Hunter Biden, the president’s problematic son, has finally been indicted for his years of tax evasion. Only in an egregiously unequal society like ours do the children of the rich and powerful get away with corruption for as long as Hunter Biden has.
Not for people on the left, who are usually like, “Let the IRS do their job and move on.” This is only an issue for people on the right, and you can’t “facts and reason” them out of it, because the facts literally don’t matter. Creating grievance where there is none is straight out of their playbook.
This is a hit piece crafted to persuade people to move their views to the right, not some socialist alarm bell.
Isn’t letting the right own it leading people to the right? How is a reasonable explanation from the left that doesn’t exaggerate into conspiracy leading people to the right? Do you think you have a choice over this being a major election issue exaggerated from the right?
Maybe. But you can’t effectively counter the lies by presenting facts, because the facts aren’t what they’re after, and they have no imperative to seek them out for their own position.
It doesn’t. But notice that’s not what I said. I said it’s not worth engaging, because by engaging honestly, you are legitimizing the lies. You are implying that the interlocutor is making statements in good faith.
I think you can make commentary on the lies, but in this day, the liars are practiced at controlling the narrative. They want you to engage, knowing they can easily outdo your facts with the number of lies they can invent.
No, and that’s my point. You could demonstrate to the highest level of reason and logic how this issue is a nothingburger, and they would still run with it, “demonstrating” that it can “withstand” scrutiny. And now, since you engaged honestly, they have implicit credibility that it’s not just able to withstand scrutiny, it’s also able to withstand scrutiny from honest people.
The opposite of engaging is disengaging and that gives full reign for the conspiracy to flourish. The issue isn’t to convince it’s to inoculate against the right’s disinformation before the hyperexaggerations happen on a broader scale during the election campaign. The idea that this helps the right or is a bad thing is insanely disconnected from the actual issues that will determine the election, thus handing more ground to the GOP both in issues they can own and people who they can convince.
And I’m saying I don’t think you can innoculate. Facts are expensive. Lies are cheap. Look at how successful the right wing grift mill is. The facts on various matters aren’t hard to find, but it’s so lucrative that people keep it growing in spite of reality and the facts. People don’t want to leave, because reality isn’t exciting; it has few binaries, whereas they have clear villains, a simplified(-ish) paradigm, and a promise of being special and “being in the know” about life’s secrets.
And I know this is the case, because I am an ex-Christian. There is no shortage of people willing to justify their beliefs based on little to no objective evidence. The backfire effect is a real phenomenon, and people who aren’t open to being wrong are the most likely to be affected by it.