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"I find it somewhat implausible that half the population is dumb, racist and all those other labels. " No - they aren't. The answer is very easy: They believe

by jariel 6y ago

"I find it somewhat implausible that half the population is dumb, racist and all those other labels. " No - they aren't. The answer is very easy: They believe Donald Trump. Trump has credibility in their minds, and when he repeats the lie, over and over - that 'the election was stolen' - they believe it. On election night - he literally came out and said 'If you count the fake votes, Biden won' - declaring mass fraud, without any evidence. His followers believe him. Contemplate the implications of that. These people do not watch CNN, they watch Fox, OAN, Breitbart etc. where the falsehoods are propagated, or at least never debunked. They are simply misinformed. On CNN they were interviewing quite a number of protesters and unanimously 'they believed the election was stolen'. A close observer will have noticed that the court cases were thrown out, that Homeland Security and the DoJ cleared it etc. - but that truthful information is not passed on to people in the Trump Bubble. Trump's base don't get their news from sources that will explicitly and clearly debunk the conspiracies. It's important to contemplate what this means: it's almost entirely not a political divide - it's mostly a divide based on what the facts are. Consider the corollary: Trump won the election, but there was point-blank, irrefutable evidence that he rigged it. The DoJ, Homeland Security - everyone - points out his fraud. Trump could merely deny the allegations, declare that he is 'under attack' and rally people to his cause on Twitter and Facebook. His followers would believe him. Meanwhile - how would you feel? Literally the election was stolen by Trump. Point-blank evidence. Would you hit the streets in protest? Would you 'occupy DC'? Millions would be enraged, we'd see protests like we've never seen before. So just contemplate that a considerable number of Americans are completely misinformed and deeply believe the election was stolen and that the Republic is being usurped. From that perspective, their actions seem more rational. I've been watching the right-wing media carefully - and while Fox mostly doesn't openly support Trump's claims, they don't spend a lot of time debunking, and they 'go along with it' in a sneaky way by saying 'Millions feel there was fraud and their voices must be heard' - essentially avoiding taking the position that Fox agrees there was fraud, but rather sympathizing with the angry masses who they darn well know are misinformed. FYI it's actually considerably easier to 'cast doubt' on elections where there is always some small degree of fraud whereupon the tiniest case can be used as 'evidence'. This insurrection is not about racism or any of that (these things overlap obviously) it's an election based on Fake News. I know that HN is pretty serious about 'Free Speech' - but folks - Twitter is Trump's primary tool of misinformation - it's his daily dose of koolaid and falsehoods to quite a few million who absolutely take his word for it. And finally - the opposite is also true: these followers assume that CNN, NBC, NPR etc. are entirely made up of lies. Nothing on those channels has any credibility in their eyes. This is a revolution based on Fake Information.

mlyle 6y ago
The thing I find interesting, seeing distant relations on Facebook talk about this, is that they tend to hold seemingly mutually-contradictory views and spout them in a span of minutes. e.g. "I was there, and it was antifa dressed as Trump supporters that broke into the Capitol. We believe in law and order and would never do anything like this ..." followed by statements saying that they are going to take over buildings in DC again on January 19th. There's something deeper here, among many of them, than simply consuming different media.
- jariel 6y ago
  People need to think intelligently and everything requires context. There are 1000 random people at an event, there's no doubt that there were a few ANTIFA interlopers there, but that doesn't really mean anything. A single cop 'opening a gate' doesn't mean much either. Neither does the Republican guy who tried to prove electoral fraud by himself, committing a single act of voter fraud. Most of the mainstream media is highly credible. Biased - but credible. The fact that a few individuals maybe planned on doing something 'really crazy' doesn't actually mean there's a larger movement there either. That's why we depend on the press to try to get a generally factual and broad view of the situation. Watching a mix of CNN, PBS, Fox, NBC etc. will give most people a rounded purview of the situation, even if there is a lot of bias. Watching Fox since the election has been a very interesting experience because they cannot support Trump's false claims they have to have 'integrity'. But what some of them are doing (Ted Cruze as well) is saying 'people feel the election was stolen and they have a right to be heard' - basically they've taken the line of sympathizing with people who are angry, though they full well know the anger is based on absolute falsehood. Fox has been losing viewers to OAN where they take a 'hardcore Pro-Trump' position no matter the facts, which is what many want to hear. On many Fox articles, the comments are split 50/50 with many hating on Trump, many supporting him. OAN and Breibart however, it's full on Trump. The language is scary, many calling for violence against Pence etc. as a 'traitor' for literally not committing Sedition and overturning the election on behalf of Trump. So 'the truth' is going to be a real problem for the next little while.
finder83 6y ago
To be fair, CNN has proven multiple times in the last few years that their credibility is worth very little. They have a VERY extreme slant to the left, so much so that news casters were even becoming anti-vaxxers against the Covid-19 vaccine simply because Trump was the president at the time trying to push for people to take it. Their handling of Covid-19 early on was also atrocious. I don't mean to demean them if they're your favorite news source, but they've lost a lot of faith in the past few years. The others, NPR, NBC, etc, I think you'd be surprised how many Republicans watch them for a differing point of view. There are many republicans who are more libertarian, classical liberal, or independent leaning than classically conservative leaning. That's part of the problem though with this argument, is that the "right" or "conservative" or "republican" can actually be very different things. It seems that most people on hacker news lump them all into the same category. Also, not every conservative is an over-the-top Trump supporter. I'm definitely not. It doesn't mean I don't like some of the things he did, but he's got a lot of issues and was FAR from my ideal candidate.

by jariel 6y ago

mlyle 6y ago

The thing I find interesting, seeing distant relations on Facebook talk about this, is that they tend to hold seemingly mutually-contradictory views and spout them in a span of minutes. e.g. "I was there, and it was antifa dressed as Trump supporters that broke into the Capitol. We believe in law and order and would never do anything like this ..." followed by statements saying that they are going to take over buildings in DC again on January 19th. There's something deeper here, among many of them, than simply consuming different media.

jariel 6y ago
People need to think intelligently and everything requires context. There are 1000 random people at an event, there's no doubt that there were a few ANTIFA interlopers there, but that doesn't really mean anything. A single cop 'opening a gate' doesn't mean much either. Neither does the Republican guy who tried to prove electoral fraud by himself, committing a single act of voter fraud. Most of the mainstream media is highly credible. Biased - but credible. The fact that a few individuals maybe planned on doing something 'really crazy' doesn't actually mean there's a larger movement there either. That's why we depend on the press to try to get a generally factual and broad view of the situation. Watching a mix of CNN, PBS, Fox, NBC etc. will give most people a rounded purview of the situation, even if there is a lot of bias. Watching Fox since the election has been a very interesting experience because they cannot support Trump's false claims they have to have 'integrity'. But what some of them are doing (Ted Cruze as well) is saying 'people feel the election was stolen and they have a right to be heard' - basically they've taken the line of sympathizing with people who are angry, though they full well know the anger is based on absolute falsehood. Fox has been losing viewers to OAN where they take a 'hardcore Pro-Trump' position no matter the facts, which is what many want to hear. On many Fox articles, the comments are split 50/50 with many hating on Trump, many supporting him. OAN and Breibart however, it's full on Trump. The language is scary, many calling for violence against Pence etc. as a 'traitor' for literally not committing Sedition and overturning the election on behalf of Trump. So 'the truth' is going to be a real problem for the next little while.

finder83 6y ago

To be fair, CNN has proven multiple times in the last few years that their credibility is worth very little. They have a VERY extreme slant to the left, so much so that news casters were even becoming anti-vaxxers against the Covid-19 vaccine simply because Trump was the president at the time trying to push for people to take it. Their handling of Covid-19 early on was also atrocious. I don't mean to demean them if they're your favorite news source, but they've lost a lot of faith in the past few years. The others, NPR, NBC, etc, I think you'd be surprised how many Republicans watch them for a differing point of view. There are many republicans who are more libertarian, classical liberal, or independent leaning than classically conservative leaning. That's part of the problem though with this argument, is that the "right" or "conservative" or "republican" can actually be very different things. It seems that most people on hacker news lump them all into the same category. Also, not every conservative is an over-the-top Trump supporter. I'm definitely not. It doesn't mean I don't like some of the things he did, but he's got a lot of issues and was FAR from my ideal candidate.