Jared Holt: Suspending disbelief in political media

[Nevilledog]

https://www.postingthroughit.com/lying-liars-who-lie-and-the-people-who-believe-them/

Of the many topics on which I find myself unwillingly fixated, an especially painful one is the degree of contempt for their audiences that so many political content producers demonstrate. Horribly, that contempt usually serves them well.

Over the last couple of weeks, filings in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News have given the general public plenty of examples of this contempt. During and after the 2020 presidential election, Fox News executives, reporters, and on-air personalities were acutely aware of how ludicrous the popular election-denialist conspiracy theories all were, but they pushed those lies to their audiences all the same, and reaped the rewards.

This cynicism is not unique to Fox News. Caolan Robertson, who shot a documentary film for conspiracist Alex Jones, told Hatewatch that Jones “portrayed himself as a master manipulator in private, bragging that he could sell ‘dick pills’ and that his fans would ‘buy anything.’” Though countless politicians and media figures have built personas on their criticisms of “wokeness,” we often see them fall apart—verbally, not financially—when asked to explain what they actually mean. And do I even need to mention Steve Bannon, who is somehow still a titan of conservative politics even after spending time in prison for scamming his followers?

One of the truest things that former President Donald Trump ever said was this: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible.” In wake of the Capitol riot, and in light of the Republican base’s ever-burning adoration for Trump, that shocking 2016 campaign statement seems as self-evident as ever.

*snip*

[old as dirt]

1. Suspend Your Disbelief (or, how to ruin everything in 7 steps)

[Bev54]

2. Can't say I disagree, except that Bannon has not spent time in prison for scamming

his followers. We are still all waiting while Bannon has been allowed to continue to kick the can down the road.

[RAB910]

3. Nothing has damaged our nation more than the right-wing propaganda machine

They have taken the Nazi propaganda techniques and taken them to a whole new level