As y'all know, I run a website with a motto: Falsehoods unchallenged only fester and grow. I have lived my life according to that motto for a dozen years, more than a sixth of my time on this planet.
But here's an interesting article about what is happening. Not why, unfortunately. That's probably better left to the mass psychologists, if that's even a profession.
I think this is important - so here is the link (gift article from Washington Post) with a few quotes:
Here’s why the Trump GOP’s crazy quotient is expanding
There's a lot more in the article, of course, so go ahead and read it.Donald Trump and his post-truth pioneers have expanded the frontiers of fakery this week.
The way to get ahead in Trump’s GOP — the way to win an open-seat primary or to oust a Republican incumbent — is to push the boundaries of flimflam ever further. Republicans are caught in a vicious cycle: By discrediting the truth, they’ve created an incentive for each iteration of Republican challengers in each election cycle to distinguish themselves by embracing an even more sensational blend of falsehoods and conspiracy beliefs. It’s disinformation Darwinism: Falsify more, or fade away; become more outrageous, or perish. The ceiling of crazy in one cycle becomes the floor in the next.
[Tuesday], Trump reposted QAnon slogans “Where we go one we go all” and “I am the storm”; a message from reputed QAnon founder “Q”; allegations that Democrats, not Russia, are the “enemy”; false claims about law enforcement and a voting-machine maker; altered photos of President Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland (with hammer-and-sickle lapel pin) and others; and various versions of the 2020 election lie.
There were five dozen such posts and reposts in Trump’s QAnon spree — a whole lot of fakery for one morning. But — who knows? — maybe tomorrow the Office of Donald J. Trump will issue a sworn certification attesting that, after a “diligent search,” it could not find a single QAnon post Trump had shared, ever.
Once you’ve disqualified the truth, your only means of advancement is an ever bolder lie.
I think the idea of Disinformation Darwinism is a good structure for thinking about what is happening in this great nation. Yanno, when I worked for the big law firm, my managing partner in our SoCal satellite outpost told me, the top three guys were "excitement junkies" and that was the reason we were involved in a few cases that I won't describe but were wild.
But a third of the electorate in the United States of America seems to be disinformation junkies now. Disinformation Darwinism works because of that - - Earthlings want to be lied to, when they don't have any other solutions to their problems.
And that's why Disinformation Darwinism is working (temporarily) on the right.