Post #15 is a perfect example of when facts come in that show the Conspiracy Theory wrong, the CT doesn’t disappear. It evolves.
Like Trump’s spreading of the evidence-free CT about Obama’s birthplace years after it was proven false?
OP is somewhat right. The right-wing crazy on my FB feed for 8 years has now been replaced by left-wing crazy. And I don’t mean to imply equivalence – the anti-Obama screeds were, in general, much nastier, less justified, and less factual than the ant-Trump screeds, but there does seem to be a lot of people getting too deep into the weeds with this Russia stuff. Some of it reminds me sov-cit garbage, where they think they just need to dig a little bit deeper to find the right legal words to say that will get Trump impeached.
Let’s zoom in on this, since nothing at all in the article you linked to actually comprises a conspiracy theory, to the extent that I’m not convinced you know what a conspiracy theory is (hint: it doesn’t mean “incorrect information about a politician or a bill”).
The conspiracy theory we’re talking about is whether the Russian intelligence services conspired to interfere illegally in the US election, and if so, whether American citizens knew or abetted that interference, and if so, whether any of those citizens worked with Trump’s campaign, and if so, whether Trump knew about it. As you can see, there are a lot of different levels here.
The first level is almost certainly an accurate conspiracy theory: there’s shitloads of evidence of the conspiracy to interfere in our election, and almost certainly some of those acts were illegal.
The second level and the third level have circumstantial evidence to support them, but not much more.
The fourth level just has a little bit of evidence; believing that Trump actively knew about the conspiracy at this point requires faith.
However, it makes perfect sense for law enforcement to investigate the conspiracy, and if Trump acts in any way to impede that investigation–say, by firing the lead investigator due to his interest in the investigation–that raises some pretty serious issues of its own. Whether or not you’re innocent, you don’t get to obstruct an investigation.
Now: were the subpoenas the proximate cause of the firing? That’s unclear. It may well turn out that they weren’t. But given Trump’s mendacity–a mendacity you chortle about in a thread in the Pit, enjoying his ability to obscure the truth and get folks upset over the thoroughness of his dishonesty–it’s absolutely reasonable to examine that possibility.
There are the right words to get Trump impeached, the problem is, is that they need to come from the GOP’s base.
That might happen, if trump keeps this up, but doing the right thing is up to the republicans now, all the democrats can do is hope that the GOP decides to do so.
I’d love to them poll self-identified liberals, asking them if they’ve heard of each of these theories, since a number of people have said they haven’t heard of some of these. (I haven’t heard of #3 or #4 until clicking on the link.)
The arc for #1 was: first, it was reported as news, and subsequent news reports corrected it. People believed the initial reports because they were standard reporting by standard news media. Most people, liberal or otherwise, who heard about the beer also heard about the corrections, and changed their beliefs accordingly.
Some people may still believe the initial reports because they missed the corrections, but unless there are a lot of lefties who believe the original reports despite having heard the corrections, this is not evidence for the existance of liberal conspiracy theorists.
And #2…well, the distinction between “the AHCA classifies being sexually assaulted as a pre-existing condition” and “the AHCA would allow states to enable insurance companies to classify being sexually assaulted as a pre-existing condition” would be a distinction without a difference in enough places that it’s true enough, AFAIAC.
TL;DR: Chris Cillizza continues to be worthless.
When conspiracy’s are formed often times they are covering a door that should also be watched.
As long as too many don’t fall into believing all these conspiracy’s I do believe that in general conspiracy theories do keep peoples eyes open. I think it also shows how similar the right and left can actually be barring a few differences.
Yawn too, I was aware of grumblings from a couple of those items, but I did think that they amounted to a hill of beans. I think that while CNN can point at several falling for those items I think that the observation from a professional fake news creator does hold up, most of those fake news directed to leftists do not have much of a reach because many on the left do check or do not spread them as conservatives do.
I think that’s the main difference between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives don’t care about spouting bullshit so long as the uninformed, uneducated masses believe it.
Liberals only care if the educated and informed masses believe their bullshit!
Of all the crazy conspiracy theories out there, (9-11 was an inside job??? The moon landing was faked???) I’ll believe that Trump’s impartiality and judgement are affected by his Russian interests all day long.
When someone like Trump already gives his foes ample ammo, there shouldn’t be a ***need ***to to fabricate or exaggerate stuff - which is why doing so is the worst of all strategies.
What legitimate questions are you referring to? i haven’t seen a legit question yet, just a bunch of whining/
The conclusion is Chris Cillizza’s. That’s why it’s in quotes.
Good lord, conservatives called Hillary corrupt for enticing foreign governments to give to a charity. Trump entices foreign governments to patronize his businesses, and there’s not even a recognition of this being a problem, let alone much worse?
Doesn’t explain why it’s in MPSIMS…
The President of the United States, at the very least was, and probably is a Birther. The complete bottom feeder of conspiracy theories. He also has tossed out multiple conspiracies of his own since election (Obama wire tapped me! 3 million illegal voters are why I didn’t win the popular vote! The Parks department doctored photos to make the inauguration crowd look small!). Let’s not mention his cozy relationship with crankmeister Alex Jones.
Frankly, liberals would have a lot of catching up to do to get to right wing size and nonsense levels.
what surprises me, but it should not have, is that the Democratic reaction to Trump is the same as the Republican reaction to Obama. Leaving aside who was right/wrong-or better yet lets concede that both are wrong, it is sobering to realize how little the truth seems to effect people’s reactions.
It is sad and dangerous in today’s world.
And it forces me to ask what was really going on 30-50-100 years ago. I can only assume we were as easily misled and thoughtless back then and just didn’t know it.
This thread, not necessarily the content in the posts but the thread topic, is an example of how authoritarians use information (and misinformation) to control the message. They counter the purported factually-based characterizations of truth that are presented by news gathering outlets with synthetic truth that play on people’s natural information filters. I’ve said it elsewhere but it’s worth repeating that truth is not necessarily based on facts: it is constructed in the minds of all of us. And probably a good 35% of the population will see Trump’s “truth” regardless of what facts come to light. Trump’s truth speaks to their membership in a micro-culture, their limited perspective beyond their own personal life experiences, and their perceptions of the world based on those experiences.
Nope, sorry, truth is ALWAYS based on facts. Being factual is the very nature of truth. Perception, on the other hand, can be based on any number of things - including perspective and life experiences. What one perceives or believes to be true requires no relationship at all to facts or actual truth.
Maybe what I meant to say was that “reality” is not based on facts. We each experience our own reality.