I think that anytime Mueller or Trump/Russia is discussed, the rebuttal is this supposed deep state conspiracy. And I’m not sure how to move someone off that narrative, because Fox is pushing it as a way to shield Trump. I think this is the ready-made excuse for Republicans to ignore the reality of what Trump did, and not remove him from office.
See the attached link:
Websites like treehouse & guys like Dan Bongino provide cover for the “it’s all a deep state conspiracy” argument.
How do we deal with these arguments? They’re absurd on their face. But they have an impact.
I’m not certain you can. Conspiracy people gonna conspiracy after all.
Well, there’s a long term solution. What conspiracy sites and Fox News and such prey upon is people’s underlying sense of disenfranchisement and uncertainty. Those especially susceptible to such things are those who feel they are somehow being left behind economically. There’s a reason conspiracy mongers such as Glenn Beck and Alex Jones exploded following the 2008 economic crash.
Unfortunately, other than relieving that anxiety, I don’t see a means of dealing with such in a way that takes it out of public life. Yes, providing greater health and financial security for people via living wage laws or national health insurance will help, but I don’t believe it would deal with all of it. Some of it just comes down to generalized anxiety over a changing national landscape. The country isn’t what it was and some people have trouble coping with that fact.
You probably can’t. To these people the narrative and the tribe trumps all. Its more important than right and wrong, the rule of law, competence, etc.
As long as ‘their guy’ is under attack, they’ll invent a lie that makes them feel good so they won’t have to face reality. I’m not sure how to deal with that.
From what I can tell “Deep State” means people who have been in government long enough to know what they’re doing.
Imagine a long term football coach who has won his share of championships. A rookie joins the team with his own playbook. He tells everyone that he could do much better.
So the coach gives him a shot during a game that doesn’t mean much. They use the rookie’s playbook, and the team gets plastered, 42 - 7.
Is the playbook bad? No way - it is deep football not playing the way they’re supposed to. It is the fault of everyone but the rookie.
By reminding folks, not those pushing that narrative who are already over the edge but others who may be listening, that you never even heard the term “deep state” until trump became president. What they’re calling the “deep state” we used to call “career employees”, people who have jobs and do them regardless of who is running the show. These folks, most of whom could command (possibly) much higher salaries in the private sector ain’t about red or blue, they’re about red, white and blue.
By strongly encouraging and enabling more direct engagement and involvement with the system. Other people’s world views and powers are less mystifying when you can just see for yourself.
You were fine here until you started describing career employees. My experience of those folks, at least, has been different from yours. I find them generally to be petty, scheming, and jealous of their power and their perks. In other words, just like most long-term employees anywhere.
The other name for career employees is Civil Service. They can’t be fired when a new administration comes in, at least not for political reasons. This is the real deep state. I think Civil Service is one of the biggest reasons we still have a viable democracy, and one of the best protections we, as a country, have against self-aggrandizing megalomaniacs like 45. Imagine if he had been able to fill, not just the top jobs, but all the jobs at every level, with his lackeys. That’s what he’s really bemoaning with his talk about the deep state, that there are people working for the government who are loyal, and beholden, to something else besides him.
To many Trumpists, same thing. Really dedicated Trumpists just see old school Republicans and Democrats as being the same. Trump is a new, populist wave, the guy who’s going to Drain The Swamp. Bush et al. were much too friendly to people who weren’t white Christians.
There’s no point in trying. Recall the analogy of playing chess against pigeons. The truth is that they are emotionally and psychologically committed to their conspiracy theory, so there are no facts or authorities they will trust to provide contradictory information.
The only way to deal with them is to plainly and clearly state the facts, and then refuse to discuss the matter further.
This is the problem right here. There’s basically nothing you can do to convince someone who has chosen, consciously or otherwise, to ignore reality. No matter what facts you put in front of them, they will still just be ignored.
The only thing that could possibly work is reality itself biting them in the ass so hard that they simply can’t ignore it.
The problem with that is, we’d also be getting bit in the ass, and even then there’d still be some people who’d manage to ignore it, and/or blame the bite marks on Obama.
I agree that we won’t persuade 90 to 95% of the Trump voting crowd. I figure that maybe 5 to 10% of them are persuadable though. And I’m interested in arguments that are factual rebuttals to the conspiracy theories. Example: If the FBI was interested in getting Hillary elected, they wouldn’t have dropped the “we’re re-opening our investigation into her e-mails” bomb in late October, 2016, effectively torpedoing her campaign.
In 1968 George Wallace said that there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats. Basically, we elected George Wallace.
Except not as smart.