“If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US President, I would have laughed out loud,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gloated in response to Trump’s attack on Zelensky. “Trump is 200 percent right.”
Those who have the stomach for MAGA lies and slander should scroll over to Bari Weiss's "The Free P…
“If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US President, I would have laughed out loud,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gloated in response to Trump’s attack on Zelensky. “Trump is 200 percent right.”
Those who have the stomach for MAGA lies and slander should scroll over to Bari Weiss's "The Free Press" and read the comments about the piece titled "Niall Ferguson: J.D. Vance’s Fighting Words—Against Me and Ukraine."
A few defend Ferguson and Zelensky, but most commenters are all in on Putin's talking points and just about every loony conspiracy theory concerning Ukraine that has ever been hatched. https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-jd-vances-fighting
How to reach the captives inside the Fox-MAGA info bubble? Well, we know that social media killed the quaint marketplace of ideas, so trying to shout over Fox et al. in an effort to flood those deplorables with better quality information won't work.
Fox et al. will need to be turned off on the grounds they're an active and clear and present threat to our democracy.
Alas, no one whose opinion carries any weight in these matters is willing to take the position that demonstrable lies should be stripped of their undeserved status as constitutionally protected political speech.
It may be necessary to wait for the death of America's liar-in-chief for the spell that has held so many tens of millions enslaved to the big lie and its countless progeny to break.
I read the Niall Ferguson piece and have read several of his books. He is a perfect example of someone who should know better about Trump, MAGA, and the world-wide fascist movement, but I think fundamentally has such an aversive reaction to the stupidities to which democracy is inevitably prone, and a seriously intense contempt for what he sees (not without some reason) as the folly of how we have taxed, borrowed, and spent, that he can't permit himself to acknowledge what is directly before him. Hence his patently ridiculous statement that until last week the Trump team was striking "exactly the right tone." A species and degree of foolishness that only a really intelligent person could fall into. A comparable assessment in 1939 would be that until Hitler invaded Poland, he was striking exactly the right tone.
What is the biblical verse about motes and beams in the eye? The anti-antis trap themselves in a box of mirrors of their own construction. They loathe what they call "the Left" with a disgust beyond the power of reason to control. So much so that, whatever is not "the Left"--- however mendacious and corrupt its adherents are, and however depraved and vile its collective conduct is, and however disasterous the consequences of its actions-- it simply has to be endurable in preference to its opposite.
The MAGA hatred of Ukraine is an example of a conspiratorial mindset. The facts of the case are abundantly, unambiguously clear - but MAGAs are steeped in a mythology of "THEY are hiding the truth from you! It's really the opposite of what THEY want you to believe!"
It's the same mentality that set out to find an inverse reality beneath the obvious fact that Trump incited his followers to wage war against the Capitol police because he wouldn't accept that he lost an election.
Yes. Remember early in Trump's first presidency, he told everyone not to believe our eyes and ears. MAGA selectively has taken that to heart, so even when they can't avoid seeing and hearing undeniable facts such as for J6 they deny them anyway in furtherance of the conspiratorial lies..
“If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US President, I would have laughed out loud,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gloated in response to Trump’s attack on Zelensky. “Trump is 200 percent right.”
Those who have the stomach for MAGA lies and slander should scroll over to Bari Weiss's "The Free Press" and read the comments about the piece titled "Niall Ferguson: J.D. Vance’s Fighting Words—Against Me and Ukraine."
A few defend Ferguson and Zelensky, but most commenters are all in on Putin's talking points and just about every loony conspiracy theory concerning Ukraine that has ever been hatched. https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-jd-vances-fighting
How to reach the captives inside the Fox-MAGA info bubble? Well, we know that social media killed the quaint marketplace of ideas, so trying to shout over Fox et al. in an effort to flood those deplorables with better quality information won't work.
Fox et al. will need to be turned off on the grounds they're an active and clear and present threat to our democracy.
Alas, no one whose opinion carries any weight in these matters is willing to take the position that demonstrable lies should be stripped of their undeserved status as constitutionally protected political speech.
It may be necessary to wait for the death of America's liar-in-chief for the spell that has held so many tens of millions enslaved to the big lie and its countless progeny to break.
I read the Niall Ferguson piece and have read several of his books. He is a perfect example of someone who should know better about Trump, MAGA, and the world-wide fascist movement, but I think fundamentally has such an aversive reaction to the stupidities to which democracy is inevitably prone, and a seriously intense contempt for what he sees (not without some reason) as the folly of how we have taxed, borrowed, and spent, that he can't permit himself to acknowledge what is directly before him. Hence his patently ridiculous statement that until last week the Trump team was striking "exactly the right tone." A species and degree of foolishness that only a really intelligent person could fall into. A comparable assessment in 1939 would be that until Hitler invaded Poland, he was striking exactly the right tone.
What is the biblical verse about motes and beams in the eye? The anti-antis trap themselves in a box of mirrors of their own construction. They loathe what they call "the Left" with a disgust beyond the power of reason to control. So much so that, whatever is not "the Left"--- however mendacious and corrupt its adherents are, and however depraved and vile its collective conduct is, and however disasterous the consequences of its actions-- it simply has to be endurable in preference to its opposite.
The MAGA hatred of Ukraine is an example of a conspiratorial mindset. The facts of the case are abundantly, unambiguously clear - but MAGAs are steeped in a mythology of "THEY are hiding the truth from you! It's really the opposite of what THEY want you to believe!"
It's the same mentality that set out to find an inverse reality beneath the obvious fact that Trump incited his followers to wage war against the Capitol police because he wouldn't accept that he lost an election.
Yes. Remember early in Trump's first presidency, he told everyone not to believe our eyes and ears. MAGA selectively has taken that to heart, so even when they can't avoid seeing and hearing undeniable facts such as for J6 they deny them anyway in furtherance of the conspiratorial lies..
Sadly, I think that you're right about all of that, and I'll make sure to read the comments to that piece after steeling myself.
Thanks for the response even if it can't offer a solution to the insulated lies and untruths in the bubble.