Steve Benen examines how one specific lie, started in an obscure op-ed, was picked up and spread by the rightwing noise machine over the course of two days. Even if you already know the principle, the details are worth a look.
And just look at the howler monkeys go.
[Added] Media Matters' County Fair has even more details, if you're feeling insufficiently discouraged.
4 comments:
These things need to be addressed ,probably by someone designated for that task in the Obama administration, as soon as they start spreading - with reference to "secret language", for instance, the bill is available for people to read. If these people are repeatedly corrected in the public arena, eventually people may stop listening to them.
Thanks for posting this story, Brendan. This is the big difference, still, between left and right -- and we'll be haunted by it until the Republicans successfully regain power: Republicans have a vast infrastructure that can will miraculous efficiency and ease spread a message through every channel of media: radio, television, blogs, YouTube ... everywhere at once, Republicans all start saying the same thing, whatever the lie of the day is.
The left has nothing like this on our side. I've noticed a few times that Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann will promote a story from the liberal blogs -- but that's the entire extent of it.
The interesting thing is that it's not even particularly coordinated. There's no central office sending out directives to the wingnuts. They all just instinctively participate on their own initiative; they collectively have a natural sense for what makes an effective lie, and when it should be repeated.
And that's how we get to Atrios's conundrum: Liars or stupid? Undoubtedly a large number of those doing the active spreading are aware they are lying, but soon enough, the lies are picked up and transmitted by earnest dimwits, like piscivorous.
Oh well, somehow we managed to overcome these obstacles and (with our conservative/liberal coalition called the Democratic Party) take back Congress and the White House.
Let's see how far we get before Republicans can drive us into a ditch and reclaim power.
Sometimes American politics feels like two football teams playing on the same side. When Republicans have the ball, they score lots and lots of points for the conservative agenda. When Democrats have the ball, they score only a few points for the conservative agenda. The result is liberals feel compelled to vote for the Democrats because it's so much better to only score 7 points for conservatism instead of 28 points. But it's still disappointing. (This is a bit exaggerated; I know we'll accomplish 1 or 2 truly liberal goals in the years ahead, but I think it's largely true.)
*...a vast infrastructure that can WITH miraculous efficiency...*
The interesting thing is that it's not even particularly coordinated. There's no central office sending out directives to the wingnuts. They all just instinctively participate on their own initiative; they collectively have a natural sense for what makes an effective lie, and when it should be repeated.
It's important to remember that there is a Wingnut Central, and that it has been drilling the troops for years. True, not every member of the Right Wing Noise Machine needs to get a fax from Rush or The Heritage Foundation every last time, but that's only because they're trained to respond to keywords, like "socialism," "your doctor," and "the government telling," with instant outrage.
As Gavin M. observed:
It’s not that wingnuts literally believe such things (or care what happens to the weak). They don’t really believe anything in the ordinary sense of the word, but rather make instrumental, conditional use of certain kinds of beliefs, much in the way that other kinds of people make use of thrill sports or porn.
The attraction of extremist politics is that it allows its devotees to indulge irrational, basically infantile impulses; and while the American conservative movement has in a sense chained itself to the devil in becoming a willful gratifier of such impulses, it’s also the case that the wingnut type has no fundamental affinity for conservatism per se, and will switch to any flavor of extremism that will cater to its needs. Wingnuts only care about the drama.
The primal elements of the drama are outrage, spite, self-pity, and gloating; and any irresistible fact or narrative will hold the possibility of at least two of these, together or in sequence.
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