The number of true Conservatives who are standing up against fascism are few and far between. David Frum, Rick Wilson a few others, and Charles Sykes from Wisconsin are some of the very few who are standing up and speaking out. We must never ever forget that the veil of “conservative” philosophy has been lifted. There was no more a conservative philosophy behind the GOP then there was a real wizard behind the curtain. The GOP has always been a coalition of the greedy, religious fanatics, racists, and easily manipulated ignorant who were incapable of telling truth from lies.
The right wing propaganda machine has done a masterful job of manipulating the ignorant into believing the craziest shit imaginable while denying fact based reality. Charles Sykes has published another NYT piece about how the propaganda machine actually works.
As Americans grapple with the unreality of the new administration, George Orwell’s “1984” has enjoyed a resurgence of interest, becoming a surprise best seller and an invaluable guide to our post-factual world.
On his first full day in office Mr. Trump insisted that his inaugural crowd was the largest ever, a baseless boast that will likely set a pattern for his relationship both to the media and to the truth.
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For years, as a conservative radio talk show host, I played a role in that conditioning by hammering the mainstream media for its bias and double standards. But the price turned out to be far higher than I imagined. The cumulative effect of the attacks was to delegitimize those outlets and essentially destroy much of the right’s immunity to false information.
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the Trump administration feel confident that the alternative-reality media will provide air cover, even if they are caught fabricating facts or twisting words
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For years, the widely read Drudge Report has linked to the bizarre conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who believes that both the attacks of Sept. 11 and the Sandy Hook shootings were government-inspired “false flag” operations.
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The Russian dissident and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov drew upon long familiarity with that process when he tweeted: “The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”
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“There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts,” she declared. Among “a large part of the population” what Mr. Trump said was the truth.
“When he says that millions of people illegally voted,” she said, his supporters believe him — and “people believe they have facts to back that up.”
Or as George Orwell said: “The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.”
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The conservative media ecosystem — like the rest of us — has to recognize how critical, but also how fragile, credibility is in the Orwellian age of Donald Trump.
As I’ve stated above, I don’t believe “conservatism” is a real political philosophy of any significance at all, and I think the rapid abandonment of almost everything “conservatives” claim to believe in after the Trump/Putin/GOP regime started, pretty much proves it.
But we make a big mistake when every blog we post is about the faults of Trump, when in reality it’s the GOP who built the propaganda machine to elevate ALL of their candidates, no matter how insane they are. And when you look at the policies and nominees that Trump is pushing, almost all of it would fit just as comfortably (although much better hidden) in a Pence administration, or even a Bush or Kasich administration.
In 2018 Trump will not be on the ballot, and if we haven’t firmly tied the GOP around Trump’s neck, we are going to lose 10 Senate seats. The GOP = Trump and Trump = GOP and the resistance MUST make the public understand that.
RESIST!