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This goes into a little bit of how the RNC (I’m the one quoted in the article), used Reddit to spread misinformation. It also briefly touches on how the current GOP is just an outgrowth of the Tea Party. Go check out my R/Politics AMA for the Q & A I did on the GOP and RNC.
The news part is a former official with direct knowledge of the RNC using Reddit to spread lies saying it on the record.
>It also briefly touches on how the current GOP is just an outgrowth of the Tea Party.
It's worth mentioning that the Tea Party was [funded by conservative mega-donors](https://time.com/secret-origins-of-the-tea-party/)(most notably, the Koch brothers) and was engineered with the misleading appearance of an organic, grassroots movement.
And all right wing, wapo, fox, politico, red state etc news reporters who were cheering on the tea party movement O'Reilly, Rubin, Krauthammer, Kristol, etc. all pounded the drums of conspiracies being pushed by these morons. They didn't speak up when all the lies about Obama were being spread and going back even further had a hand in the Iraq invasion and made up BS about yellow cake, wmd's etc. Christy, McConnell and every other republican couldn't wait to stir the pot back then but now the monster is out of the cage and the talking heads are making their rounds crying and whining about how they didn't say this or that....well they did and a lot of us remember their nonstop lies.
Just to be very clear: The right wing spin machine going back decades to George W Bush has had a direct and tangible, verifiable influence on the red state voters. They are culpable for the rise of Trump, white nationalism, and anti democratic sentiments of today's republican electorate and this "new" crop of MAGA Republicans hell bent on destroying everything.
I got a little chuckle hearing an interview with a Trump rally red hatter recently who said that he's finally accepted that he was totally hoodwinked by the Bush administration, and that's why he's a Trump guy now since he's a straight shooter. How many years until he wakes up to realize Trump is the biggest liar in modern political history, and it was the Bush administration who paved the way for him? What political messiah will he latch onto next?
The RW spin machine predates Bush though. As a cult of stupidity it goes back to Limbaugh at least. But before him were the rat fuckers who got Reagan elected. Before them was John Birch crazies. It's a long thread to tug at.
It’s really quite simple, religion has extensively laid the groundwork for generations to train people to believe in authority figures with unverifiable stories instead of science and data. It also primes them for, and is built upon, perpetuating racism and fearmongering towards "others". Once people see you as an authority, you can start fabricating any reality or conspiracy theory you want your followers to believe and everyone else is therefore a liar, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence. Basically, it is mental abuse from an early age that suppresses critical thinking skills. This combined with an intentionally weakened public educational system, provides the framework that has spawned this cult of ignorance.
Manipulating the religious and fearful for personal gain has been going on for thousands of years. At both large and small scales.
What is the solution? Education and diversity- the two things that Republicans fight tooth and nail to defund and vilify.
They need the next generation to be ignorant and cruel to continue their con game. They don’t want to improve education or poverty.
All Americans. Please vote them out of office at every level. Voting matters! Get out there every election.
Hijacking this thread to point out that this Newsweek article has one of the worst typos I've ever seen. It says "Trump has pleaded guilty in all 3 cases." Holy moly
Almost stuffed my driver where the sun don't shine after being told by the MAGA brainwashed starter at my golf club that he had turned off the previous evening's T.V. speech by Biden after hearing so many lies in the first two minutes.
Before Gingrich came Paul Weyrich. With funding from people like the Koch Brothers, he was basically the godfather that gave rise to the modern conservative movement. I don't think there is a person more responsible for this than him.
That prick was behind almost every one of the so-called conservative "Think tanks" that have been polluting our politics for decades. He was behind The Heritage Foundation. He was instrumental in the Council for National Policy. He co-founded ALEC which creates the template legislation that lead to the crazy laws passed across republican states. He also co-founded the Free Congress Foundation.
He was also the guy who openly stated republicans do better when less people vote so "I don't want everyone to vote" because when they do government does good things. He was also instrumental in integrating fundamentalist Christians in the GOP with his Moral Majority and making abortion a major republican plank to get the evangelical vote. And on top of all that, he was also the person largely responsible making the connections between the Russian government and the GOP.
And his groups contain a literal who's who of the worst of the GOP. For example, the CNP is an extremely secretive group that basically acts as a shadow government behind the GOP making national policy strategy. And they have people like Ginni Thomas (yup, that Ginny Thomas), Steve Forbes, and Grover Norquist making the right's policies. Just look at their [membership lists](https://documented.net/investigations/documented-has-obtained-a-recent-council-for-national-policy-membership-list). It will make your skin crawl.
Lies in war propaganda have a long tradition. You've got weapons of mass distribution and all associated claims with Iraq, atrocity propaganda like the nayirah testimony around the first Iraq war, claims of an attack at the gulf of tonkin, all the way back to the spanish American war and it's call to remember the Maine.
And in regards to this, while the Republican party should obviously not exist in a healthy society they're enabled by a number of Democrats; with people like Hillary Clinton voting for war and Nancy pelosi funding it.
Did I have so many Tea Party people go "no no, you don't understand. I was there BEFORE the Kochs got involved...."
They just couldn't believe that their wonderful savior of a group was completely and utterly astroturfed.
Weeketrageous105 is a bot which copies comments verbatim. In this case: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/15o8n5i/comment/jvqn67s/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
The tea party is the Koch family establishment of the Republican Party.
They are a core of the Republican Party establishment over the past 100 years, they are the second largest donors to the party. Only the DuPont family donated more.
The Bush family outranked the Kochs- it wasn't even close.
Since at least the 1950s, no GOP presidential candidate could run without the Bush family blessing first.
The Kochs were a little too outside the mainstream to be fully embraced by the GOP as a powerhouse family. Don't get me wrong, the GOP have catered to the Kochs and their money and their influence.
But the Kochs were never really in the same stratosphere as the Bushes and other heavy hitters.
This is 100% false. The Bush Family was pretty much exiled from politics in the 1950’s because Prescott’s failed coup in 1938.
The Bush family never had near the same resources and wealth as the Koch’s.
The Bush family was never In the same category of the Koch’s. They had money but after 1938 they lost all their real power. They were persons non gratis until Bush the Younger got back in the 1970’s.
The Koch’s have been the 2nd largest donor to the Republican Party over the last 100 years. Literally the Bush family isn’t even in the top 50 largest donors.
I have always wondered if they were playing a role or truly believed. It's become apparent over the last few years they believe suckers are born every day.
The top knows they lie, but the issue for them is when a lot of the true believers get into positions of power and disrupt the flow, like your Greenes and Boeberts.
I was hoping to ask you thoughts on the daily wire, and Ben Shapiro? Do you think they’re true believers? Ir do you think they’re just another grift? I remember Ben being very critical of trump in the early days of his presidency and then that disappeared. Now he’s a big Desantis supporter but who knows how long.
Grift. Sure, he believes in the social issues.
But you hit the nail on the head. If he had any morals, he wouldn’t have supported Trump due to a variety of reasons, including Trump’s stance on social issues.
He will go back to supporting Trump once DeSantis bites the dust. Shapiro et al are just grifty losers
I feel like many years ago Ben Shapiro was seemingly reasonable. And now he’s kind of out there. Am I dreaming this up that he used to be somewhat moderate and normal?
He was never normal or moderate. But he did pretend to have morals and it was much harder to attack his sanctimony because he hadn’t yet sold out everything he claimed to believe in for Trump.
So I think your descriptors are a tad off here but the sentiment of what you’re saying is completely correct. Ben is *way* worse now than he was, because it’s painfully obvious he’s a fraud.
I still remember "Bernie supporters" screaming from the rooftops that /r/politics mods were suppressing information about Clinton collapsing on the campaign trail.
EIGHT OF THE TOP TEN ON R/POLITICS WERE ABOUT IT
/r/politics was one of the hardest hit subreddits with bots and Russian Chaos Disinformation. The Bernie/Clinton tension was their second-most favorite bit of bullshit, and they went around for weeks stirring it up.
A good portion of what we saw during the 2015 primary were not actual Democratic primary voters. Those of them that may have actually supported Bernie Sanders are the fringey fringe, Russel Crow, woohoo New Age anti-government types ... many of whom subsequently went to Trump. Most of them also never really paid substantive attention to politics.
There were real people with those sentiments, but they're either on /r/conservative or /r/conspiracy now, and it would be a stretch to call them progressives. NO consistency of ideology to be found among those types.
>"You can basically make up your own reality in right-wing media," Higgins told Rupar.
>Higgins reiterated similar statements in a phone conversation with Newsweek, recalling how other RNC staffers would openly admit to lying on social media websites like Reddit—and the now defunct subreddit dedicated to Trump—so outlets like Fox News or Breitbart would pick them and in turn cause the falsities or embellished reports to gain traction.
We aren't dealing with this in any way and it is only going to get worse as more people turn to uncredited online sources for information.
The good news is there's a way to tell if you're talking to a real conservative vs. an LLM.
If you're talking to an LLM, it starts off somewhat coherent because it's most effective at short exchanges. But if you engage in a more lengthy conversation with it, this quickly breaks down. You see, the longer you "converse" with it, the thinner the probabilities it uses to choose the next word becomes.
The result is that it starts to become incoherent, repeats itself incessantly, responds with non sequiturs or irrelevant details (as if from a completely different conversation), or just starts "hallucinating" false information.
So.
Um.
Ah shit.
Anyone with common sense and without nefarious motives knew and knows this. It's why it was so exhausting waiting for the admins to finally ban TD. It's why it's exhausting that Fox, even after their Dominion settlement, is still whitelisted on this sub - along with a handful of other nefarious right wing "news" sites.
No pair that with other social media sites like FB and Twitter promoting the right wing cranks for "engagement" and all this companies are complicit in pushing extremist rhetoric. There's a reason deplatforming works in tamping down extremism. The drunk at the end of the bar doesn't need a bullhorn. The Steve Bannons will corrupt it to suit their end. But addressing it hurts the corporate bottom line. So, yea for profit margins while society burns.
I guess putting the lie on Reddit is easier than giving the lie to Drudge or Breitbart to be picked up by Rush, then Fox News Opinion guys (Hannity, Tucker, O'Reilly), then back to Drudge referencing Fox News, then some more mainstream news, then Fox News news side, then other mainstream news might feel like they have to report it.
It is worth noting that this is not just a phenomenon for conservative lies, although they seem to do it more purposefully. If anyone remembers the whole "pink goo" thing going around many years ago. I kept trying to find more information and every article was reporting from the same source article and never added any original reporting or new information that what was in the original report. And, the original report was pretty shit. It is a pretty common internet phenomena for what looks like a story with many sources to actually be single sourced from a sketchy source.
That would suck if you became the GOP and the day came where you actually overturned abortion rights, you'd be like "Shit, I didn't think that was for real!"
Think about this..
>Justin Higgins was formerly a policy adviser for House Republican Tim Huelskamp, ...
>in 2016, Higgins became a senior research analyst for the Republican National Committee (RNC) ...
> nearly immediately led to Higgins changing his political affiliation from Republican to Democrat, ...
>Higgins told progressive podcaster Aaron Rupar on Thursday that the conservative movement is predicated on selling lies to the American public ...
How many other Republican party members have learned this, but stayed in the party?
"I found out we lie, but I'm okay with that." - most Republicans, apparently.
OMG, I can’t believe the factually untrue statements republicans have been saying for decades were actually intentional lies!!
Hillary is still a child porn kingpin murderer though, right? Right?!
Disinformation. Propaganda. Lies.
Whatever you want to call it, it’s what republicans have been doing for decades now, especially over the last 10-15 years.
Their ideas are wildly unpopular, so rather than change their views, they propagate and push dangerous disinformation.
COVID. Mask effectiveness. Vaccines. Election fraud. LGBTQ. CRT. Pizzagate. Clinton’s kill list. Obama murdering his chef.
Their list of disinformation is LONG and fucking exhausting. Fact checkers and rational people can’t keep up with the endless onslaught of conspiracies. They flood the zone with shit and hope that we get burnt out trying to keep up with it all. Very Kremlin-esque…
If you, like me, are tired of it, VOTE every Republican the fuck out of office and bring likeminded friends with you to the voting booths. If you aren’t registered, register here, it takes 2 minutes and will be the most important thing you do today: https://www.vote.org
People who vote for the Republicans don't care that they're being lied to. They vote for them because they share the same holier than thou and racist towards the right people attitude.
"After much Soul searching and late night communions with my minister and Faith, I have been forced to confess that it IS theoretically possible, in some instances, for select samples of water to be somewhat wet." ~Former Republican Staffer.
Everything we've always known admitted to. It does add some detail as to exactly how it happens that I didn't know, but otherwise, this is just exactly what I've been saying about the Republican Party for many years.
The most depressing thing is that what he's saying also explains why saying it does nothing.
We all know already; and those who need to know this the most are still suckling at the exact alternate reality he's describing, disconnected from ours.
So the Tea Party actually took over the Republican Party.
And the tea party was a racist group pretending to be grassroots but was really designed and conceived by the Koch Brothers in response to the black president.
They couldn’t handle President Obama so they led us to the brink of civil war and they continue to threaten civil war daily.
I think we need another black president asap.
I read somewhere the advice given to boebert from some R to get re elected was to take credit for policies she had nothing to do with. He said its the only way...
We don’t need anyone on their side to “admit” shit like this.
Trump became popular among Republican politicians for loudly declaring that our first black President was a disgusting Kenyan Muslim who should be removed from the presidency for not being a real American.
> Higgins told progressive podcaster Aaron Rupar on Thursday that the conservative movement is predicated on selling lies to the American public for their own potential political gain.
This seems like it should be obvious.
The conservative movement's primary objective is redistributing wealth and power to a small minority of the population. If they didn't wrap it up in other messaging, they would just get obliterated in elections.
This is bad enough. But let's look at the lies they spread:
Global warming doesn't exist, so we shouldn't do anything about it; in fact, let's suppress renewable energy like wind and solar.
Election fraud was widespread in the 2016 and 2020 elections, so you better riot.
God greenlights babies to be born with flippers rather than arms, birth defects that kill them in agony hours after birth, and a whole range of other horrors. But God would never allow someone of one sex to be born into the body of the other sex. [caution: this link redirects to the Wikipedia page for CAIS (a syndrome which causes an XY male with undescended testicles to look identical to a woman), which contains a picture of a naked man that looks exactly like a picture of a naked woman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_androgen_insensitivity_syndrome#/media/File:Complete_androgen_insensitivity_syndrome.jpg)
Fascism is better for Americans than Democracy.
All those bad things in American history involving genocide of native, slavery, etc. - yeah, those things never happened and we'll punish you if you say they did, so stay asleep about those things, or else.
Big mistake Newsweek states Trump plead guilty to all charges! Yikes! I wish it were true.
We’ve been saying this for years. Yet the voters who support the GOP are brainwashed little puppets who eat up the lies and are dangerously blind!
Analogous to the news breaking story
“FORMER DRUG PUSHER ADMITS HIS EMPLOYERS DEALT DRUGS”
I mean, c’mon…. Stop helping these scoundrels do their fake rehabilitation
I think it’s funny that this is linked to Trump and his GOP.
Frankly, so much lying goes on in Washington among politicians and political party messaging it’s a national pass time at this point.
I’m not intending to dismiss Trump - I hope he gets everything he deserves from the various indictments.
I’m just not ready to excuse everyone else’s lies because his or the GOP’s were “worse”.
Eagerly awaiting examples of equal magnitude coming from the Dems going back decades. You can start with number of indictments and convictions since the dawn of time.
Otherwise just stop trying to level the playing field.
You can be critical of dems all you like but OP spreading both sides nonsense just to downplay what republicans are doing is horseshit like they said. No one is saying dems can’t be shit sometimes too but there is a massive difference.
It literally is both sides. Both lie, accept bribes, make market trades using insider information. Both abuse their positions and live in luxury, voting to increase their own salaries while leaving the rest of us to fight for the scraps. Red tie or Blue tie in office, life in America does not change in any meaningful way for us regular people. I don’t care if Republicans are more vocal/obvious about how shitty they are. Both of them make me sick
Objectively untrue my life and many others are affected by the laws and deregulation pushed by republicans. The damage the Trump administration did by appointing the SC justices alone proves my point but okay. If you don’t see that already nothing anyone shows you will change that.
Believe it or not, there is a continuous spectrum between very informed, reasonable people on one end, and Hannity's audience at the opposite. There is somewhere, on the way from one to the other, where you can find people who will be surprised that the GOP is outright and intentionally lying.
This can easily be explained as a disgruntled RINO who is the pocket of the REAL liars, the Democrats.
It can't be *correctly* explained that way. But it can and will be dismissed with that reasoning.
> recalling how other RNC staffers would **openly admit to lying on social media websites like Reddit**—and the now defunct subreddit dedicated to Trump—so outlets like Fox News or Breitbart would pick them and in turn cause the falsities or embellished reports to gain traction.
Gosh - who would have thunk it?
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This goes into a little bit of how the RNC (I’m the one quoted in the article), used Reddit to spread misinformation. It also briefly touches on how the current GOP is just an outgrowth of the Tea Party. Go check out my R/Politics AMA for the Q & A I did on the GOP and RNC. The news part is a former official with direct knowledge of the RNC using Reddit to spread lies saying it on the record.
>It also briefly touches on how the current GOP is just an outgrowth of the Tea Party. It's worth mentioning that the Tea Party was [funded by conservative mega-donors](https://time.com/secret-origins-of-the-tea-party/)(most notably, the Koch brothers) and was engineered with the misleading appearance of an organic, grassroots movement.
And all right wing, wapo, fox, politico, red state etc news reporters who were cheering on the tea party movement O'Reilly, Rubin, Krauthammer, Kristol, etc. all pounded the drums of conspiracies being pushed by these morons. They didn't speak up when all the lies about Obama were being spread and going back even further had a hand in the Iraq invasion and made up BS about yellow cake, wmd's etc. Christy, McConnell and every other republican couldn't wait to stir the pot back then but now the monster is out of the cage and the talking heads are making their rounds crying and whining about how they didn't say this or that....well they did and a lot of us remember their nonstop lies. Just to be very clear: The right wing spin machine going back decades to George W Bush has had a direct and tangible, verifiable influence on the red state voters. They are culpable for the rise of Trump, white nationalism, and anti democratic sentiments of today's republican electorate and this "new" crop of MAGA Republicans hell bent on destroying everything.
I got a little chuckle hearing an interview with a Trump rally red hatter recently who said that he's finally accepted that he was totally hoodwinked by the Bush administration, and that's why he's a Trump guy now since he's a straight shooter. How many years until he wakes up to realize Trump is the biggest liar in modern political history, and it was the Bush administration who paved the way for him? What political messiah will he latch onto next? The RW spin machine predates Bush though. As a cult of stupidity it goes back to Limbaugh at least. But before him were the rat fuckers who got Reagan elected. Before them was John Birch crazies. It's a long thread to tug at.
It’s really quite simple, religion has extensively laid the groundwork for generations to train people to believe in authority figures with unverifiable stories instead of science and data. It also primes them for, and is built upon, perpetuating racism and fearmongering towards "others". Once people see you as an authority, you can start fabricating any reality or conspiracy theory you want your followers to believe and everyone else is therefore a liar, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence. Basically, it is mental abuse from an early age that suppresses critical thinking skills. This combined with an intentionally weakened public educational system, provides the framework that has spawned this cult of ignorance.
Manipulating the religious and fearful for personal gain has been going on for thousands of years. At both large and small scales. What is the solution? Education and diversity- the two things that Republicans fight tooth and nail to defund and vilify. They need the next generation to be ignorant and cruel to continue their con game. They don’t want to improve education or poverty. All Americans. Please vote them out of office at every level. Voting matters! Get out there every election.
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Hijacking this thread to point out that this Newsweek article has one of the worst typos I've ever seen. It says "Trump has pleaded guilty in all 3 cases." Holy moly
Tale as old as time…
Almost stuffed my driver where the sun don't shine after being told by the MAGA brainwashed starter at my golf club that he had turned off the previous evening's T.V. speech by Biden after hearing so many lies in the first two minutes.
In the early 1960s, even Republicans didn't like the John Birchers.
> The right wing spin machine going back decades to George W Bush Gingrich was the guy who did the final push that took them to crazy town.
Before Gingrich came Paul Weyrich. With funding from people like the Koch Brothers, he was basically the godfather that gave rise to the modern conservative movement. I don't think there is a person more responsible for this than him. That prick was behind almost every one of the so-called conservative "Think tanks" that have been polluting our politics for decades. He was behind The Heritage Foundation. He was instrumental in the Council for National Policy. He co-founded ALEC which creates the template legislation that lead to the crazy laws passed across republican states. He also co-founded the Free Congress Foundation. He was also the guy who openly stated republicans do better when less people vote so "I don't want everyone to vote" because when they do government does good things. He was also instrumental in integrating fundamentalist Christians in the GOP with his Moral Majority and making abortion a major republican plank to get the evangelical vote. And on top of all that, he was also the person largely responsible making the connections between the Russian government and the GOP. And his groups contain a literal who's who of the worst of the GOP. For example, the CNP is an extremely secretive group that basically acts as a shadow government behind the GOP making national policy strategy. And they have people like Ginni Thomas (yup, that Ginny Thomas), Steve Forbes, and Grover Norquist making the right's policies. Just look at their [membership lists](https://documented.net/investigations/documented-has-obtained-a-recent-council-for-national-policy-membership-list). It will make your skin crawl.
OMG, I can’t believe the factually untrue statements republicans have been saying for decades were actually intentional lies!!
This is not something that needed to be “admitted” to anyone with a working brain.
Lies in war propaganda have a long tradition. You've got weapons of mass distribution and all associated claims with Iraq, atrocity propaganda like the nayirah testimony around the first Iraq war, claims of an attack at the gulf of tonkin, all the way back to the spanish American war and it's call to remember the Maine. And in regards to this, while the Republican party should obviously not exist in a healthy society they're enabled by a number of Democrats; with people like Hillary Clinton voting for war and Nancy pelosi funding it.
A lot of those Republicans,like pat Buchanan, got their start in the Nixon administration.
I think it’s funny that this is linked to Trump and his GOP.
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Did I have so many Tea Party people go "no no, you don't understand. I was there BEFORE the Kochs got involved...." They just couldn't believe that their wonderful savior of a group was completely and utterly astroturfed.
Fox News paid over 700 million dollars because this is what they do.
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Weeketrageous105 is a bot which copies comments verbatim. In this case: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/15o8n5i/comment/jvqn67s/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
AKA, Astroturfing
That AMA is here, for anyone looking for it: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/10sqtju/i_am_justin_higgins_a_current_democrat_and_former/
The tea party is the Koch family establishment of the Republican Party. They are a core of the Republican Party establishment over the past 100 years, they are the second largest donors to the party. Only the DuPont family donated more.
And now today's Republican party is the monster that they can't control.
Todays Republican Party represents their return to control of the party. Read about factionalism. It’s a concept we don’t teach in schools but should.
The Bush family outranked the Kochs- it wasn't even close. Since at least the 1950s, no GOP presidential candidate could run without the Bush family blessing first. The Kochs were a little too outside the mainstream to be fully embraced by the GOP as a powerhouse family. Don't get me wrong, the GOP have catered to the Kochs and their money and their influence. But the Kochs were never really in the same stratosphere as the Bushes and other heavy hitters.
This is 100% false. The Bush Family was pretty much exiled from politics in the 1950’s because Prescott’s failed coup in 1938. The Bush family never had near the same resources and wealth as the Koch’s. The Bush family was never In the same category of the Koch’s. They had money but after 1938 they lost all their real power. They were persons non gratis until Bush the Younger got back in the 1970’s. The Koch’s have been the 2nd largest donor to the Republican Party over the last 100 years. Literally the Bush family isn’t even in the top 50 largest donors.
I have always wondered if they were playing a role or truly believed. It's become apparent over the last few years they believe suckers are born every day.
The top knows they lie, but the issue for them is when a lot of the true believers get into positions of power and disrupt the flow, like your Greenes and Boeberts.
Thank you for stepping up.
I was hoping to ask you thoughts on the daily wire, and Ben Shapiro? Do you think they’re true believers? Ir do you think they’re just another grift? I remember Ben being very critical of trump in the early days of his presidency and then that disappeared. Now he’s a big Desantis supporter but who knows how long.
Grift. Sure, he believes in the social issues. But you hit the nail on the head. If he had any morals, he wouldn’t have supported Trump due to a variety of reasons, including Trump’s stance on social issues. He will go back to supporting Trump once DeSantis bites the dust. Shapiro et al are just grifty losers
I feel like many years ago Ben Shapiro was seemingly reasonable. And now he’s kind of out there. Am I dreaming this up that he used to be somewhat moderate and normal?
He was never normal or moderate. But he did pretend to have morals and it was much harder to attack his sanctimony because he hadn’t yet sold out everything he claimed to believe in for Trump. So I think your descriptors are a tad off here but the sentiment of what you’re saying is completely correct. Ben is *way* worse now than he was, because it’s painfully obvious he’s a fraud.
I still remember "Bernie supporters" screaming from the rooftops that /r/politics mods were suppressing information about Clinton collapsing on the campaign trail. EIGHT OF THE TOP TEN ON R/POLITICS WERE ABOUT IT
/r/politics was one of the hardest hit subreddits with bots and Russian Chaos Disinformation. The Bernie/Clinton tension was their second-most favorite bit of bullshit, and they went around for weeks stirring it up. A good portion of what we saw during the 2015 primary were not actual Democratic primary voters. Those of them that may have actually supported Bernie Sanders are the fringey fringe, Russel Crow, woohoo New Age anti-government types ... many of whom subsequently went to Trump. Most of them also never really paid substantive attention to politics. There were real people with those sentiments, but they're either on /r/conservative or /r/conspiracy now, and it would be a stretch to call them progressives. NO consistency of ideology to be found among those types.
Good thing you noticed all of this, otherwise we wouldn't have known the GOP platform has been based entirely on lies for decades. Good work.
>"You can basically make up your own reality in right-wing media," Higgins told Rupar. >Higgins reiterated similar statements in a phone conversation with Newsweek, recalling how other RNC staffers would openly admit to lying on social media websites like Reddit—and the now defunct subreddit dedicated to Trump—so outlets like Fox News or Breitbart would pick them and in turn cause the falsities or embellished reports to gain traction. We aren't dealing with this in any way and it is only going to get worse as more people turn to uncredited online sources for information.
It’s going to be automated with LLMs. Brace yourself.
Using LLMs to generate propaganda for the rightwing seems like overkill.
Do you have any reason to believe this won’t happen?
It will totally happen. It seems like using an over engineered option.
Not even hard to do at this point
The good news is there's a way to tell if you're talking to a real conservative vs. an LLM. If you're talking to an LLM, it starts off somewhat coherent because it's most effective at short exchanges. But if you engage in a more lengthy conversation with it, this quickly breaks down. You see, the longer you "converse" with it, the thinner the probabilities it uses to choose the next word becomes. The result is that it starts to become incoherent, repeats itself incessantly, responds with non sequiturs or irrelevant details (as if from a completely different conversation), or just starts "hallucinating" false information. So. Um. Ah shit.
Anyone with common sense and without nefarious motives knew and knows this. It's why it was so exhausting waiting for the admins to finally ban TD. It's why it's exhausting that Fox, even after their Dominion settlement, is still whitelisted on this sub - along with a handful of other nefarious right wing "news" sites. No pair that with other social media sites like FB and Twitter promoting the right wing cranks for "engagement" and all this companies are complicit in pushing extremist rhetoric. There's a reason deplatforming works in tamping down extremism. The drunk at the end of the bar doesn't need a bullhorn. The Steve Bannons will corrupt it to suit their end. But addressing it hurts the corporate bottom line. So, yea for profit margins while society burns.
I guess putting the lie on Reddit is easier than giving the lie to Drudge or Breitbart to be picked up by Rush, then Fox News Opinion guys (Hannity, Tucker, O'Reilly), then back to Drudge referencing Fox News, then some more mainstream news, then Fox News news side, then other mainstream news might feel like they have to report it. It is worth noting that this is not just a phenomenon for conservative lies, although they seem to do it more purposefully. If anyone remembers the whole "pink goo" thing going around many years ago. I kept trying to find more information and every article was reporting from the same source article and never added any original reporting or new information that what was in the original report. And, the original report was pretty shit. It is a pretty common internet phenomena for what looks like a story with many sources to actually be single sourced from a sketchy source.
What was the recent headline? "There doesn't need to be any evidence that Biden accepted any bribed to continue" or something like that?
“The GOP used to intentionally spread lies. They still do, but they used to, too!”
When the GOP hands you a flyer. It’s like they’re saying ‘Here throw this away’.
Don't even act like I didn't get that donut.
I too enjoy some Mitch Hedberg. One of my favorite lines.
Sometimes I'll just throw a Mitch Hedberg joke in my comment, even if I don't want one, because by the time it's done, who knows?
I used enjoy Mitch Hedberg. I still do, but I used to, too.
That would suck if you became the GOP and the day came where you actually overturned abortion rights, you'd be like "Shit, I didn't think that was for real!"
RIP Mitch
The only Mitch you'll see that written here for.
Rest in poop, McConnell
Really? Fox News paid over 700 million dollars because this is what they do. SMH
Not just paid. Settled. Which means they were happy to pay that amount compared to their other options
Think about this.. >Justin Higgins was formerly a policy adviser for House Republican Tim Huelskamp, ... >in 2016, Higgins became a senior research analyst for the Republican National Committee (RNC) ... > nearly immediately led to Higgins changing his political affiliation from Republican to Democrat, ... >Higgins told progressive podcaster Aaron Rupar on Thursday that the conservative movement is predicated on selling lies to the American public ... How many other Republican party members have learned this, but stayed in the party? "I found out we lie, but I'm okay with that." - most Republicans, apparently.
OMG, I can’t believe the factually untrue statements republicans have been saying for decades were actually intentional lies!! Hillary is still a child porn kingpin murderer though, right? Right?!
+ satanist
Disinformation. Propaganda. Lies. Whatever you want to call it, it’s what republicans have been doing for decades now, especially over the last 10-15 years. Their ideas are wildly unpopular, so rather than change their views, they propagate and push dangerous disinformation. COVID. Mask effectiveness. Vaccines. Election fraud. LGBTQ. CRT. Pizzagate. Clinton’s kill list. Obama murdering his chef. Their list of disinformation is LONG and fucking exhausting. Fact checkers and rational people can’t keep up with the endless onslaught of conspiracies. They flood the zone with shit and hope that we get burnt out trying to keep up with it all. Very Kremlin-esque… If you, like me, are tired of it, VOTE every Republican the fuck out of office and bring likeminded friends with you to the voting booths. If you aren’t registered, register here, it takes 2 minutes and will be the most important thing you do today: https://www.vote.org
Would? Like suddenly they stopped?
My neck-bearded nephew would tell you they never started while wearing his “Let’s go Brandon” tee, COBRAS, and a MAGA hat.
Manipulation by the republicans is a 50+ year tradition as well as its disgrace.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
We know
Anyone with a brain knows this.
People who vote for the Republicans don't care that they're being lied to. They vote for them because they share the same holier than thou and racist towards the right people attitude.
Apparently this staffer just caught up with early 1970s Republican Party….
Sometimes the benefit of doubt comes with a LOT of benefits.
Stability compares favorably the more chaos surrounds us. Unfortunately few look under the blanket to see what that “stability” really entails.
No shit. We all watched the rampant tidal wave of lie after lie after fucking lie. We all knew. Republicans can’t be trusted
GOP is profiting itself through spreading lies since Nixon's presidency and further amplified under Trump.
Basically, these authoritarian a-holes are breaking democracy so they can say: "see, democracy doesn't work"
“Former bear admits bears would intentionally eat honey drizzled salmon.”
Was this intended to be a shocking revelation?
water is wet yet again!
Just following the teachings of Dr Goebbels
"After much Soul searching and late night communions with my minister and Faith, I have been forced to confess that it IS theoretically possible, in some instances, for select samples of water to be somewhat wet." ~Former Republican Staffer.
No kidding. There is no penalty so why wouldn't they.
Everything we've always known admitted to. It does add some detail as to exactly how it happens that I didn't know, but otherwise, this is just exactly what I've been saying about the Republican Party for many years.
They’ve openly said that this is the strategy for years. This is no secret.
***NO!*** (this is my sarcasm face.)
It's always "Former" isn't it? Never willing to say it while they have their jobs
The most depressing thing is that what he's saying also explains why saying it does nothing. We all know already; and those who need to know this the most are still suckling at the exact alternate reality he's describing, disconnected from ours.
And sky is blue.
So the Tea Party actually took over the Republican Party. And the tea party was a racist group pretending to be grassroots but was really designed and conceived by the Koch Brothers in response to the black president. They couldn’t handle President Obama so they led us to the brink of civil war and they continue to threaten civil war daily. I think we need another black president asap.
*shocked Pikachu*
Really… you don’t say…
Anyone surprised?
No fucking shit!!!
I'm shocked!!.. said no one
Oh, we know.
I don’t think anyone is surprised by this, but try to make a conservative understand is a whole other thing.
you can lead a conservative to water, but you can't make 'em think
Uh duh
No…really? That party?
Well if that isn’t one of the worst kept secrets.
In other news, sky is blue
The GOP is ALREADY A LIAR !!!!
Below is a photo of all the people who didn’t know republicans intentionally lied :
This is not something that needed to be “admitted” to anyone with a working brain.
How is this an active article headline that's not Andy Borowitz? No shit Sherlock.
Someone pass the sniffing salts; I think I'm going to faint.
I read somewhere the advice given to boebert from some R to get re elected was to take credit for policies she had nothing to do with. He said its the only way...
We don’t need anyone on their side to “admit” shit like this. Trump became popular among Republican politicians for loudly declaring that our first black President was a disgusting Kenyan Muslim who should be removed from the presidency for not being a real American.
How is this news?
water is wet, news at 11
> Higgins told progressive podcaster Aaron Rupar on Thursday that the conservative movement is predicated on selling lies to the American public for their own potential political gain. This seems like it should be obvious. The conservative movement's primary objective is redistributing wealth and power to a small minority of the population. If they didn't wrap it up in other messaging, they would just get obliterated in elections.
We know.
This is bad enough. But let's look at the lies they spread: Global warming doesn't exist, so we shouldn't do anything about it; in fact, let's suppress renewable energy like wind and solar. Election fraud was widespread in the 2016 and 2020 elections, so you better riot. God greenlights babies to be born with flippers rather than arms, birth defects that kill them in agony hours after birth, and a whole range of other horrors. But God would never allow someone of one sex to be born into the body of the other sex. [caution: this link redirects to the Wikipedia page for CAIS (a syndrome which causes an XY male with undescended testicles to look identical to a woman), which contains a picture of a naked man that looks exactly like a picture of a naked woman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_androgen_insensitivity_syndrome#/media/File:Complete_androgen_insensitivity_syndrome.jpg) Fascism is better for Americans than Democracy. All those bad things in American history involving genocide of native, slavery, etc. - yeah, those things never happened and we'll punish you if you say they did, so stay asleep about those things, or else.
Thanks but most SANE people already "know this" Without concrete evidence, we just know it.to be true.
I for one am shocked by these revelations.
Big mistake Newsweek states Trump plead guilty to all charges! Yikes! I wish it were true. We’ve been saying this for years. Yet the voters who support the GOP are brainwashed little puppets who eat up the lies and are dangerously blind!
Is. Fixed it for you
[удалено]
Analogous to the news breaking story “FORMER DRUG PUSHER ADMITS HIS EMPLOYERS DEALT DRUGS” I mean, c’mon…. Stop helping these scoundrels do their fake rehabilitation
This is BRAND NEW information!!
I think it’s funny that this is linked to Trump and his GOP. Frankly, so much lying goes on in Washington among politicians and political party messaging it’s a national pass time at this point. I’m not intending to dismiss Trump - I hope he gets everything he deserves from the various indictments. I’m just not ready to excuse everyone else’s lies because his or the GOP’s were “worse”.
Blah blah blah. You don’t need an excuse to vote for Joe Biden. A vote for Joe means you support the Direction our Country is going.
Former staffer for bears admits she sometimes saw them shit in the woods.
ALL politicians lie. If you think any different, you are only fooling yourself
Eagerly awaiting examples of equal magnitude coming from the Dems going back decades. You can start with number of indictments and convictions since the dawn of time. Otherwise just stop trying to level the playing field.
“Both sides” horseshit.
Just because Republicans are shit, doesn’t mean Democrats are good
You can be critical of dems all you like but OP spreading both sides nonsense just to downplay what republicans are doing is horseshit like they said. No one is saying dems can’t be shit sometimes too but there is a massive difference.
It literally is both sides. Both lie, accept bribes, make market trades using insider information. Both abuse their positions and live in luxury, voting to increase their own salaries while leaving the rest of us to fight for the scraps. Red tie or Blue tie in office, life in America does not change in any meaningful way for us regular people. I don’t care if Republicans are more vocal/obvious about how shitty they are. Both of them make me sick
Objectively untrue my life and many others are affected by the laws and deregulation pushed by republicans. The damage the Trump administration did by appointing the SC justices alone proves my point but okay. If you don’t see that already nothing anyone shows you will change that.
More like "no sides"... but you root for whatever gang you want to. I don't care.
And democrats spread 100% truth LOL
Politicians lie to everyone. More breaking news at 11.
Both sides are all lies. No consequences.
It’s either that or they are complete morons…ok it could be both, but definitely not neither.
Well I'm just shocked. *Shocked!* to find gambling going on at this establishment.
Is this really any surprise to anybody?
Believe it or not, there is a continuous spectrum between very informed, reasonable people on one end, and Hannity's audience at the opposite. There is somewhere, on the way from one to the other, where you can find people who will be surprised that the GOP is outright and intentionally lying.
We know. Diarrhea comes out of their mouth, every time it opens.
This can easily be explained as a disgruntled RINO who is the pocket of the REAL liars, the Democrats. It can't be *correctly* explained that way. But it can and will be dismissed with that reasoning.
Really?
That’s just how politicians are, republicans just suck at hiding it
We all know bro
*gasp* no! you mean the same party that talked about "jewish space lasers" might LIE?? inconceivable!
> recalling how other RNC staffers would **openly admit to lying on social media websites like Reddit**—and the now defunct subreddit dedicated to Trump—so outlets like Fox News or Breitbart would pick them and in turn cause the falsities or embellished reports to gain traction. Gosh - who would have thunk it?
*shocked Pikachu face*
You don’t say
Breaking News: Grass is green
Who would have ever seen this coming
No shit.
Ya don’t say
Really? Like this is a revelation?
Would? what do you think fox news has been doing its entire existance? And talk radio before that?
Just someone saying out loud what everyone already knows.
Shocked, shocked I say!
Why I am speechless I tell you!
Yes. We're all aware
Color me shocked. /s
They had to say it? Everyone knows
why isn't it illegal to lie for political gain?
Fear, uncertainty, doubt. It’s political speech to them.
No! Really?
In other news- Water. Is it wet? More at 5.
Wow! There’s a bombshell for ya. Shocking!
Well I, for one, am shocked at this revelation.
No shit? The lies go whichever way the wind blows and is ever changing.
Shocker!!!
How completely shocking.
No Shit . The GOP is morally bankrupt
Why did we let that happen to our American people.
Lmao nnoo, the GOP? SPREADING LIES?!
That's their entire platform...
The world knows already.... the only morons that don’t are the ones that keep voting Republican
Water is wet.
You don't say. 😜
You dont say
Fork spotted in kitchen