"The idea isn't to convince people of untrue things, it's to fatigue them"

[abaddon]

One of the many things that puzzle me about evangelical support for Trump is how utterly and willfully blind they are to his many obvious flaws of character and morality, particularly that he has cheated on all of his wives. But none puzzle me quite so much as his obvious messiah complex and the willingness of evangelicals to embrace him saying that he is the only one who can (save the US--btw, damn the rest of the world.) It is so antithetical to everything I learned in Southern Baptist Sunday school and church when I was a kid. To me, it's jarring, the amount of disconnect. I cannot even call it cognitive dissonance because there is no cognition involved. Politically, I have serious disagreements with many/most of my extended family but generally, I can find areas where we share strongly held common beliefs---Golden Rule kind of stuff, do unto others, family is important, love, honesty, hard work, etc. Trump seems to be the antithesis of all of that--although he seems to have affection for his family. I see it. It boggles my mind that evangelicals do not, will not, cannot.

But he appears to be far less the antithesis of all that than anything else offered up for candidates. Trump's speeches all reveal just who he's talking to, and it's not the urban city-folk. He's talking very directly to the hard working "family is important" folk of the nation.

They see Trump as much more honest than "elitist" politicians. That he’s lambasting all the people who they blame for being “the forgotten Americans” registers as honesty with them. About his personality issues, they’re likely to agree he should tweet less than he does, but that’s all. That way his pettiness and impulsiveness doesn’t show but the hopefulness he’ll fulfill any of his promises remains. Of course the promises are impossible… these are people economically left behind by the post-industrial revolution and globalization and no one’s going to undo that. But when you’re living in towns still basically stuck in the ’50’s then you’re ripe for a demagogue who’s managed to fool them into thinking he’s a populist.

 

[Elixir]

The basic mechanism employed by Trump (and WP, not coincidentally)

"When we are overwhelmed with false, or potentially false, statements, our brains pretty quickly become so overworked that we stop trying to sift through everything."

The problem is that no matter how well we understand this dynamic (the article does a fair job of describing it), we still victimize ourselves. No amount of conscious effort to counter the effects of our own human nature results in the ability to "know the truth".

Do you realise that it was a Democrat who said if you can't convince them, confuse them

No I don't realize that. But I do realize that if Trump said 2+2=4 that wouldn't make it untrue.
Pay attention WP. This isn't another one of your finger-pointing threads, it's about human psychology - dangerous territory for a willing victim of authoritarian lies.

 

[RavenSky]

Found on Twitter, from someone in past administration:

2 + 2 = 5

 

[whichphilosophy]

Do you realise that it was a Democrat who said if you can't convince them, confuse them

No I don't realize that. But I do realize that if Trump said 2+2=4 that wouldn't make it untrue.
Pay attention WP. This isn't another one of your finger-pointing threads, it's about human psychology - dangerous territory for a willing victim of authoritarian lies.

You quoted Harry Truman. I know its about human psychology. This is nothing to do with Trump except the Writer of the article linked it with Trump, as in anything one says goes.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Found on Twitter, from someone in past administration:

2 + 2 = 5

It's a writer speculating on Trump using a Harry Truman phrase and writing assumptive statements. Assumption does not constitute fact. You more apply this to the CIA statements that the Russians won the election for Trump. Total nonsense as an investigative article since the contents are rooted in imagination without examples. That is apart from the CIA.

 

[RavenSky]

2 + 2 = 5

It's a writer speculating on Trump using a Harry Truman phrase and writing assumptive statements. Assumption does not constitute fact. You more apply this to the CIA statements that the Russians won the election for Trump. Total nonsense as an investigative article since the contents are rooted in imagination without examples. That is apart from the CIA.

2 + 2 = 5

 

[whichphilosophy]

It's a writer speculating on Trump using a Harry Truman phrase and writing assumptive statements. Assumption does not constitute fact. You more apply this to the CIA statements that the Russians won the election for Trump. Total nonsense as an investigative article since the contents are rooted in imagination without examples. That is apart from the CIA.

2 + 2 = 5

2 + 2 = 5 Is the CIA equation which seems to have backfired.

 

[abaddon]

To fatigue people seems to be whichphilosophy’s strategy.

 

[blastula]

It's fair game.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

To fatigue people seems to be whichphilosophy’s strategy.

https://theframeproblem.wordpress.c...bull-baiting-and-the-manufacturing-of-crimes/

 

[lpetrich]

I've found a pure-text version at dcurbanmom.com, but that's as far as I've been able to go.

But the strategy that it describes is a strategy used by tobacco-effects deniers and global-warming deniers: try to put enough doubt in people's minds about the reality of the effects to keep action being taken to remedy them (Merchants of Doubt - Home, etc.).

 

[Treedbear]

...
an aside, what is physically wrong with Steve Mnuchin?

I watched some of his confirmation hearing. Damn I hope he's not confirmed! Went from Goldman Sachs to his own hedge fund that was based in the Cayman Islands despite doing all their business in NYC. On his application for Treasury Secretary he left out $100M in real estate from his assets. I think his incessant twitching is due to a guilty conscience. Something Trump must have overlooked when vetting him.

 

[RavenSky]

...
an aside, what is physically wrong with Steve Mnuchin?

I watched some of his confirmation hearing. Damn I hope he's not confirmed! Went from Goldman Sachs to his own hedge fund that was based in the Cayman Islands despite doing all their business in NYC. On his application for Treasury Secretary he left out $100M in real estate from his assets. I think his incessant twitching is due to a guilty conscience. Something Trump must have overlooked when vetting him.

Trump vetted someone?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Trump vetted someone?

Ya, if they weren't in his country club, they went straight off the list. PLUBs only, I'm afraid.

 

[Elixir]

I've found a pure-text version at dcurbanmom.com, but that's as far as I've been able to go.

But the strategy that it describes is a strategy used by tobacco-effects deniers and global-warming deniers: try to put enough doubt in people's minds about the reality of the effects to keep action being taken to remedy them (Merchants of Doubt - Home, etc.).

Wow. And I though that the art of peddling doubt was perfected by anti-evolution religious greeders.

 

[Treedbear]

Gary Whatshisname's quote "disinformation is a numbers game" comes to me as the (George) Carlinian quote about "too much stuff". Look at all the stuff. Stuff, stuff everywhere. Out there in the imaginary world, where we take showers, pet our dogs and work our jobs... and also inside the internet, which happens to be the real world, where the numbers accumulate. Everything we repeat in our minds (while the imaginary world unfolds). The flashing of the stuff alone is enough to destroy our minds.

As a subject of study in a statistics course I tracked TV commercials and used a pc to measure the duration of time between significant scene changes. I wrote a program to record the time whenever I pressed the return key. I uploaded the result after an hour or so of commercials to a spread sheet and the average time came out to about two seconds. That was averaging all segments from a high of maybe 10 sec to a low of something faster than I could press return. Since then I can't watch commercials, but thanks to my DVR I don't have to. The effect on the average viewer must be mind-numbing in the extreme.

 

[Elixir]

Gary Whatshisname's quote "disinformation is a numbers game" comes to me as the (George) Carlinian quote about "too much stuff". Look at all the stuff. Stuff, stuff everywhere. Out there in the imaginary world, where we take showers, pet our dogs and work our jobs... and also inside the internet, which happens to be the real world, where the numbers accumulate. Everything we repeat in our minds (while the imaginary world unfolds). The flashing of the stuff alone is enough to destroy our minds.

As a subject of study in a statistics course I tracked TV commercials and used a pc to measure the duration of time between significant scene changes. I wrote a program to record the time whenever I pressed the return key. I uploaded the result after an hour or so of commercials to a spread sheet and the average time came out to about two seconds. That was averaging all segments from a high of maybe 10 sec to a low of something faster than I could press return. Since then I can't watch commercials, but thanks to my DVR I don't have to. The effect on the average viewer must be mind-numbing in the extreme.

The effect upon me is *click*. Automatic and un-thinking. Drives my wife crazy. I just can't stand the assault by Pharma, Insurance, Cars and fast food.
Programmers make it hard - they synchronize their clocks so that if Science Channel goes to commercial, so do Discovery, History etc. etc. Other programming conglomerates have their own clocks that they adhere to religiously, as do networks. So you have to know what channel to *click* to at a given time, or you end up sampling a dozen commercials before finding any actual programming. PBS is a semi-reliable fallback for any time from :05 after the hour to :50 after...

 

[Tom Sawyer]

The effect upon me is *click*. Automatic and un-thinking. Drives my wife crazy. I just can't stand the assault by Pharma, Insurance, Cars and fast food.
Programmers make it hard - they synchronize their clocks so that if Science Channel goes to commercial, so do Discovery, History etc. etc. Other programming conglomerates have their own clocks that they adhere to religiously, as do networks. So you have to know what channel to *click* to at a given time, or you end up sampling a dozen commercials before finding any actual programming. PBS is a semi-reliable fallback for any time from :05 after the hour to :50 after...

I watch shows on Netflix, so I don't need to bother with commercials.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I watch my neighbors having sex. No commercials.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I watched some of his confirmation hearing. Damn I hope he's not confirmed! Went from Goldman Sachs to his own hedge fund that was based in the Cayman Islands despite doing all their business in NYC. On his application for Treasury Secretary he left out $100M in real estate from his assets. I think his incessant twitching is due to a guilty conscience. Something Trump must have overlooked when vetting him.

Trump vetted someone?

Of course. The problem is his vetting consists of whether the Heritage Foundation likes them.