, for most purposes, completely under the control of the RACIST OLIGARCHY. Those making the decisions are now fighting among themsleves. It’s the BANNON FASCISTS against the BUSH THEOCRATS. Like Nazi Germany, it looks like the smart money is following Koch and have decided to go with the FASCISTS.
The oppostion media is “chickenshit” to do anything about it. Who wants to loose their livelihood? The term “fake news” is not accurate. If the term “chickenshit news” was used I would have little argument with the Trump constituency with the use of that term.
If the opposition media was not “chickenshit” then why is it that we have to go to a British newpaper, The Guardian, for any worthwhile political news?
What happened to REALITY in America? That’s where the real questioning should be.
Simply stated, “we’ve been SCREWED.”
As intended, journalism school is a revelation, even to students with ambitions to be the next journalist-hero.
One of my majors was journalism, and on top of that the Defense Department decided to send me to DINFOS (Defense Information Officers School) in 1964, on David’s Island off the coast of New Rochelle, NY, the school later moving to Ft. Harrison in Lawrence, northeast of Indy.
In my experience, the emphasis journalism schools placed on multiple-verification of sources was extraordinary, so much so that among students, talk of its nuisance was the main leisure activity.
They did teach mild slant-skills, however. For instance, if the actual number of bean balls thrown by American League pitchers this year was 879, the journalist could report that figure as “nearly 1000” or “less than 900”, depending on the slant preferred by the publisher. In a couple centuries of practice, such slant did little to no harm. And actually, the purpose of teaching such departure from exact data was, and likely still is, that most students of public relations must complete a number of journalism classes, and those fudging-skills are an important tool in the PR profession’s tool bag.
As stringent as journalism schools were in regard to verification of facts, I found that publishers and editors in real life were a hundred times worse…or better if you prefer. The publisher’s motivation to be accurate and truthful came from his or her respect of legal expense, a fear bordering on paranoia. Which is why so many stories actually making it into print or onto air, especially in small city media, leave you wanting more, wanting some facts, willing even to settle for ONE little fact–simply avoiding facts becomes a necessary skill of existential importance for small media.
How some media nowadays have the nerve to disregard legal liabilities is something I do not understand. Sure, the big boys have the capital to pay armies of lawyers, but how does that go down with their board of directors, the shareholders, or the individual owner, all of whom desire (presumably) as large a profit as possible.
Or is that presumption almost naive, or more than naive?
My guess is that news media, which also doubles as entertainment, has found that the entertainment aspect of their presentation exempts any part of the program, magazine, newspaper from liability to laws, rules, customs exclusively applied to journalism and news. If so, that blurring of the lines between news and entertainment and opinion and commentary needs to be corrected…like, I mean, it needs to have a big, beautiful wall built.
My preference is that any media or program that uses the word “news” in its title, or uses the term “breaking news” in its hype, be held responsible for the accuracy of all its content, no matter how much “entertainment” and “commentary” they fog about.
There was some”FREE SPACE” back in the 60’s, especially in the Black and some of the Unitarian churches. Back then, the RACIST OLIGARCHY was still supporting some semblance of DEMOCRACY but for “whites only.” That’s no longer the case. Starting with the late 60’s, the DNA of our body politic has been slowly transformed from democracy to a GENTLE FASCISM for “everyone.” The next mutation won’t be so gentle.
Our concern as a practical matter should be on the results of Geobbelspeak rather than the known fact that it exists. Thus Trump, the divider in chief and within hours of the New York massacre, has politicized this horrid event with his claim that Schumer orchestrated it through an immigration bill that was passed by a bipartisan vote and signed by the elder Bush in the 1990s. That is bad enough, but consider this: That Trump’s twitter blaming Americans for what happened yesterday inferentially exonerates ISIS and tells them that they won, that we as a people are scared, and that it is all our fault. In his psychotic zeal to win adulation and authoritarian rule he is not only dividing America but is willing to surrender what really made America great, to wit: our value systems lodged in our democratic institutions.
Trashing the press and creating doubt in other such systems are merely part and parcel of his broader attempt to create (Bannon-inspired) chaos so that he can (figuratively) come in on his white horse and save the castle from ruin, thus emulating people like Putin, who Trump says is “a strong leader,” and, of course, another strong leader and master of Goebbelspeak, one who burned the Reichstag and turned criminal gangs loose on the German people, Hitler.
So now we have a new grounds for at least his impeachment – giving aid and comfort to ISIS, and thus inviting further such atrocities like the one yesterday in New York, and about the only thing he could do that is worse than collusion with Russia to undermine our democracy and set himself up for a dictatorship of “law and order”in the ensuing chaos in the streets of America. He has to go, and soon, as there are signs that our social cohesion and our democracy are approaching meltdown status from these incessant attacks on their foundations.
Am I overdoing this scenario? I hope so. I hope I am wrong. I hope that this confrontation of democracy with dictatorship is only a political confrontation that will pass in time and is not a confrontation of basic ideas upon which America was founded. If so, then, as the philosopher noted, “this, too, shall pass.” However, in case I’m right or even partly so in my evaluation of the passing scene, we need to be prepared to save our democracy from all comers both within and without at all costs. Nothing is more important than our democracy, without which, as I often write, we are nothing more than ATMs for Wall Street.
independant media,common dreams,propublica,truthdig,salon,vox,the nation,the guardian,economist,and the like, i read the liberal side,and compare some stories against conservative sides. seems the basis is true,just a diffrent slant. as far a fox,cnn,and the like, i disdain talking heads leading a conversation,like their all the know,and you have to believe, shut the damn thing off. boycott the advatisers,and walk away. obviously they garner the best propagandists in the industry. you would have to go back 40 years to remember journalism. I still remember walt cronkites opinion about the vietnam war, and what that led to. even johnson said if walts against my stay in vietnam,he didnt see any reason to run for reelection. do some hard reviews, t.v like CBC,freespeach,link,DW,al jezera, look at the diverse news,and listen to some European news,DW and BBC,get a feel how the rest of the world,now looks upon us. and what is going on in a more direct view. theres plenty to,hear with all the journalist out of work now,find a few who you can actully write. find news services whereas you,can ask for clairity in a article,The Nation is such a news service. robert reich is also,good for some facts,and humor, a good way to learn to discuss facts,over BS. get a grip, our nation deserves people who are aware,and act upon the facts, or we loose our democracy.
Larry,
I was also in the military back in the 60’s. I was an ARTILLERY officer. The purpose of having a Fire Control Center was to have the capacity to FIRE FOR EFFECT. Our media, [to include the so-called, pro-democracy NGOs and Democratic Party] has lost all courage. They play it safe. They FIRE FOR LITTLE EFFECT or none at all.
Thus, the opposition is allowed to get away with what amounts to MURDER. Let’s be fair, both sides are to blame for the disaster we are now facing.
Bravo Gerald, bravo!!!!
It isn’t fake news we have to worry about. It’s a fake president Trump and his daily supply of falsies.
Gerald,
“Our concern as a practical matter should be on the results of Geobbelspeak rather than the known fact that it exists. Thus Trump, the divider in chief and within hours of the New York massacre, has politicized this horrid event with his claim that Schumer orchestrated it through an immigration bill that was passed by a bipartisan vote and signed by the elder Bush in the 1990s.”
Trump is now forced to play his supposedly “trump card,” CHUCK SHUMER=ANTI-SEMITISM. I have to admit, I called this one right, last Monday, when a friend of mine asked me: What will be Trump’s move to counter the Mueller investigation? After some thought, I replied ANTI-SEMITISM, the proven formula for success. The tragedy in New York came JUST IN TIME for him.
Gerald and Tom,
It’s now time for Trump/ Pence/ Bannon to release the POLITICAL TSUNAMI OF HATRED, I predicted back in 2004. See http://www.StrategicPower.org.
I would strongly suggest reading: “Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes” by Richard A. Clarke and R.P. Eddy (HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2017).
Don’t neglect this aspect of the Goebbels statement: “The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. ”
Ironically, until some of his disastrous initiatives succeed and have real consequences, we are on a rough ride
Marv – Trump’s anti-Semitic views are well documented. He is a racist, and those of Semitic heritage have company – blacks, Mexicans, women, and anyone else who would deter him from his (Bannon-inspired) quest for all authority, including authority over the judiciary and even cowed Republicans who stray from the party line he has created while undermining our democratic institutions. I think he is more dangerous than ISIS itself in the sense that he operates under the presumption of legality. He has to go, and soon. It is time we (historically speaking) “Good Germans” remove this neo-Nazi from power before he and his addled adherents (figuratively speaking) start burning down the Reichstags and staging white supremacy events with a view toward creating the chaos that in turn give him fuel for a law and order policy and seizure of all power, as we saw with Hitler in the 1930s. The time to be “good” is now.
Gerald,
“Marv – Trump’s anti-Semitic views are well documented. He is a racist, and those of Semitic heritage have company – blacks, Mexicans, women, and anyone else who would deter him from his (Bannon-inspired) quest for all authority, including authority over the judiciary and even cowed Republicans who stray from the party line he has created while undermining our democratic institutions.”
As you have stated, Trump’s anti-Semitic views are well stated. However, he hasn’t DOCUMENTED the sub-surface build-up which is directed solely at the Jews. That doesn’t mean OTHERS won’t be affected as you have so well pointed out.
Chuck Schumer hasn’t revealed the truth, he’s too scared to. If he did, he wouldn’t be a Congressman anymore.
If the SUB-SURFACE POLITICAL TSUNAMI is not identified in time, the results will be CATASTROPHIC. That’s why we have early warning detectors around the world that can tract the sub-surface movement of natural tsunamis before they hit.
Any attempts to warn of the SUB-SURFACE POLITICAL TSUNAMI have been thwarted from the beginning. It’s NOW moving at full speed ahead. I’ve TRACKED it from the beginning.
Don’t forget that as a country we fall for the greatest fake news of all time, religion.
I have a friend who was in college outspoken in liberal views, especially feminism, abortion rights, Planned Parenthood, etc. He ended up marrying a Catholic woman, who demanded he convert and their children be raised Catholic. He agreed. Flash forward a couple decades and he is now a fully brainwashed pro-life soldier for Christ.
Anyway, he recently complained to me about fake news, how it’s shameful that so many don’t support our president, how Obama tried to destroy this country, etc. In trying to reason with him, I realized he no longer uses reason to make choices. His “faith” has effectively shut down his frontal lobe. If we as a country are so “faithful” as a people, is it any wonder this is happening? To be blunt, if you will believe that bullshit, surely Trump’s bullshit is mild by comparison.
Over it,
Amen to that.
Over it,
“….Flash forward a couple decades and he is now a fully brainwashed pro-life soldier for Christ.”
Walter Cronkite said it many years ago, “It’s white supremacy masked in Christianity.” To be tolerant toward minorities is ANTI-CHRISTIAN. That’s the reality we’re facing. This isn’t about tolerance. It’s about religion.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and its partner, The Anti-Defamation League were teaching TOLERANCE and, at the same time, they were letting RELIGION go crazy in the fundamentalist churches. We’re talking about almost 40 years. Chip Berlet who speaks for the Political Research Associates has been doing the same thing. I’ve personally confronted all these people. They’re incompetent to lead. They’re playing games. They lack the necessary courage. If this was a military war, they would all be court-marshaled.
As I have mentioned a couple of times before, the majority of the Protestant churches in Germany voted to be Nazified. The SPLC/ADL turned their other cheek away from RELIGION and toward TOLERANCE. It’s easy to understand, just follow the $$$$.
There’s no money in speaking the REAL TRUTH; What you receive at best is NON-LETHAL RETALIATION.
We’ve been in a domestic war using psychological warfare all these years, but our SO-CALLED DEFENDERS have been scared to fight back for different, but similar reasons. So they created a PHONEY WAR, similar to the situation prior to the outbreak of World War II in Europe.
No doubt, a perfect formula for a disaster in the making.
I happen to be on lunch break from jury duty. As I sit here reading the comments I sure wish that I was serving on a jury that could be passing judgement on 45, rather than on a local violence issue. I would most likely have to stand in line and beg to be a member of the jury in a trial for 45. Just dreaming of personal satisfaction.
Staying on the same issue.
This is from “Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy” by Lewis H. Lapham [former Editor of The Atlantic Magazine] (The Penguin Press, New York, 2004) p. 124:
“On more than one occasion in New York City over the last few years, while taking part in a public discussion of Amerian foreign policy toward Israel, I’ve been informed by members of the audience that my opinions on the subject were worthless because I was not a Jew.
When George Soros on November 5, 2003, informed an audience of Jewish Philanthropists in New York that in Europe “there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism” and that the POLICIES OF THE
BUSH ADMINISTRATION “contribute to that” his remarks were denounced within a matter of days by Congressman Eliot Engel (D.-N.Y.) as “ridiculous and outrageous” and “morally reprehensible.”
Like all taboos, the one forbidding criticism of Israel defends the past against the future. The Pentagon’s cadre of high ranking geopolitical strategists consists largely of fierce and visionary ideologues who make little distinction between the objectives of the Bush administration in Washington and those of the Sharon government in Jerusalem, but requests for further clarification—and possibly a way out of this maze of bloodshed—invite the charge of bigotry. Jews who ask questions [even about the rise of anti-Semitism in America] find themselves modified by the adjective “self-hating”[or worse].” Well said.
There has been absolutely no REAL counter to the vehement SUB-SURFACE anti-Semitism, mostly through CODED WORDS coming from the fundamentalist churches beginning with the Reverend Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority and their influence in electing Ronald Regan as President in 1980.
This is almost 40 years of Nazi-like hatred that has not been countered by the American Jewish establishment. Is it any wonder that we cannot talk to many of our long time Christian friends? They are only human. This anti-Semitism has been continually mutating and now, the Nazi-like hatred, is rapidly encompassing all minorities and totally destroying our democracy.
One thing for sure, with Donald Trump, they don’t need coded words anymore.
There is nothing new to what I’ve just said. As a matter of fact, it is pretty much the same line of FACTS, I testified to for over three hours in front of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in a special closed hearing, that I called for, which was held in Jacksonville, Florida in 1992.
According to a close friend of mine, Professor Carolyn Williams who has since passed away, a follow-up to this testimony was discussed by a group of Mayors attending the Black Mayor’s Conference held in Washington, D.C. in 1995.
Attempts to prevent the airing of the above facts were the reason for the CODED ATTACKS against me in “The Chamber” by John Grisham in 1995, a personal friend of the Bush family. See http://www.Killing theMessenger.info where I have broken the codes.
Sorry John, you were too late.
More clearly, http://www.KillingtheMessenger.info
Lest we forget —
2018 – the year of the Mid-Terms.
Nov 6, 2018 the Election Day we can begin dumping the GOP congressional fellating sycophants.
Nov 7, 2018 the day the new majority will begin Trump-gelding.
The year 2020 – End of Trump and worse: Pence the looming disaster waiting in the wings.
John Grisham knew of my Report in 1991 http://www.TheAlarmReport.info and our Essay in 1993 http://www.Democracide.info.
However, he didn’t know about the Special Hearing of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in Jacksonville in 1992 or he wouldn’t have written “The Chamber” in order to make me back off. He’s not that stupid or is he?
I’m sure Trump/Pence/Banner didn’t know about the hearing either. Sometimes things are not as easy as they seem. Things don’t always work out as planned. The Jews and Blacks are not going to be fighting each other, they have more important business as we can see on Sundays watching the NFL.
The scariest thing about the Trump presidency thus far is how little has changed.
For the most part,the Trump presidency itself, and the subsequent formation of the McResistance are just two sides of the same coin of white-privilege. Both groups looking to dominate–as white folks are wont to do.
Also,Is the McResistance principled?
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/11/gaius-publius-resistance-resistance-harvey-weinstein.html
Some truth from the Guardian,I’ve seen a bit of this here at this very forum.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/jun/08/burnout-activism-working-class-organising-with-middle-class-comrades
Btw,this Trump collusion with Russia nonsense is reminiscent of the Whitewater “investigation”. We’ve been here before. Americans are fighting over semantics whilst the political and chattering class laughs at –and in many cases earns monies from– the arguing amongst the plebes.
Marvin,
Ever consider updating your websites from 1991 and 1993? Recency of information is important.
“John Grisham knew of my Report in 1991 http://www.TheAlarmReport.info and our Essay in 1993 http://www.Democracide.info.
However, he didn’t know about the Special Hearing of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in Jacksonville in 1992 or he wouldn’t have written “The Chamber” in order to make me back off. He’s not that stupid or is he?”
BSH,
You’re right about updating
Trump/Pence/Bannon bought into a losing political package. The defects were covered up. And they have little or no background to fully understand the situation. Their predecessors in the Republican Party under George Bush violated the cardinal rule of GAME THEORY. You must change the game once you lose. They lost a big one in the battle for 1 man, 1 vote in Dallas in 1991. And have continually tried to cover it up since then. Their long-range planning was thwarted.
The situation in America is vastly different than the one in Germany. Cornering the Jews with the help of African-Americans isn’t going to work. It was tried unsuccessfully in both Dallas and Jacksonville. As a matter of fact, the same result occurred in South Africa during the early 90’s.
Where would the Nazi’s have been if they had been on the losing side in the Spanish Civil War of the late 30’s? Their credibility would have been diminished. That’s the boat Trump/Pence/Bannon are trying to steer.
What happens when the camouflage completely wears off? They never expected the strong response from the NFL players. The millions that the owner of the Houston Oilers contributed to the Trump campaign didn’t deter the players from speaking out. What happens next, if they call for a general strike?
Miscalculations from misperceptions can create monumental problems.
Tom,
“I am at a loss as to how we reach these people who are the ones that Donald Trump only cares about. Logical argument don’t work. References from history don’t work. Nothing works sent this is what they feel, their beliefs and hearing anything to the contrary from whoever it is, even old friends that they have to know are doing so out of concern, ends up being deeply offensive to them.”
I understand “these people” really well. As I have mentioned before, in the last few years of living in the Dallas area, I moved my law practice between probably the two most racist counties in the U.S.
We have to understand where they’re coming from. At this point, “these people” could care less what we think. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t communicate. They don’t like to lose any more than we do.
If we can convince them that the TRIO ofTrump/Pence/Bannon are incapable of winning and that they can only damage ALL of us in their futile attempt, I strongly believe, we can start unraveling their support. It has to be about them not us.
As I have said many times, “We all like to have a good night’s sleep.”
Donald Trump has been such a liar and jerk all his adult life, that I was pre-disposed to take any of his claims with a huge grain of salt. However, he now has cried ‘fake news’ (as in ‘wolf’) so often, I have to wonder why even his supporters now believe him.