It's called brain washing and malicious propaganda. Rupert Murdoch planned and executed a system of 24 / 7 propaganda in order to destroy American Democracy. He became a US citizen (not hard if your a billionaire) and gave us a constant stream of right wing propaganda. The US already had a resentful class who were racist and sexist but were told that it was no longer acceptable. They became the uber resentful class. He hired beautiful and talented people to broadcast his anti liberal democracy propaganda. And it worked. Biden will probably won't get elected due to the constant propaganda that the country 's economy is crumbling in spite of the evidence. Then the US democracy dies.
Imagine Biden, tall, trim, aviator glasses and that beautiful people loving smile moving easily and confidently with a handsome cane! Why not lean into the distinguished elder statesman persona? No Churchillian cigar, pls! But eliminate the very real possibility of a public fall (Im 74 and believe me a fall happens too quick to stop. And arthritis HURTS! Its okay to say it out loud). Lead with a cane. Walk confidently, even a bit jauntily - visually, hes got it all - physique, height, smile, those aviators! He just needs to be confident in his swagger. Ask Clooney. I bet he’d agree.
Wehner's article is really good and keeps reminding me that one of the real tests to TFGs followers is when you point out that the only court he can win in is the one of their own opinion. One where facts, truth and evidence don't matter.
The thing about these Biden videos is that others in the frame feel the need to help him. Meloni and the whole G-7 move over to help Biden. Obama tugs on Biden's arm because it appears to Obama that Biden needs his help. The issue is that others who are present seem to believe that Joe is befuddled and needs help. This is obvious to anyone watching.
The White House needs to show the Republican Party as the Party of Logan’s Run. The Paul Ryan pushing granny over a cliff ad was one of the few really national effective ads that worked.
If Joe Biden wins this election in November, he will need to win seniors and gain even more with that group than he already did in 2020. Republicans are going to go after Biden’s age in the most reprehensible way so Biden needs the large group of highest turnout voters (seniors) to feel like Republicans think seniors should be quiet and die already.
To many seniors in 2020, the language surrounding Biden’s age (and around Covid at the time) was like watching someone kick an old dog for fun. The MAGA attacks will be vile enough to get seniors to the polls for Biden and his only chance of winning is to continue gaining in this demographic.
"He’s the oldest president ever! It shows! The sooner the White House gets comfortable with that fact, the sooner they can pivot to the question that actually matters: So what?" Right on the f'ing money, Andrew! You know why he walks like an old person? He has arthritis in his back. So do I (aging boomer here). Arthritis has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with your cognitive function.
That's what the Dems should respond with whenever they see these misleading clips, and then specify all of his legislative wins with fact after fact after fact. Boom, boom, boom!
I think the Press Secretary has done a pretty poor job. Is this what she's been told to say? if so, the campaign has also done a pretty poor job. Lifelong Dem here - I just don't understand this.
Respectfully, I don’t think people care about legislative wins. Biden needs to pull a page from Trump’s playbook. Say that they are attacking my age because they hate all the seniors and want to take you out of society.
Republicans have steadily thanks to the Glenn Beck/Charlie Kirk/Barstool Sports types been hostile toward seniors particularly during Covid. While some seniors are concerned about Biden’s age, many of them will be offended by the idea he has to step aside because he’s too old. And that could be people that have up until now voted Republican but can’t recognize the Republican Party they grew up in so like 2020 they will pull the trigger for Joe Biden.
Agree most voters don't care about legislative wins unless they are translated into how the voters are helped by them. That's the Biden campaign's job - to show how those wins helped them. As far as I can tell, they haven't gotten those messages across to the swing state voters, but I'm in a blue state, so how would I know? Can any commenters in swing states let me know???
I completely disagree that Biden should use Trump's playbook. That is NOT who he is. He won in 2020 because he was who he is - experienced, normal. empathetic. The voters would immeditately smell inauthenticity.
I disagree you can appeal to senior Trumpers with a claim that MAGA Rs have been hostile to them because of their age because they are in denial about getting old which is why they hate seeing Biden. They are reminded of themselves. I have two older sisters in their 80s, both lifelong Dems. One hates seeing old Biden, and the other wishes she were younger, before her cardiovasular systems started breaking down. (I've told her I understand her feelings, but that's not gonna happen.)
Trump supporters are motivated by their fear of racial minorities who are going to outdistance them in the meritocracy race. These are mediocre whites, not the best and the brightest who can make it into the elites.
They also fear their conservative religious identities being eclipsed by the secular Left's influence in the culture, which is why they want, authoritarian style, the government to step up to stop the changing cultural norms.
Ageism appeals do not speak to these core fears that Trump and his minions have so expertly exploited through social media which has ruined us as a country.
My problem is that the Biden people, dem elites in general, even the normal news thinks that if they just explain everything very slowly that this has any affect on anyone at all. This is now all about emotion, not rational thinking. Rational thinking is out the window for what the 45?% of americans that truly adore trumples. how to fight the deep fakery? of course counter deep fakery. trump is his own deep-fake generator so you'd have to go deeper. yes so deep the result is astounding. and of course the response being predicable ("All lies!") -- a deeper fake "hidden video" of trump saying "I'll just tell them it's all lies, they always believe me..." Confuse, befuddle, separate... Rinse repeat.
They need to deep fake Trump wetting himself on stage or something. Or deepfake him kicking a cat for no reason … or even better maybe deepfake him joining Kristi Noem in shooting dogs.
If the Hollywood Access real tape didn’t move enough voters then I don’t think any words will matter
Further to Mr. Kristol’s piece — I cannot recommend the new Netflix series “Hitler and the Nazis - Evil on Trial.” Not only for the unsettling behaviors and ideas that allowed a Hitler to come to power but for the opening statement of Justice Jackson at the start of the Nuremberg Trials. It’s worth your time, and I suggest that all of the political press - even the Bulwark writers, including Andrew and William - watch it themselves. We are making the same mistakes now as we did then in being serious (not frightened) about the serous times we live in. Just my $0.02
I don’t know, Andrew. I’m a bit “broken glass policing” when it comes to blatant lies and audio/video fakes, deep or otherwise. We have way too much untruth being brushed off as silly and unserious, being completely ignored or being weaponized and if you think these “silly” things don’t matter on a global stage then you can’t see the forest for the trees, IMO.
The problem is not that Biden is "old." Trump is too. I'm 80 and believe me there is not that much difference between me and many other 3 years younger. The problem is the idea that "old" means "infirm" and even worse, that "infirm in body" necessarily means infirm in mind.
What shows infirmity of mind is not searching for a word, but totally babbling. There is NOTHING Biden has ever said that approaches the good old battery-shark-electrocute speech. Not by orders of magnitude.
And the greatest problem is the absolute duplicity of the edits of the recent "cheapfakes." The edits themselves visually might be fairly innocuous, just causing one to wonder what the reason Biden might have for looking off to his left (G7) or walking off to his right (D-Day). We aren't left to wonder: we are TOLD what to think--pretty much standard for the GOP nowadays--and what we are told to think is a flat out lie.
MAGATs themselves seem perfectly happy with a world view based on lies, and their enablers seem perfectly happy to repeat or create those lies. But I'm not really convinced, polls be damned, that the majority of the American people are, even in a swing state. And so the relentless lying has to be brought to the attention to all those who still regard truth as some sort of virtue. Sure, political ads on both sides will shade truth or take things out of context--we all really expect that spin. But these are being presented as NEWS, and faker than such "news" the MSM never has approached.
Our media sources are failing us, including such famous papers as the NYT’s & WaPo. They constantly “both sides” the 2 candidates in an effort to keep the horse race interesting. The right wing media, on the other hand, picks up a cheaply edited video from Twitter, the NY Post, Murdoch’s rag, blasts the pics on to the front page, & then FOX spends entires programming time on the fake video. Billionaire owners of mass media just interested in the big bucks that eyeballs & clicks bring in. I don’t think democracy can win if the media is complicit in pushing lies
"Word Salad" (n) = A vain or vainglorious attempt, using words almost no one knows (ex: (nescience") to explain what is thunderously obvious to practically anyone who has successfully navigated his or her way through high school English, Social Studies, and History.
Anyone want to explain The False Prophet and his movement to anyone else? Point them to Orwell's "Animal Farm".
Wehner's article concerning "Motivated Ignorance" hits the wrong target, I believe. Motivated ignorance does not exclusively involve MAGA supporters. Rather, every 1d10T for whom acceptance of falsehood becomes an article of faith adheres to motivated ignorance.
I think one force behind MAGA apologetics is a kind of intellectual oppositional defiance that finds satisfaction in taking a position opposite to what respectable society regards as clearly true. If the Establishment views Trump as an ignorant and buffoonish sociopath, then those with superior insight (in their own estimation) will dedicate themselves to identifying the wisdom and virtue that others fail to recognize, and then defend this position ardently in the face of accumulating evidence against it.
It's the elite version of the theme "They're all lying to you" that the MAGA rank-and-file imbibe from their media of choice.
RNC, cheapfakes, unabashed lies. Nationalsozialismus, Parteipropaganda, unverschämte Lügen. There's a well established fascistic formula. It's a tasty recipe for power brutally frosted with more power. As in total political dominance. And MAGA/GOP just eats it up.
The Trump cult started by insisting that I should not believe what my own ears and eyes told me about Trump. I needed the Trumpsplainers to tell me what he really meant and how he really is -- that he's basically the only person on the planet who is a much better human being in reality than the image he routinely presents to the public.
No, the deceptive videos are NOT "legitimate". That's just plain silly.
The fact is that Trump World has little to run on except "Biden is old" (yeah...everyone knows that, THAT is "legitimate")...
"Biden is senile" (FALSE)..."Biden is stupid" (FALSE)..."Biden is suffering dementia (FALSE)..."Biden does not know where he is" (FALSE)...."Biden is not up to the job" (FALSE)...with the stupid nonsense that literally disputes all the previous insults: "Biden is masterminding the persecution of Trump" (FALSE!!!!!).
Of course, what the continual LYING about President Biden's capacity of doing the job (which he has shown he is VERY capable of doing) shows how little Trumpworld has in their bag of dirty tricks.
The FACT is that Trump and the Republicans LIE about almost EVERYTHING. If things were so bad, they would not have to lie so much.
Of course the elephant in the room is that Trump is ALSO old. But, worse is that he repeatedly shows that he is deeply, DEEPLY disturbed...mentality and emotionally.
The fact is at Trump is an unhinged sociopathic megalomaniac that is not fit for ANY elected office much less the presidency.
The Dems should lean into the feeble beats psychotic/criminal/insane narrative. You can't make Biden young and robust. You can remind people how much worse..and dangerous.. Trumps flaws are.
It's called brain washing and malicious propaganda. Rupert Murdoch planned and executed a system of 24 / 7 propaganda in order to destroy American Democracy. He became a US citizen (not hard if your a billionaire) and gave us a constant stream of right wing propaganda. The US already had a resentful class who were racist and sexist but were told that it was no longer acceptable. They became the uber resentful class. He hired beautiful and talented people to broadcast his anti liberal democracy propaganda. And it worked. Biden will probably won't get elected due to the constant propaganda that the country 's economy is crumbling in spite of the evidence. Then the US democracy dies.
Imagine Biden, tall, trim, aviator glasses and that beautiful people loving smile moving easily and confidently with a handsome cane! Why not lean into the distinguished elder statesman persona? No Churchillian cigar, pls! But eliminate the very real possibility of a public fall (Im 74 and believe me a fall happens too quick to stop. And arthritis HURTS! Its okay to say it out loud). Lead with a cane. Walk confidently, even a bit jauntily - visually, hes got it all - physique, height, smile, those aviators! He just needs to be confident in his swagger. Ask Clooney. I bet he’d agree.
Wehner's article is really good and keeps reminding me that one of the real tests to TFGs followers is when you point out that the only court he can win in is the one of their own opinion. One where facts, truth and evidence don't matter.
The thing about these Biden videos is that others in the frame feel the need to help him. Meloni and the whole G-7 move over to help Biden. Obama tugs on Biden's arm because it appears to Obama that Biden needs his help. The issue is that others who are present seem to believe that Joe is befuddled and needs help. This is obvious to anyone watching.
It's a very strange day when we are supposed to be rooting for Bob Goode!
The White House needs to show the Republican Party as the Party of Logan’s Run. The Paul Ryan pushing granny over a cliff ad was one of the few really national effective ads that worked.
If Joe Biden wins this election in November, he will need to win seniors and gain even more with that group than he already did in 2020. Republicans are going to go after Biden’s age in the most reprehensible way so Biden needs the large group of highest turnout voters (seniors) to feel like Republicans think seniors should be quiet and die already.
To many seniors in 2020, the language surrounding Biden’s age (and around Covid at the time) was like watching someone kick an old dog for fun. The MAGA attacks will be vile enough to get seniors to the polls for Biden and his only chance of winning is to continue gaining in this demographic.
"He’s the oldest president ever! It shows! The sooner the White House gets comfortable with that fact, the sooner they can pivot to the question that actually matters: So what?" Right on the f'ing money, Andrew! You know why he walks like an old person? He has arthritis in his back. So do I (aging boomer here). Arthritis has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with your cognitive function.
That's what the Dems should respond with whenever they see these misleading clips, and then specify all of his legislative wins with fact after fact after fact. Boom, boom, boom!
I think the Press Secretary has done a pretty poor job. Is this what she's been told to say? if so, the campaign has also done a pretty poor job. Lifelong Dem here - I just don't understand this.
Respectfully, I don’t think people care about legislative wins. Biden needs to pull a page from Trump’s playbook. Say that they are attacking my age because they hate all the seniors and want to take you out of society.
Republicans have steadily thanks to the Glenn Beck/Charlie Kirk/Barstool Sports types been hostile toward seniors particularly during Covid. While some seniors are concerned about Biden’s age, many of them will be offended by the idea he has to step aside because he’s too old. And that could be people that have up until now voted Republican but can’t recognize the Republican Party they grew up in so like 2020 they will pull the trigger for Joe Biden.
Agree most voters don't care about legislative wins unless they are translated into how the voters are helped by them. That's the Biden campaign's job - to show how those wins helped them. As far as I can tell, they haven't gotten those messages across to the swing state voters, but I'm in a blue state, so how would I know? Can any commenters in swing states let me know???
I completely disagree that Biden should use Trump's playbook. That is NOT who he is. He won in 2020 because he was who he is - experienced, normal. empathetic. The voters would immeditately smell inauthenticity.
I disagree you can appeal to senior Trumpers with a claim that MAGA Rs have been hostile to them because of their age because they are in denial about getting old which is why they hate seeing Biden. They are reminded of themselves. I have two older sisters in their 80s, both lifelong Dems. One hates seeing old Biden, and the other wishes she were younger, before her cardiovasular systems started breaking down. (I've told her I understand her feelings, but that's not gonna happen.)
Trump supporters are motivated by their fear of racial minorities who are going to outdistance them in the meritocracy race. These are mediocre whites, not the best and the brightest who can make it into the elites.
They also fear their conservative religious identities being eclipsed by the secular Left's influence in the culture, which is why they want, authoritarian style, the government to step up to stop the changing cultural norms.
Ageism appeals do not speak to these core fears that Trump and his minions have so expertly exploited through social media which has ruined us as a country.
My problem is that the Biden people, dem elites in general, even the normal news thinks that if they just explain everything very slowly that this has any affect on anyone at all. This is now all about emotion, not rational thinking. Rational thinking is out the window for what the 45?% of americans that truly adore trumples. how to fight the deep fakery? of course counter deep fakery. trump is his own deep-fake generator so you'd have to go deeper. yes so deep the result is astounding. and of course the response being predicable ("All lies!") -- a deeper fake "hidden video" of trump saying "I'll just tell them it's all lies, they always believe me..." Confuse, befuddle, separate... Rinse repeat.
They need to deep fake Trump wetting himself on stage or something. Or deepfake him kicking a cat for no reason … or even better maybe deepfake him joining Kristi Noem in shooting dogs.
If the Hollywood Access real tape didn’t move enough voters then I don’t think any words will matter
the biggest thing i think is to break the character he plays on tv, since this is what folks are voting for ... or that's my theory.
Further to Mr. Kristol’s piece — I cannot recommend the new Netflix series “Hitler and the Nazis - Evil on Trial.” Not only for the unsettling behaviors and ideas that allowed a Hitler to come to power but for the opening statement of Justice Jackson at the start of the Nuremberg Trials. It’s worth your time, and I suggest that all of the political press - even the Bulwark writers, including Andrew and William - watch it themselves. We are making the same mistakes now as we did then in being serious (not frightened) about the serous times we live in. Just my $0.02
I don’t know, Andrew. I’m a bit “broken glass policing” when it comes to blatant lies and audio/video fakes, deep or otherwise. We have way too much untruth being brushed off as silly and unserious, being completely ignored or being weaponized and if you think these “silly” things don’t matter on a global stage then you can’t see the forest for the trees, IMO.
The problem is not that Biden is "old." Trump is too. I'm 80 and believe me there is not that much difference between me and many other 3 years younger. The problem is the idea that "old" means "infirm" and even worse, that "infirm in body" necessarily means infirm in mind.
What shows infirmity of mind is not searching for a word, but totally babbling. There is NOTHING Biden has ever said that approaches the good old battery-shark-electrocute speech. Not by orders of magnitude.
And the greatest problem is the absolute duplicity of the edits of the recent "cheapfakes." The edits themselves visually might be fairly innocuous, just causing one to wonder what the reason Biden might have for looking off to his left (G7) or walking off to his right (D-Day). We aren't left to wonder: we are TOLD what to think--pretty much standard for the GOP nowadays--and what we are told to think is a flat out lie.
MAGATs themselves seem perfectly happy with a world view based on lies, and their enablers seem perfectly happy to repeat or create those lies. But I'm not really convinced, polls be damned, that the majority of the American people are, even in a swing state. And so the relentless lying has to be brought to the attention to all those who still regard truth as some sort of virtue. Sure, political ads on both sides will shade truth or take things out of context--we all really expect that spin. But these are being presented as NEWS, and faker than such "news" the MSM never has approached.
Our media sources are failing us, including such famous papers as the NYT’s & WaPo. They constantly “both sides” the 2 candidates in an effort to keep the horse race interesting. The right wing media, on the other hand, picks up a cheaply edited video from Twitter, the NY Post, Murdoch’s rag, blasts the pics on to the front page, & then FOX spends entires programming time on the fake video. Billionaire owners of mass media just interested in the big bucks that eyeballs & clicks bring in. I don’t think democracy can win if the media is complicit in pushing lies
And MAGA-world is still convinced that the NYT and WaPo are systematically biased against Trump.
"Word Salad" (n) = A vain or vainglorious attempt, using words almost no one knows (ex: (nescience") to explain what is thunderously obvious to practically anyone who has successfully navigated his or her way through high school English, Social Studies, and History.
Anyone want to explain The False Prophet and his movement to anyone else? Point them to Orwell's "Animal Farm".
Wehner's article concerning "Motivated Ignorance" hits the wrong target, I believe. Motivated ignorance does not exclusively involve MAGA supporters. Rather, every 1d10T for whom acceptance of falsehood becomes an article of faith adheres to motivated ignorance.
Good night, and good luck, shipmates.
I think one force behind MAGA apologetics is a kind of intellectual oppositional defiance that finds satisfaction in taking a position opposite to what respectable society regards as clearly true. If the Establishment views Trump as an ignorant and buffoonish sociopath, then those with superior insight (in their own estimation) will dedicate themselves to identifying the wisdom and virtue that others fail to recognize, and then defend this position ardently in the face of accumulating evidence against it.
It's the elite version of the theme "They're all lying to you" that the MAGA rank-and-file imbibe from their media of choice.
RNC, cheapfakes, unabashed lies. Nationalsozialismus, Parteipropaganda, unverschämte Lügen. There's a well established fascistic formula. It's a tasty recipe for power brutally frosted with more power. As in total political dominance. And MAGA/GOP just eats it up.
The Trump cult started by insisting that I should not believe what my own ears and eyes told me about Trump. I needed the Trumpsplainers to tell me what he really meant and how he really is -- that he's basically the only person on the planet who is a much better human being in reality than the image he routinely presents to the public.
Andrew Egger is wrong on this.
No, the deceptive videos are NOT "legitimate". That's just plain silly.
The fact is that Trump World has little to run on except "Biden is old" (yeah...everyone knows that, THAT is "legitimate")...
"Biden is senile" (FALSE)..."Biden is stupid" (FALSE)..."Biden is suffering dementia (FALSE)..."Biden does not know where he is" (FALSE)...."Biden is not up to the job" (FALSE)...with the stupid nonsense that literally disputes all the previous insults: "Biden is masterminding the persecution of Trump" (FALSE!!!!!).
Of course, what the continual LYING about President Biden's capacity of doing the job (which he has shown he is VERY capable of doing) shows how little Trumpworld has in their bag of dirty tricks.
The FACT is that Trump and the Republicans LIE about almost EVERYTHING. If things were so bad, they would not have to lie so much.
Of course the elephant in the room is that Trump is ALSO old. But, worse is that he repeatedly shows that he is deeply, DEEPLY disturbed...mentality and emotionally.
The fact is at Trump is an unhinged sociopathic megalomaniac that is not fit for ANY elected office much less the presidency.
The Dems should lean into the feeble beats psychotic/criminal/insane narrative. You can't make Biden young and robust. You can remind people how much worse..and dangerous.. Trumps flaws are.