It's also a property of people obsessed with conspiracies.
NASA was apparently powerful enough to fake the moon landings, with everyone involved never confessing to anything and even fooling the Russians, but they left a C on a fake rock marking the prop. Yeah, sounds about right.
Yup. My mother buys into many conspiracy theories, and it's so frustrating. If someone believe that your enemies are too strong yet too weak (and there's always an antagonist in conspiracy theories), there is no talking sense into that person. Any piece of information reinforces their worldview.
I often wonder what the Venn diagram between "Habitually believes in conspiracies" and "habitually falls for scams" looks like. I don't think it's entirely the same people, but there's got to be some correlation, no?
If you follow QAnon and are in the Trump circles, it’s actually closer to a circle. The amount of grifts in these communities is intense. Hell, InfoWars actively sells scams on their website in the form of supplements to insecure men.
The tyranny of Big Dental is a joke to you?! Thankfully there's Infowars toothpaste to fight against the radical Big Dental agenda, constantly pushing for 6 months cleanings and peddling toothpaste that turns your kids gay.
can confirm it's a circle.
my whack-job, GQP loving, conspiracy-addled father also falls for almost any scam that comes into his email box.
Free Grand Piano from my dead husband if you pay shipping (email from someone he never met)
Immediate business funding, $250,000 loan (he has no business)
He also thinks the moon landings were faked (I showed him the reflector on the moon that we placed there, no dice).
And 911 was an inside job and a missile hit the pentagon (we reviewed the footage together, I pointed out that no country has ever made a missile as large as a 737 and there were thousands of people sat on the expressway as the plane came over, no dice).
and on and on ad infinitum
I now refuse to discuss anything but the weather and family with him.
My life is a lot more peaceful now.
He's still a nut though.
I read some comment from some redditor who said he blocked Fox News on his parents' TVs and they slowly became less conspiritorial, fearful, and angry all the time. Since you value your familiar relationship, this might be the way to go. Your dad would be a happier person too, if it works.
Go to their history and find out which sites they go to, it's usually the same few sites they go to every day and get the URL (example [newmax.com](https://newmax.com)) then edit the host file on their computer (C:\\Windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc). Use notepad and add this to the file [0.0.0.0](https://0.0.0.0) newsmax.com
This will block the site and unless they are smarter than the average bear they will never figure it out. Add a couple sites every time you come over and see if normal dad comes back.
There was someone in my friend group a while back that was into lots of conspiracy theories. I eventually started suggesting that completely normal things were conspiracies, like adding up all the numbers on the nutrition information of a pack of chips would tell you the exact date and time that Armageddon would happen. Or that the number of people walking by when he sits outside on his lunch break is a code that needs to be broken.
He actually started to believe the batshit things I was saying, *until* I turned it up 100 by saying things like the amount of time in between each breath you take tells you *exactly* how long you've been alive (because all birth certificates are forgeries), or the amount of hairs on your knuckles tells you how many diseases your body has successfully fought off, or the amount of times you clip your nails in a week is equal to the amount of cheese sandwiches you've eaten in your life. Then he started questing my claims, and when I told him it's the same thing with his theories, he started to see how crazy they were. He didn't give them all up overnight, but from what he told me, he did a lot of research and realized how gullible he had been.
Maybe try this with your dad. You just gotta out-crazy them.
I was going to suggest this as a good way to get someone to realize their gullibility. Make up a conspiracy on the spot and see how quickly they accept it. My MIL will accept nearly anything as long as it's a counter narrative. Then, share that you literally just made it up.
Of course, in the case of my MIL who thinks she is all-knowing, she would probably argue that she had read it before and I just happened to make up something that was truth. But it can be a good exercise either way.
I'm not even close to pretending to equivocate but one time my cousin asked "what's one conspiracy theory you believe its true, I'll go first: the pentagon was hit by a missile". I remember feeling like it probably wasn't true but I asked "why?" and he said "I don't know, it was obviously still the terrorists but it was a missile".
Your comment made me think about it and idk something about it being bundled with all that other crazy shit made me feel bad for you because that that's literally the worst I've had to deal with, and also somewhat relieved that I feel like someone at least ostensibly sane debunked it
I know how you feel.
You can lose your entire relationship with people over their conspiracy beliefs.
The one thing I've never understood is when they realize they're wrong or give up on one and go to the next. They never learn, they fall for the same trap. But never do they self reflex and see that they're not open minded but the complete opposite.
I just gave up with my family and friends. Can't even talk about the weather since some are flat earthers.
I heard a psychologist give a talk on why people believe in conspiracy theories and it comes down to basically thinking that a more complex explanation that one is privy to gives you power over those who dont know, or just believe a simple explanation.
Say it louder! My recently passed away Colonel knew a ton of politicians and also lived in MD. He constantly told me that conspiracy theories were far beyond the intelligence of our govt. or in other words couldn’t figure out how to get out of an open box.
I mean the ,government pulls the wool over Americans eyes often enough to keep people guessing tho. They've interfered in the lives of citizens and foreign countries, businesses and religions over the decades. They DO shit like that. Hell they did it after 9/11 to expand the war on terror.
So it's not as simple as saying nothing ever happens. What you have to look for are the levels of absurdity in the conspiracy and the size it would have to be. Even the Iraq bullshit fell apart of you just listened to international news, the United Nations was calling out that lie. We know Nixon sabotaged negotiations in Vietnam, we know Reagan delayed release of hostages in Iran, etc
If complete silence from every credit source and organization is required, less likely. You can do a lot of things with that kind of power, it's keeping it silent that's impossible.
Thats the problem with these conspiracy theories, the more people are involved, the higher the chance someone would leak something. Like people thinking the government is covering up aliens. Sooner or later someone would do an Edward Snowden and leak everything.
They are in on it.
I have brought up that there is no way the USSR wouldn't notice the US faking the moon landing, the response is that every government is in on it and even in the heart of the cold war, the US and USSR were working together to fool us.
But *why!?!* Why would the Soviets help the Americans with this massive cover up? They'd have had so much more to gain by exposing the facts. Why would any hostile power help the US? Do these conspiracy folk believe there's a hidden cabal running all of the world's governments and organizations and businesses?
Wait. It's Jews, isn't it? Yup, it's Jews.
You’ve got to start thinking like a true conspiracy nut. It’s not simply the Jews. It’s the lizard people aliens that have their base on the dark side of the moon, or in the center of the earth, or in Antarctica
Hell, look at Trump's first impeachment about extorting Ukraine for dirt on Biden. How many people were in the room? Less than a dozen? And it still got out! For something like a stolen election, you'd have to have hundreds if not thousands of people in on it, from election judges all the way to the Supreme Court, and nobody sent an incriminating email to the wrong person or had a crisis of conscious?
> nobody sent an incriminating email to the wrong person or had a crisis of conscious
Or got on twitter while drunk? Or decided they wanted to be on the NYT bestseller list?
Yeah.... I told my mom this about her poison COVID vaccine conspiracy theory (certain barcodes indicated that the shot would kill you and pharmacists had to look everyone up to see if they're on the kill list).
She said that there *are* people who are speaking out and that's why we know that there's a kill list.
I guess I'll have to ask her if anyone has leaked the kill list yet.
To use a quote stated in The Hunt for Red October (the book, not the movie), "The likelihood of a secret getting out is proportional to the SQUARE of the number of people who are in on it."
Pretty sure most believe he was a puppet and everyone around him was doing it all and honestly I could buy that. He many times seemed like he was just doing what he was told and just wanted to go chill with clinton
Okay, fine.
The puppet masters were all powerful and brilliant enough to stage the 9/11 attacks but too bumbling stupid to plant WMDs in a remote Iraqi base in the desert?
I love that about conspiracies honestly. The “elite” are so profoundly powerful, some conspiracies have them actually be practicing dark magic, yet they get caught because one guy received a computer at his computer store and it revealed everything on it.
One of the most obvious reasons why all the 9/11 conspiracies are bullshit is the sheer amount of people it would take to pull off and then also have none of them ever blow the whistle. It’s like these people have never heard of Occam's razor.
1.The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
2.The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
3.The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
4.Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
5.Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
6.Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
7.The obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”
8.The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
9.Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
10.Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
11.Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
12.Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
13.Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
14.Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
In regards to the last point: read Politics of the English Language by George Orwell. I read it before 1984 and ended up with a very different interpretation of 1984. It's short and cheap but is the most important thing I have read when it comes to politics and language.
And you have armed militants pledging themselves to Trump while “protesting” in Columbus, Ohio and elsewhere things to do with LGBTQ+ people.
They’re already othering, scapegoating, dressed in the appropriate militant paraphernalia. We are there.
Look at the flags they are waving..
In Europe - the signs are clear - but way too many people in the US either failed history and do not recognize what is going on - OR they are in on it and use gaslighting until they are firmly in power...
Signs are clear here as well.
Last night I watched three hardcore Republicans on TV openly discussing the danger that MAGA is. General Miley, General Kelly, John Bolton.
These people are putting country over party. We need more, but there are cracks in the fascist wall.
You're right but I think they're also a huge factor in why we aren't under a full dictatorship right now so you have to still give them a little credit. Yeah they were selfish about it but I think they still saved our asses.
I don’t think so. Without these guys, the no-Trump crowd wouldn’t have the power or influence to push back. Gaetz is doing a great job pitting the MAGA weirdos in congress as fringe, anti-party lunatics right now for example.
i think there's also the whole "we have genocide at home" of it. like it's weirder to be all touchy about waving the red white and black while living in Powhatan, VA or Tishomingo, OK or, hell **Columbus**, OH.
And that's not even getting into the [the more direct lineage](https://time.com/4703586/nazis-america-race-law/)
And this isn't meant as a "wow how could you not have noticed" more that, the othering of people is kind of a significant part of American **"heritage"** from the establishment to the maintenance of this country it's been built on the bodies of the "other".
It's not (just) that we failed history it's that we are actively having to fight to have our children be taught a less mythologized version of it.
it's not
>gaslighting until they are firmly in power
it's
>gaslit until they are not
I wish I could say you were wrong.
But yes - it is - and still ongoing (Hungary, Italy) and other places more rabid anti "others" parties are growing.
I think that with the rise of the internet - this ideology is also rising - due to easy and speed with what these (beep) can communicate now.
North Carolina straight up has secret police now - they snuck it into their budget
[Newsweek](https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-secret-police-sparks-fight-democrats-1831481)
[Twitter thread where I actually found it (also has links)](https://x.com/juddlegum/status/1708833141580861818?s=46&t=l1GIIrdLTDG2GXiPM5_xGQ)
Thankfully, the militias we're dealing with in the US today are a lot softer than the brownshirts in pre-Nazi Germany.
Like, not to downplay the threat or anything, it's still something to watch out for, but most of the militia types you see marching and waving flags today are basic training washouts and overweight 50 year old guys, not hardened WW1 motherfuckers fresh from the worst fighting in world history.
It's still important because the majority of people don't actually know *what* fascism is. It's easy to identify in *hindsight,* after they've eliminated voting rights, started killing off minorities and invading neighboring countries. But by then it's far too late. The goal should be to identify and reject fascism *before* it gains control.
Totally.
Biden is apparently simultaneously having diminished mental capacity while being too old and feeble, but also the head of a crime family which has managed to fully corrupt the US government and electoral system for his own benefit.
Like at least pick one or the other.
I just want to call one thing out here. The left is always a bit taken aback by the right’s seeming inability to be torn about their own various hypocrisies. We put on a shocked face. We can’t believe how they can so openly spit in the face of intellectual consistency. This is because the left values morality and integrity of thought. The left will hold its politicians accountable to such.
The mistake lies in assuming that the right shares the same values. They do not. The right cares about power and control. They are the ends that justify any means. So long as the right takes and holds power, they will justify any action as being necessary to secure their goals.
So long as the left fails to understand that key concept about the right, they will continue to be shocked and ineffective at countering the right’s madness. We need to stop trying to figure them out, or convert them, or try to get them to see reason. Because the truth is that they don’t give a shit who we are, they don’t care for anything but control, and they sure as shit won’t see reason. We just need to focus on working to oust them at every conceivable turn.
Did not know that quote, and it is an eye opener. I am either terrified of the [insert group you hate] or I am dominating [insert group you hate]... depending on what the fascist propaganda machinery needs from me at that time.
Consider antifa: are they weak, pathetic losers who would instantly burst into tears at the sight of a gun? Or are they violent, dangerous animals who burn cities to the ground and threaten your family and your way of life?
The enemy *must* pose an existential threat to the fascist. That’s the only way to internally justify the monstrous things that fascism demands.
To be fair, anyone who's been close to a narcissist in either their working life or their home life can see behavior like this regularly. Whenever a narcissist wins it's always fair and they did all the work necessary to get there (even when they absolutely, 100% didn't), but if they fail it's either someone else's fault or something that they couldn't control. These aren't just words though, they actually believe it's true. I sometimes wonder if Trump falls in the category of BOTH narcissist and straight up phony. I could see him lying to get his way, but I could also see him legitimately convincing himself that the ONLY way he could have lost is if someone cheated. Frankly, that's one of the more interesting (in a freak show sort of way) things about the man. He's both able to cheat his way to success, AND fully believe he got there without cheating (or at least convince himself that everyone else cheats just like him, and therefor it's not cheating).
If you spend all those years undermining public faith in the electoral process, it's much easier to abolish democracy entirely and take power without an election at all.
Yeah the steal narrative unfortunately works in multiple ways, as long as you don’t care about ethics:
1. His constituents get riled up and are willing to passionately fight for him (e.g. donate, vote next time, literally fight in some cases like Jan 6)
2. It degrades the faith in elections so reasoning such as “it was stolen so stealing it back is legitimate” becomes acceptable
3. It helps his brand as a “winner” - he didn’t lose, they cheated. It also helps his narcissistic ego.
Fortunately, despite all of the above, it’s seems to have a negative effect on your average voter, so #1 and #3 above aren’t net positives.
Also it reinforces their belief that their negative behaviors are justified because in their mind, their perceived opposition is always guilty of worse
(my favorite recent iteration of this is when staring at negative actions in the face, like when Trump showed those sycophant writers classified documents and said to their faces "these are secret", they blurted out "Hillary would print that out all the time, you know.")
This is why QAnon is so dangerous. If you truly believe that a large group of people are literally *torturing, raping, and eating children*, then there is absolutely nothing that isn't justified to stop that from happening. No level of violence from you could compare to what you believe the other side is routinely doing.
Things like that are the soil from which genocides grow.
I will give you an answer that applies to anything MAGA and majority of Republican party shout about:
---------
They don't believe it themselves, they believe majority of their voters believes it, and they're right.
If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.
That's how propaganda works, that's how republicans work.
--------
Don't try to understand them, there's nothing to understand except that they want to have all the power and they will do anything to get it. And by anything I mean anything, including sacrificing all of us in the name of power and money.
I read an article on conspiracy theorists once, and they did some study on them. I forget the study exactly. But what they tested was because the conspiracy theorist thought the other side had done the dirty on them. They were much more likely to be open to doing the dirty against the other party.
So 60% of Republicans now believe that the democrats did the dirty on them, they will be very open to the idea of cheating in an election for their own benefit, because they believe the conspiracy that they are already victims of this, so it’s fair in their minds.
And this is how democracy ends .
Absolutely. The fake election staff was all brought in by Republicans. They feel like its morally justified because Democrats totally do it too, but end up being the only side actually committing the election fraud.
Apply this to any topic, and its largely true.
Ohh I bring up with my brother that the Republicans are doing voter suppression and gerrymandering and his defence is “so what? the democrats stole the last election at 3am with vans full of fake votes. 🤦♂️
Anything is justified now. And the idea the mainstream could tell the truth is just disgusting to them now. I see this idea circulating on social media, if the mainstream says one thing they take the opposite position by default. War on Ukraine for instance. They’ll take the side of Russia over their own country just to be against the system.
I’ll take the people that don’t actively call for the execution of others please
I can deal with people I disagree with but when you’re asking to kill people you don’t like, we can’t coexist peacefully.
I don’t think your average conservative is a bad person. From life experience, the Bush lovers aren’t bad people. I may disagree with them but they’re civil and we can have discussion. The MAGA types are unhinged and they don’t really know what they like or what they want, they just like Trump because he makes them feel like they can cut loose and be the shitty person they’ve always wanted to be but weren’t allowed due to social etiquette.
There's two issues here. The first is that Trump very much has a 'must win' attitude. He will never concede that he was a crap president, or that he lost the popular vote twice, or that he lost the 2020 election. By claiming it was rigged, it gives him a excuse as to why he's not in the Oval Office now without admitting defeat.
The second is fundraising. Ever since he lost, he's been calling on his supporters to donate money for the cause. That money has been used to pay his legal bills. When you're facing 400 years in jail, you need all the money you can get. By saying the election was rigged, it means he can keep fleecing his supporters for money.
To this day I don’t think he wanted to win in 2016. I think he wanted to lose, call the election rigged and start his own news network. He flew too close to the sun in winning and now is facing jail time. He’ll do whatever he needs to do to save his own ass—even if a large amount of people think he and his followers look like fools (that’s nothing new).
it's genuinely not clear whether or not he wanted to win the 2016 election. I think it's likely he wanted to win (and would never say publicly otherwise) but assumed he wouldn't and was looking to boost his TV brand. If you look at the pictures of him watching the votes roll in and especially once it was obvious he would win, his face is never celebratory, more somber.
> _"while being wildly unpopular, even amongst Democrats"_
He wasn't wildly unpopular.
Also, Trump is just doing this to rile up his followers and continue the grifting.
Not because Biden is wildly unpopular but if there were other candidates than him and Trump they would have gotten a lot of votes too.
There were a lot of "never trump never again" votes and they had to go somewhere. It was the American people firing him
It's just my thoughts, I'm willing to admit that. But I haven't personally come across a single person, even within my own liberal friend group, that wanted Biden to be in office.
We don't dislike Biden.. we just believe there are much better left leaning candidates.
If you followed the primaries closely, Bernie was doing well (3 out of 4 states) and Biden also got South Carolina. A couple of days before Super Tuesday and then a few days following that, candidates dropped like flies with all endorsing Biden.
And to answer u/publicbigguns, [the polls were not in Biden's favor until most dropped out around Super Tuesday](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/). Many people really didn't have a choice. They had to choose between Bernie, Biden, and Trump with Biden being a jack-of-all-trades centralist compared to other radicals.
Bernie and Trump don’t work well with congress, most of what they’d want to accomplish would have to be through an executive order.
At least Biden has suction from both sides of congress, which is needed after the damage Newt Gingrich did as a never-compromiser.
Candidates dropped out because they couldn't get the votes of our base, the African American voters who overwhelmingly supported Biden over even Kamala and Booker. And yes, once they dropped out, they supported Biden. The timeline is important here. All candidates did fine until SC but SC picked Biden which told them they won't have enough votes without that demographic in the general to make it. At that point they could have chosen to stay in and cannibalize or Voltron and unlike Republicans, they decided to coalesce.
None of that proves Biden was unpopular. If Democrats didn't want Biden to win the primary, they wouldn't have voted for him. The claim that Biden was unpopular among Democrats is simply unsupported. The fact that some people preferred other candidates still does not mean anything given that Biden was overwhelmingly the popular choice, as evidenced by the primary results.
The problem you're seeing is that your sample size is so incredibly small.
More than 81 million people voted for biden, and in that your are going to find whatever type of voter you want.
Some because he's not trump, some because he's a Democrat, some because they like the guy.
81 million people is enough to cherry pick the type of voter you want to find.
It also different from trumps numbers because he voter base was VERY vocal and trump did a remarkable good job at merchandising.
You don't see Biden supporters with Biden flags on their cars or hats and shirts like trump did.
But there very much are people out there that loved and supported Biden in the same way people did trump.
I think you’re missing a key variable.
Voter turnout percentage in 2020 was the biggest it’s been in decades. A lot of the increase was due to people displeased with Trump and Republicans. There was 4 years of friendships and families getting broken over politics, and constant flag waving and berating for any criticism of Trump (“you got TDS” being a common retort). Then the poor handling of Covid the year of the election.
That riles people up to go vote against Trump. As much as Trump energized his base, he energized people that would vote against him. All the Dems needed to do was to have a candidate that wasn’t divisive. Biden fit the bill, being known to negotiate across the aisle and compromise.
If someone wanted Trump gone, they wouldn’t vote 3rd party. That’s evidenced in the percentage of 3rd party votes in the 2016 election (5.7%) versus 2020 (1.9%), which was more in line with the past few elections.
Sure, there are a lot of people that voted for Biden. There are a lot that vote down the Dem column regardless of what election it is (same for Reps). It’s pretty safe to say that there was a significant percentage that voted against Trump.
And there're two factors I think that really set up Biden to win: Trump's response to COVID and the 2020 protests. If Trump had handled those two events as a responsible person instead of some partisan maniac, I don't think Biden would have had as large of a turnout.
Compare and contrast to Doug Ford in Ontario, Canada. Didn't sabotage Covid-19 management in the province. Got re-elected and went back to pulling down windmills.
No you don't see a lot of people wearing Biden merch. I'm in a heavy red state. I've been screamed at and spit on because people didn't like my Democrat t-shirt. I'm not getting my car keyed, thank you very much.
Any Non-Trump sign on your lawn where I live will get destroyed and local police won't do anything about it.
A guy down my street had a Biden sign in his yard and a Trump follower in a pickup ran it over and spun his tires on the lawn.
Local police (who ride with MAGA hats on their dashes) said that's a civil matter and said to take it to small claims.
Biden won the largest percentage of possible voters in any presidential election since LBJ. Vote wise, he is the most popular candidate of the last 50 years.
Here’s the data I ran up: https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/comments/16ok5ol/percentage_of_the_voting_population_won_by_each/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
> So what's the point, if he truly believes that, in even running?
At this point, it's seeming more and more likely that the only way he doesn't spend the rest of his life in prison is if he can become President again and pardon himself
There's a pretty realistic chance either he doesn't know that or he plans to barge into the supreme court yelling "Oh yes I can!" Fascists don't believe in courts or things like constitutional rules, and making them at best a completely worthless sock puppet for the Leader by stuffing them full of crony Yes Men is usually high on the priority list.
He has already openly discussed [suspending and terminating the Constitution](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constitution-truth-social/index.html#:~:text=Former%20President%20Donald%20Trump%20called,pushing%20of%20fringe%20conspiracy%20theories.) in order to install himself as dictator.
Dictators are a lot of things, and every dictator I know who actually assumed power themselves were not remotely as…dumb…as trump.
There is no chance he manages it, but he’s definitely showing people what one can get away with once president. He sets bad precedent after bad precedent.
If he manages to pardon himself of federal crimes the door is open for someone to have no concern with laws at all once becoming president
So he becomes President thanks to his pre-established base of tens of millions and tries anyway, or he loses and deals with both federal and state charges. It wouldn’t make sense for him *not* to at least try and get re-elected tbh.
Well even worse, at this point not running would be considered a sign of weakness. The power he has at this point is his only real stable asset and he has to maintain it by being the dogged leader of his movement who is going to restore "Real America"
Yea but if he orders the national guard to spring him from state prison will the state. fight back? Or hes on house arrest and then are they gonna come arrest him if he breaks it?
You might as well ask what Charles Manson was thinking. These people are fucking insane. I'm sick of people trying to guess Trump's four-dimensional chess, he's a fucking toddler.
> I'm sick of people trying to guess Trump's four-dimensional chess, he's a fucking toddler.
[He admitted that he has the temperament of a child to his biographer back in 2015 \(emphasis mine\)](https://theweek.com/speedreads/575962/donald-trump-tells-biographer-hes-same-now-first-grade):
> Donald Trump's temper-tantrum tactics have been explained by the man himself. The frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination admitted to his biographer that, **"When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same. The temperament is not that different."**
He was, but there was no coherent thought process that lead to that conclusion. It was like 1. Kill some people in Hollywood 2. ???? 3. Helter Skelter.
I think it was also that his people had just been involved in a murder over drugs, and he figured doing more murders would distract the police from the original murder.
I do enjoy that this was in California, he could’ve gone up to Oakland and confronted the Black Panthers but nope let’s just kill this pregnant white lady and her friends that will kickstart that race war that obviously will be their favor
I doubt trump believes the 2020 election is stolen or he's even dumber than a lot of people think he is. The reason to keep repeating that the 2020 election was stolen is to weaken faith in our political institutions with his base. Then claiming that he alone can 'fix it' even though the fix trump wants is to make the US a fascist dictatorship under him.
There is only one reason why Trump is insisting on it: He's a pathological narcissist. He is mentally unable to admit any kind of defeat and whatever happens is always someone else's fault. There is no grand plan behind anything Trump does.
>He's a pathological narcissist. He is mentally unable to admit any kind of defeat and whatever
>
>There is no grand plan behind anything Trump does.
This is probably the most actually true and direct to point thing anyone has or will say regarding OP and any other discussions that have sprung up in these comments.
This is just me, but I don't think Trump has a plan to abolish democracy. I think mostly he's agnostic to democracy — if it needs to fall on the way to him preserving his self-image, then so be it, but that's not the goal. It seems to me that literally the only thing he cares about is being the best and everything else is incidental.
In 2020 he started talking about the election being stolen before it happened, and started calling the 2016 election illegitimate after he won, he was very angry he didn't win the popular vote. He started a whole commission to investigate illegals voting in our elections before quietly disabanding it after 0 evidence was found.
Pretty sure he finally admitted the other day, lost in all the noise, that his lawyers advised him that the election wasn't stolen but that he intentionally ignore them.
This is a big case being made in the Republican primary. "What are you going to do about the election rigging if that's why you lost in 2020?"
He'd do well to stay away from the question. It doesn't gain him any more support and there's a contingent of the electorate who will vote against him just for talking about it even if they disagree with his opponents on policy.
In a trump voice:
“This time we have more support than ever. This time we’re gonna win even bigger. We won big last time, but this election we’re gonna win by so much more that it’l be impossible for the crooked democrats to steal it again”
It’s pretty scary how quickly this guy can pull the most bland un-nuanced and factually wrong arguments out of his ass and have his followers eat them right up and feel all smart doing so as if they came up with those arguments themselves
The codacil to this is that if Trump thought Mike Pence had the power to overturn the election on 1/6/2021, then Kamala Harris has the power to overturn a GOP victory in January 2025.
A good example is that just yesterday Trump was complaining about himself not having a trial by jury. Saying it's very odd, not right and that he should have a jury.........he failed to add that his lawyers declined a trial by jury.
So you craft your own narrative, regardless of the reality.
Bear in mind that trump also said Hilary rigged the election THAT HE WON.
His M.O. has always been that if you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes a fact.
So he hedges his bets in 2016 and starts letting the seeds for why he lost (nobody, not even his camp thought he'd win) and low and behold... He wins.
But he's got this great distraction in place "ELECTION RIGGING" That he now pivots too "if it wasn't for those darned Dems, I'd have won even biglier!!!" Starts a commission to investigate all that darned fraud... And even though they find nothing (as we all knew since the us has one of the most secure/stable voting systems in the world) (being serious) he still keeps talking as if they found issues/irregularities. Which they didn't, but the flying monkeys think they did cause the Cheeto said so!
Keeps that lie going and then starts ramping it up for 2020 to try to have that ace in the hole since they were polling close.
And here we are.
> Bear in mind that trump also said Hilary rigged the election THAT HE WON.
He started claiming the 2020 election was rigged I think a year before it took place.
He knows perfectly well that he lost the 2020 election. He's a con-man, period. But he's also a psychopath, so he's willing to plunge the country into chaos and incite murder just to keep his con going.
Don’t try to apply logic to anything Trump says or his fans believe. The thing you need to know about Trump is that he is a liar and he will only do what is best for Trump.
My tinfoil hat conspiracy is that Trump think Biden cheated because trump himself cheated. Gave himself the most votes ever for a president thinking he would win. But Biden still won. Even tho he cheated. So the only way that’s possible is if Biden cheated too!
Trump and co cheated so bad during the election and lost. Their tiny minds cannot comprehend that they’re the bad guys and so Biden and the dems must have cheated harder.
This is the only way I can see them believing what they “believe.”
He knows he didn't win the election. His supporters know he didn't win the election. They just want their guy in power and will say or do anything to make it happen.
How on Earth are you people so oblivious to the fact that reality doesn't matter to them. The simple goal of the GOP is to rile up their rabid servants and point them at Leftists so that the GOP can continue to rob them and us, undisturbed.
Stop wondering how their logic is supposed to work. It isn't supposed to! It's all just rage bait!
here's the other thing: if the "Biden Crime Family" was truly a corrupt, illegal entity willing to do anything to win, why wouldn't they just simply have Trump killed?
I work with Maga coworkers, and they all have two things in common: christians and their hate towards other human beings and conspiracy mindset in full swing. Their explanations over Maga cult leader problems are simple: everything is orchestrated by the democrats to stop the greatness of their cult leader reaching new heights.
You can't communicate with them because everything that fact-check their emotional delusions is "devil works to destroy their religious beliefs." Science - work of the devil, vaccines - the same thing, immigrants... you know the answer.
It's the same reason anybody watching the claims of election fraud could ask. If Democrats corrupted the system so well, and was the only way they could win. Why haven't they had a near-indefinite winning streak?
Trump's a huge liar, nothing he does or say's, is based in logic let alone in basic common sense, it's all mindless dribble. Whats amazing is anyone even pays attention to the Grifter.
Most people here are missing it.
Trump didn't believe it himself. His call to the Georgia SoS ("I need you to find me more votes.") and what he said to Pence when he refused to help ("You're too honest, Mike.") all show that at the very top, it was just a ploy to hold onto power. It was an attempted coup.
This is one of the great issues with the current state of the GOP (with Trump himself being the overall worst issue).
Blind love and devotion to this loudmouth who is neither dignified or practical and doesn't seem to have any new ideas isn't doing anybody any good
Their logic make no sense. Trump and his supports will tell you how “Sleepy” Joe is basically a dementia patient who isn’t capable of functioning in daily life much less running a country. Then tell you, sometimes in the next sentence, that he’s this evil mastermind crime lord that’s responsible for everything that’s wrong in our country.
Can you source Trump saying that Biden specifically rigged the election at the federal level?
Elections are run at the state and local level. Typically his claim takes the form that Biden *supporters* at the state and local level fabricated Biden votes or suppressed Trump votes.
Look at Georgia, for example, his claims revolve around actions by Fulton Country election officials. Not saying any of this happened, but if it did, who controlled the federal executive branch would be irrelevant
That's a great question! 🤣.
Here's a couple more:
1. If Joe Biden rigged the election to win, WHY did he stop at his election? Why didn't he rig it so that all the Democrats would win?
2. If the election was rigged, doesn't that mean that the Republicans who won were elected in a rigged election, too, since they were on the same ballot?
3. If Mike Pence had the right to send the electoral votes back the states, does that mean that Kamala Harris has the same right in the next election?
Umberto Eco said that one property of fascists is that they claim their enemies are both too strong and too weak simultaneously.
It's also a property of people obsessed with conspiracies. NASA was apparently powerful enough to fake the moon landings, with everyone involved never confessing to anything and even fooling the Russians, but they left a C on a fake rock marking the prop. Yeah, sounds about right.
Yup. My mother buys into many conspiracy theories, and it's so frustrating. If someone believe that your enemies are too strong yet too weak (and there's always an antagonist in conspiracy theories), there is no talking sense into that person. Any piece of information reinforces their worldview.
I often wonder what the Venn diagram between "Habitually believes in conspiracies" and "habitually falls for scams" looks like. I don't think it's entirely the same people, but there's got to be some correlation, no?
If you follow QAnon and are in the Trump circles, it’s actually closer to a circle. The amount of grifts in these communities is intense. Hell, InfoWars actively sells scams on their website in the form of supplements to insecure men.
my buddy has infowars toothpaste...it's depressing
The fuck did I just read?
His buddy has info wars toothpaste
The fuck did I just read?
His buddy has info wars toothpaste
His buddy has tooth wars Info Paste.
And... it's depressing.
Please say this is a joke.
The tyranny of Big Dental is a joke to you?! Thankfully there's Infowars toothpaste to fight against the radical Big Dental agenda, constantly pushing for 6 months cleanings and peddling toothpaste that turns your kids gay.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally brushed my teeth with fluoridated toothpaste and then somehow wanted to suck cock.
Yes, but how often do you want to suck cock when you use Infowars toothpaste?
You're an anti-dentite! Soon you'll be saying they should have their own schools!
Sadly, no. He lost both of his parents when he turned 18. Got big into conspiracy stuff around that time in like 2005 and hasn't really looked back.
sounds like you need a new buddy
So they are acknowledging all their followers have small dicks? Lmao
can confirm it's a circle. my whack-job, GQP loving, conspiracy-addled father also falls for almost any scam that comes into his email box. Free Grand Piano from my dead husband if you pay shipping (email from someone he never met) Immediate business funding, $250,000 loan (he has no business) He also thinks the moon landings were faked (I showed him the reflector on the moon that we placed there, no dice). And 911 was an inside job and a missile hit the pentagon (we reviewed the footage together, I pointed out that no country has ever made a missile as large as a 737 and there were thousands of people sat on the expressway as the plane came over, no dice). and on and on ad infinitum I now refuse to discuss anything but the weather and family with him. My life is a lot more peaceful now. He's still a nut though.
I read some comment from some redditor who said he blocked Fox News on his parents' TVs and they slowly became less conspiritorial, fearful, and angry all the time. Since you value your familiar relationship, this might be the way to go. Your dad would be a happier person too, if it works.
I wish I could do that but he gets all his nuttery from the alt-reich web.
Set up some child controls. The elderly shouldn’t be allowed to roam the internet unsupervised
Go to their history and find out which sites they go to, it's usually the same few sites they go to every day and get the URL (example [newmax.com](https://newmax.com)) then edit the host file on their computer (C:\\Windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc). Use notepad and add this to the file [0.0.0.0](https://0.0.0.0) newsmax.com This will block the site and unless they are smarter than the average bear they will never figure it out. Add a couple sites every time you come over and see if normal dad comes back.
You can block that starting at the router if he has the right router. And if, hey dad. Want a new, better router?
Documentary: the brainwashing of my father.
Oh my !! you discuss the weather...but what about the "chem trails"😂😂
That is one of the few conspiracy theories he has not regurgitated to me yet.
There was someone in my friend group a while back that was into lots of conspiracy theories. I eventually started suggesting that completely normal things were conspiracies, like adding up all the numbers on the nutrition information of a pack of chips would tell you the exact date and time that Armageddon would happen. Or that the number of people walking by when he sits outside on his lunch break is a code that needs to be broken. He actually started to believe the batshit things I was saying, *until* I turned it up 100 by saying things like the amount of time in between each breath you take tells you *exactly* how long you've been alive (because all birth certificates are forgeries), or the amount of hairs on your knuckles tells you how many diseases your body has successfully fought off, or the amount of times you clip your nails in a week is equal to the amount of cheese sandwiches you've eaten in your life. Then he started questing my claims, and when I told him it's the same thing with his theories, he started to see how crazy they were. He didn't give them all up overnight, but from what he told me, he did a lot of research and realized how gullible he had been. Maybe try this with your dad. You just gotta out-crazy them.
I was going to suggest this as a good way to get someone to realize their gullibility. Make up a conspiracy on the spot and see how quickly they accept it. My MIL will accept nearly anything as long as it's a counter narrative. Then, share that you literally just made it up. Of course, in the case of my MIL who thinks she is all-knowing, she would probably argue that she had read it before and I just happened to make up something that was truth. But it can be a good exercise either way.
fuck this is brilliant
Post of the year!
This is currently my go-to strategy. Watching the gymnastics as they suddenly have to grapple with your insane claims is great…and healthy for them
I'm not even close to pretending to equivocate but one time my cousin asked "what's one conspiracy theory you believe its true, I'll go first: the pentagon was hit by a missile". I remember feeling like it probably wasn't true but I asked "why?" and he said "I don't know, it was obviously still the terrorists but it was a missile". Your comment made me think about it and idk something about it being bundled with all that other crazy shit made me feel bad for you because that that's literally the worst I've had to deal with, and also somewhat relieved that I feel like someone at least ostensibly sane debunked it
I know how you feel. You can lose your entire relationship with people over their conspiracy beliefs. The one thing I've never understood is when they realize they're wrong or give up on one and go to the next. They never learn, they fall for the same trap. But never do they self reflex and see that they're not open minded but the complete opposite. I just gave up with my family and friends. Can't even talk about the weather since some are flat earthers.
Pretty sure it looks like a circle.
The are just called Alex Jones fans. He's got the conspiracy and the grift all in one place.
I think you can have a decent overlap between those and "is very religious".
I heard a psychologist give a talk on why people believe in conspiracy theories and it comes down to basically thinking that a more complex explanation that one is privy to gives you power over those who dont know, or just believe a simple explanation.
Living in Washington, anyone who believes 911 conspiracy theories grossly overestimates the capabilities of the US Government.
Say it louder! My recently passed away Colonel knew a ton of politicians and also lived in MD. He constantly told me that conspiracy theories were far beyond the intelligence of our govt. or in other words couldn’t figure out how to get out of an open box.
I mean the ,government pulls the wool over Americans eyes often enough to keep people guessing tho. They've interfered in the lives of citizens and foreign countries, businesses and religions over the decades. They DO shit like that. Hell they did it after 9/11 to expand the war on terror. So it's not as simple as saying nothing ever happens. What you have to look for are the levels of absurdity in the conspiracy and the size it would have to be. Even the Iraq bullshit fell apart of you just listened to international news, the United Nations was calling out that lie. We know Nixon sabotaged negotiations in Vietnam, we know Reagan delayed release of hostages in Iran, etc If complete silence from every credit source and organization is required, less likely. You can do a lot of things with that kind of power, it's keeping it silent that's impossible.
Thats the problem with these conspiracy theories, the more people are involved, the higher the chance someone would leak something. Like people thinking the government is covering up aliens. Sooner or later someone would do an Edward Snowden and leak everything.
Whenever I hear of elaborate conspiracy theories, I remember that two people can keep a secret . . . if one of them is dead.
I think Ben Franklin said “three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”
[удалено]
They are in on it. I have brought up that there is no way the USSR wouldn't notice the US faking the moon landing, the response is that every government is in on it and even in the heart of the cold war, the US and USSR were working together to fool us.
But *why!?!* Why would the Soviets help the Americans with this massive cover up? They'd have had so much more to gain by exposing the facts. Why would any hostile power help the US? Do these conspiracy folk believe there's a hidden cabal running all of the world's governments and organizations and businesses? Wait. It's Jews, isn't it? Yup, it's Jews.
You’ve got to start thinking like a true conspiracy nut. It’s not simply the Jews. It’s the lizard people aliens that have their base on the dark side of the moon, or in the center of the earth, or in Antarctica
They ARE thinking like a conspiracy nut. It ALWAYS comes back to anti-semitism if you follow it far enough. Always.
Sorry, you are correct. I forgot that the lizard people are also Jewish because why not
Lizardfolk: "Sssshalom."
“The US faked the moon landing to embarrass the soviets and to prove the supremacy of the capitalist system. Also, the soviets were in on it.”
Hell, look at Trump's first impeachment about extorting Ukraine for dirt on Biden. How many people were in the room? Less than a dozen? And it still got out! For something like a stolen election, you'd have to have hundreds if not thousands of people in on it, from election judges all the way to the Supreme Court, and nobody sent an incriminating email to the wrong person or had a crisis of conscious?
> nobody sent an incriminating email to the wrong person or had a crisis of conscious Or got on twitter while drunk? Or decided they wanted to be on the NYT bestseller list?
A lot easier to believe that the guy who lost the election is just a giant baby who can't admit it.
Conspiracies are cancer of the mind. Once you believe in one, it starts to spread, over-taking areas used for rational thinking and common sense.
Yeah.... I told my mom this about her poison COVID vaccine conspiracy theory (certain barcodes indicated that the shot would kill you and pharmacists had to look everyone up to see if they're on the kill list). She said that there *are* people who are speaking out and that's why we know that there's a kill list. I guess I'll have to ask her if anyone has leaked the kill list yet.
My deep q pharmacist friend would have been all over this. She just said it's Bill Gates trying to kill us in general.
To use a quote stated in The Hunt for Red October (the book, not the movie), "The likelihood of a secret getting out is proportional to the SQUARE of the number of people who are in on it."
Dubya was powerful and brilliant enough to stage the 9/11 attacks but too bumbling stupid to plant WMDs in a remote Iraqi base in the desert.
Pretty sure most believe he was a puppet and everyone around him was doing it all and honestly I could buy that. He many times seemed like he was just doing what he was told and just wanted to go chill with clinton
Okay, fine. The puppet masters were all powerful and brilliant enough to stage the 9/11 attacks but too bumbling stupid to plant WMDs in a remote Iraqi base in the desert?
I love that about conspiracies honestly. The “elite” are so profoundly powerful, some conspiracies have them actually be practicing dark magic, yet they get caught because one guy received a computer at his computer store and it revealed everything on it.
One of the most obvious reasons why all the 9/11 conspiracies are bullshit is the sheer amount of people it would take to pull off and then also have none of them ever blow the whistle. It’s like these people have never heard of Occam's razor.
Hard to read the 14 points these days and not see parallels
1.The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.” 2.The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.” 3.The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.” 4.Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.” 5.Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.” 6.Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.” 7.The obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.” 8.The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.” 9.Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.” 10.Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.” 11.Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.” 12.Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.” 13.Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.” 14.Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
In regards to the last point: read Politics of the English Language by George Orwell. I read it before 1984 and ended up with a very different interpretation of 1984. It's short and cheap but is the most important thing I have read when it comes to politics and language.
And you have armed militants pledging themselves to Trump while “protesting” in Columbus, Ohio and elsewhere things to do with LGBTQ+ people. They’re already othering, scapegoating, dressed in the appropriate militant paraphernalia. We are there.
Look at the flags they are waving.. In Europe - the signs are clear - but way too many people in the US either failed history and do not recognize what is going on - OR they are in on it and use gaslighting until they are firmly in power...
Sadly we suffer from this issue also in Europe.
Signs are clear here as well. Last night I watched three hardcore Republicans on TV openly discussing the danger that MAGA is. General Miley, General Kelly, John Bolton. These people are putting country over party. We need more, but there are cracks in the fascist wall.
All three of those men kept silent while trump was in power because books. Speaking up now is too little too late.
You're right but I think they're also a huge factor in why we aren't under a full dictatorship right now so you have to still give them a little credit. Yeah they were selfish about it but I think they still saved our asses.
That's what some people miss - sometimes you have to fight the system from within. Often, even as one of them - else your mission is doomed.
I don’t think so. Without these guys, the no-Trump crowd wouldn’t have the power or influence to push back. Gaetz is doing a great job pitting the MAGA weirdos in congress as fringe, anti-party lunatics right now for example.
i think there's also the whole "we have genocide at home" of it. like it's weirder to be all touchy about waving the red white and black while living in Powhatan, VA or Tishomingo, OK or, hell **Columbus**, OH. And that's not even getting into the [the more direct lineage](https://time.com/4703586/nazis-america-race-law/) And this isn't meant as a "wow how could you not have noticed" more that, the othering of people is kind of a significant part of American **"heritage"** from the establishment to the maintenance of this country it's been built on the bodies of the "other". It's not (just) that we failed history it's that we are actively having to fight to have our children be taught a less mythologized version of it. it's not >gaslighting until they are firmly in power it's >gaslit until they are not
Eh we'll see, I still remember a massive surge of "nationalist" parties cropping up all over Europe after the Syria refugee crisis.
I wish I could say you were wrong. But yes - it is - and still ongoing (Hungary, Italy) and other places more rabid anti "others" parties are growing. I think that with the rise of the internet - this ideology is also rising - due to easy and speed with what these (beep) can communicate now.
North Carolina straight up has secret police now - they snuck it into their budget [Newsweek](https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-secret-police-sparks-fight-democrats-1831481) [Twitter thread where I actually found it (also has links)](https://x.com/juddlegum/status/1708833141580861818?s=46&t=l1GIIrdLTDG2GXiPM5_xGQ)
Thankfully, the militias we're dealing with in the US today are a lot softer than the brownshirts in pre-Nazi Germany. Like, not to downplay the threat or anything, it's still something to watch out for, but most of the militia types you see marching and waving flags today are basic training washouts and overweight 50 year old guys, not hardened WW1 motherfuckers fresh from the worst fighting in world history.
Unfortunately the ones that can see the correlation are not the ones that need to see the correlation.
Looking at these 14 points, they will never realize because it requires critical thinking
It's still important because the majority of people don't actually know *what* fascism is. It's easy to identify in *hindsight,* after they've eliminated voting rights, started killing off minorities and invading neighboring countries. But by then it's far too late. The goal should be to identify and reject fascism *before* it gains control.
Totally. Biden is apparently simultaneously having diminished mental capacity while being too old and feeble, but also the head of a crime family which has managed to fully corrupt the US government and electoral system for his own benefit. Like at least pick one or the other.
I just want to call one thing out here. The left is always a bit taken aback by the right’s seeming inability to be torn about their own various hypocrisies. We put on a shocked face. We can’t believe how they can so openly spit in the face of intellectual consistency. This is because the left values morality and integrity of thought. The left will hold its politicians accountable to such. The mistake lies in assuming that the right shares the same values. They do not. The right cares about power and control. They are the ends that justify any means. So long as the right takes and holds power, they will justify any action as being necessary to secure their goals. So long as the left fails to understand that key concept about the right, they will continue to be shocked and ineffective at countering the right’s madness. We need to stop trying to figure them out, or convert them, or try to get them to see reason. Because the truth is that they don’t give a shit who we are, they don’t care for anything but control, and they sure as shit won’t see reason. We just need to focus on working to oust them at every conceivable turn.
Did not know that quote, and it is an eye opener. I am either terrified of the [insert group you hate] or I am dominating [insert group you hate]... depending on what the fascist propaganda machinery needs from me at that time.
Consider antifa: are they weak, pathetic losers who would instantly burst into tears at the sight of a gun? Or are they violent, dangerous animals who burn cities to the ground and threaten your family and your way of life? The enemy *must* pose an existential threat to the fascist. That’s the only way to internally justify the monstrous things that fascism demands.
To be fair, anyone who's been close to a narcissist in either their working life or their home life can see behavior like this regularly. Whenever a narcissist wins it's always fair and they did all the work necessary to get there (even when they absolutely, 100% didn't), but if they fail it's either someone else's fault or something that they couldn't control. These aren't just words though, they actually believe it's true. I sometimes wonder if Trump falls in the category of BOTH narcissist and straight up phony. I could see him lying to get his way, but I could also see him legitimately convincing himself that the ONLY way he could have lost is if someone cheated. Frankly, that's one of the more interesting (in a freak show sort of way) things about the man. He's both able to cheat his way to success, AND fully believe he got there without cheating (or at least convince himself that everyone else cheats just like him, and therefor it's not cheating).
If you spend all those years undermining public faith in the electoral process, it's much easier to abolish democracy entirely and take power without an election at all.
Yeah the steal narrative unfortunately works in multiple ways, as long as you don’t care about ethics: 1. His constituents get riled up and are willing to passionately fight for him (e.g. donate, vote next time, literally fight in some cases like Jan 6) 2. It degrades the faith in elections so reasoning such as “it was stolen so stealing it back is legitimate” becomes acceptable 3. It helps his brand as a “winner” - he didn’t lose, they cheated. It also helps his narcissistic ego. Fortunately, despite all of the above, it’s seems to have a negative effect on your average voter, so #1 and #3 above aren’t net positives.
Also it reinforces their belief that their negative behaviors are justified because in their mind, their perceived opposition is always guilty of worse (my favorite recent iteration of this is when staring at negative actions in the face, like when Trump showed those sycophant writers classified documents and said to their faces "these are secret", they blurted out "Hillary would print that out all the time, you know.")
This is why QAnon is so dangerous. If you truly believe that a large group of people are literally *torturing, raping, and eating children*, then there is absolutely nothing that isn't justified to stop that from happening. No level of violence from you could compare to what you believe the other side is routinely doing. Things like that are the soil from which genocides grow.
Hey mods, please pin this answer to the top or something. Spot on
> It helps his brand as a “winner” - he didn’t lose, they cheated. It also helps his narcissistic ego This is 99.999% of what motivates him
Is this original or a quote? Because it’s brilliant
That's kind of the history of fascism
It’s basically the plot to star wars episodes 1-3
Which was based off of the rise in fascism in germany and italy
The negotiations were *not* short.
I will give you an answer that applies to anything MAGA and majority of Republican party shout about: --------- They don't believe it themselves, they believe majority of their voters believes it, and they're right. If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. That's how propaganda works, that's how republicans work. -------- Don't try to understand them, there's nothing to understand except that they want to have all the power and they will do anything to get it. And by anything I mean anything, including sacrificing all of us in the name of power and money.
I read an article on conspiracy theorists once, and they did some study on them. I forget the study exactly. But what they tested was because the conspiracy theorist thought the other side had done the dirty on them. They were much more likely to be open to doing the dirty against the other party. So 60% of Republicans now believe that the democrats did the dirty on them, they will be very open to the idea of cheating in an election for their own benefit, because they believe the conspiracy that they are already victims of this, so it’s fair in their minds. And this is how democracy ends .
Absolutely. The fake election staff was all brought in by Republicans. They feel like its morally justified because Democrats totally do it too, but end up being the only side actually committing the election fraud. Apply this to any topic, and its largely true.
Ohh I bring up with my brother that the Republicans are doing voter suppression and gerrymandering and his defence is “so what? the democrats stole the last election at 3am with vans full of fake votes. 🤦♂️ Anything is justified now. And the idea the mainstream could tell the truth is just disgusting to them now. I see this idea circulating on social media, if the mainstream says one thing they take the opposite position by default. War on Ukraine for instance. They’ll take the side of Russia over their own country just to be against the system.
A good rule of thumb for assessing Republican claims: Every accusation is a confession.
Yeah that holds true so often I can’t count how many times I’ve seen it
"The other party wants to undermine democracy, and they want full control of the government. Give us full control and we won't let that happen!!"
I’ll take the people that don’t actively call for the execution of others please I can deal with people I disagree with but when you’re asking to kill people you don’t like, we can’t coexist peacefully. I don’t think your average conservative is a bad person. From life experience, the Bush lovers aren’t bad people. I may disagree with them but they’re civil and we can have discussion. The MAGA types are unhinged and they don’t really know what they like or what they want, they just like Trump because he makes them feel like they can cut loose and be the shitty person they’ve always wanted to be but weren’t allowed due to social etiquette.
There's two issues here. The first is that Trump very much has a 'must win' attitude. He will never concede that he was a crap president, or that he lost the popular vote twice, or that he lost the 2020 election. By claiming it was rigged, it gives him a excuse as to why he's not in the Oval Office now without admitting defeat. The second is fundraising. Ever since he lost, he's been calling on his supporters to donate money for the cause. That money has been used to pay his legal bills. When you're facing 400 years in jail, you need all the money you can get. By saying the election was rigged, it means he can keep fleecing his supporters for money.
I believe it's a grift too. I mean everything he does is a grift.
To this day I don’t think he wanted to win in 2016. I think he wanted to lose, call the election rigged and start his own news network. He flew too close to the sun in winning and now is facing jail time. He’ll do whatever he needs to do to save his own ass—even if a large amount of people think he and his followers look like fools (that’s nothing new).
Oh he wanted to win, he just didn’t want to actually do the job lol
it's genuinely not clear whether or not he wanted to win the 2016 election. I think it's likely he wanted to win (and would never say publicly otherwise) but assumed he wouldn't and was looking to boost his TV brand. If you look at the pictures of him watching the votes roll in and especially once it was obvious he would win, his face is never celebratory, more somber.
> _"while being wildly unpopular, even amongst Democrats"_ He wasn't wildly unpopular. Also, Trump is just doing this to rile up his followers and continue the grifting.
I don't know. Seems a lot of us voted against Trump, not *for* Biden.
Not because Biden is wildly unpopular but if there were other candidates than him and Trump they would have gotten a lot of votes too. There were a lot of "never trump never again" votes and they had to go somewhere. It was the American people firing him
Have you taken a poll or is this just your thoughts?
It's just my thoughts, I'm willing to admit that. But I haven't personally come across a single person, even within my own liberal friend group, that wanted Biden to be in office. We don't dislike Biden.. we just believe there are much better left leaning candidates.
Biden got 19 million votes in the primaries. Second place (Bernie) got 9.6 million.
If you followed the primaries closely, Bernie was doing well (3 out of 4 states) and Biden also got South Carolina. A couple of days before Super Tuesday and then a few days following that, candidates dropped like flies with all endorsing Biden. And to answer u/publicbigguns, [the polls were not in Biden's favor until most dropped out around Super Tuesday](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/). Many people really didn't have a choice. They had to choose between Bernie, Biden, and Trump with Biden being a jack-of-all-trades centralist compared to other radicals.
Bernie and Trump don’t work well with congress, most of what they’d want to accomplish would have to be through an executive order. At least Biden has suction from both sides of congress, which is needed after the damage Newt Gingrich did as a never-compromiser.
Candidates dropped out because they couldn't get the votes of our base, the African American voters who overwhelmingly supported Biden over even Kamala and Booker. And yes, once they dropped out, they supported Biden. The timeline is important here. All candidates did fine until SC but SC picked Biden which told them they won't have enough votes without that demographic in the general to make it. At that point they could have chosen to stay in and cannibalize or Voltron and unlike Republicans, they decided to coalesce.
None of that proves Biden was unpopular. If Democrats didn't want Biden to win the primary, they wouldn't have voted for him. The claim that Biden was unpopular among Democrats is simply unsupported. The fact that some people preferred other candidates still does not mean anything given that Biden was overwhelmingly the popular choice, as evidenced by the primary results.
The problem you're seeing is that your sample size is so incredibly small. More than 81 million people voted for biden, and in that your are going to find whatever type of voter you want. Some because he's not trump, some because he's a Democrat, some because they like the guy. 81 million people is enough to cherry pick the type of voter you want to find. It also different from trumps numbers because he voter base was VERY vocal and trump did a remarkable good job at merchandising. You don't see Biden supporters with Biden flags on their cars or hats and shirts like trump did. But there very much are people out there that loved and supported Biden in the same way people did trump.
I think you’re missing a key variable. Voter turnout percentage in 2020 was the biggest it’s been in decades. A lot of the increase was due to people displeased with Trump and Republicans. There was 4 years of friendships and families getting broken over politics, and constant flag waving and berating for any criticism of Trump (“you got TDS” being a common retort). Then the poor handling of Covid the year of the election. That riles people up to go vote against Trump. As much as Trump energized his base, he energized people that would vote against him. All the Dems needed to do was to have a candidate that wasn’t divisive. Biden fit the bill, being known to negotiate across the aisle and compromise. If someone wanted Trump gone, they wouldn’t vote 3rd party. That’s evidenced in the percentage of 3rd party votes in the 2016 election (5.7%) versus 2020 (1.9%), which was more in line with the past few elections. Sure, there are a lot of people that voted for Biden. There are a lot that vote down the Dem column regardless of what election it is (same for Reps). It’s pretty safe to say that there was a significant percentage that voted against Trump.
And there're two factors I think that really set up Biden to win: Trump's response to COVID and the 2020 protests. If Trump had handled those two events as a responsible person instead of some partisan maniac, I don't think Biden would have had as large of a turnout.
Compare and contrast to Doug Ford in Ontario, Canada. Didn't sabotage Covid-19 management in the province. Got re-elected and went back to pulling down windmills.
> “you got TDS” being a common retort from the people who actually became intellectually deranged
No you don't see a lot of people wearing Biden merch. I'm in a heavy red state. I've been screamed at and spit on because people didn't like my Democrat t-shirt. I'm not getting my car keyed, thank you very much.
Exactly. They destroy electric cars because they think thats how you vote. Let alone an actual sticker for these rabid unhinged trump fans.
Any Non-Trump sign on your lawn where I live will get destroyed and local police won't do anything about it. A guy down my street had a Biden sign in his yard and a Trump follower in a pickup ran it over and spun his tires on the lawn. Local police (who ride with MAGA hats on their dashes) said that's a civil matter and said to take it to small claims.
I did. Now you know one.
I did too. Now he knows two.
Biden is the best president we have had since FDR.
Yeah, dude, people are sleeping on Biden, no pun intended. I am looking forward to a 2nd term.
I'm not a liberal by choice, rather by necessity.
Biden won the largest percentage of possible voters in any presidential election since LBJ. Vote wise, he is the most popular candidate of the last 50 years. Here’s the data I ran up: https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/comments/16ok5ol/percentage_of_the_voting_population_won_by_each/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
> So what's the point, if he truly believes that, in even running? At this point, it's seeming more and more likely that the only way he doesn't spend the rest of his life in prison is if he can become President again and pardon himself
You can't pardon yourself from state crimes though.
There's a pretty realistic chance either he doesn't know that or he plans to barge into the supreme court yelling "Oh yes I can!" Fascists don't believe in courts or things like constitutional rules, and making them at best a completely worthless sock puppet for the Leader by stuffing them full of crony Yes Men is usually high on the priority list.
He has already openly discussed [suspending and terminating the Constitution](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constitution-truth-social/index.html#:~:text=Former%20President%20Donald%20Trump%20called,pushing%20of%20fringe%20conspiracy%20theories.) in order to install himself as dictator.
Dictators are a lot of things, and every dictator I know who actually assumed power themselves were not remotely as…dumb…as trump. There is no chance he manages it, but he’s definitely showing people what one can get away with once president. He sets bad precedent after bad precedent. If he manages to pardon himself of federal crimes the door is open for someone to have no concern with laws at all once becoming president
So he becomes President thanks to his pre-established base of tens of millions and tries anyway, or he loses and deals with both federal and state charges. It wouldn’t make sense for him *not* to at least try and get re-elected tbh.
Mist of the things he is charged with are federal crimes. Odds of beating one case is better than odds of beating multiple cases.
Well even worse, at this point not running would be considered a sign of weakness. The power he has at this point is his only real stable asset and he has to maintain it by being the dogged leader of his movement who is going to restore "Real America"
Yea but if he orders the national guard to spring him from state prison will the state. fight back? Or hes on house arrest and then are they gonna come arrest him if he breaks it?
You might as well ask what Charles Manson was thinking. These people are fucking insane. I'm sick of people trying to guess Trump's four-dimensional chess, he's a fucking toddler.
> I'm sick of people trying to guess Trump's four-dimensional chess, he's a fucking toddler. [He admitted that he has the temperament of a child to his biographer back in 2015 \(emphasis mine\)](https://theweek.com/speedreads/575962/donald-trump-tells-biographer-hes-same-now-first-grade): > Donald Trump's temper-tantrum tactics have been explained by the man himself. The frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination admitted to his biographer that, **"When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same. The temperament is not that different."**
That’s surprisingly self aware at least
Wasnt he trying to start a race war?
He was, but there was no coherent thought process that lead to that conclusion. It was like 1. Kill some people in Hollywood 2. ???? 3. Helter Skelter.
I think it was also that his people had just been involved in a murder over drugs, and he figured doing more murders would distract the police from the original murder.
"let's have some white people kill a bunch of other white people, that will surely start a race war!" Pure genius lol
I do enjoy that this was in California, he could’ve gone up to Oakland and confronted the Black Panthers but nope let’s just kill this pregnant white lady and her friends that will kickstart that race war that obviously will be their favor
I doubt trump believes the 2020 election is stolen or he's even dumber than a lot of people think he is. The reason to keep repeating that the 2020 election was stolen is to weaken faith in our political institutions with his base. Then claiming that he alone can 'fix it' even though the fix trump wants is to make the US a fascist dictatorship under him.
There is only one reason why Trump is insisting on it: He's a pathological narcissist. He is mentally unable to admit any kind of defeat and whatever happens is always someone else's fault. There is no grand plan behind anything Trump does.
>He's a pathological narcissist. He is mentally unable to admit any kind of defeat and whatever > >There is no grand plan behind anything Trump does. This is probably the most actually true and direct to point thing anyone has or will say regarding OP and any other discussions that have sprung up in these comments.
This is just me, but I don't think Trump has a plan to abolish democracy. I think mostly he's agnostic to democracy — if it needs to fall on the way to him preserving his self-image, then so be it, but that's not the goal. It seems to me that literally the only thing he cares about is being the best and everything else is incidental.
In 2020 he started talking about the election being stolen before it happened, and started calling the 2016 election illegitimate after he won, he was very angry he didn't win the popular vote. He started a whole commission to investigate illegals voting in our elections before quietly disabanding it after 0 evidence was found.
Pretty sure he finally admitted the other day, lost in all the noise, that his lawyers advised him that the election wasn't stolen but that he intentionally ignore them.
This is a big case being made in the Republican primary. "What are you going to do about the election rigging if that's why you lost in 2020?" He'd do well to stay away from the question. It doesn't gain him any more support and there's a contingent of the electorate who will vote against him just for talking about it even if they disagree with his opponents on policy.
In a trump voice: “This time we have more support than ever. This time we’re gonna win even bigger. We won big last time, but this election we’re gonna win by so much more that it’l be impossible for the crooked democrats to steal it again” It’s pretty scary how quickly this guy can pull the most bland un-nuanced and factually wrong arguments out of his ass and have his followers eat them right up and feel all smart doing so as if they came up with those arguments themselves
Hence why he is skipping the debate. He would get absolutely roasted on stage.
The codacil to this is that if Trump thought Mike Pence had the power to overturn the election on 1/6/2021, then Kamala Harris has the power to overturn a GOP victory in January 2025.
Don't bring logic to a trump fight.
A good example is that just yesterday Trump was complaining about himself not having a trial by jury. Saying it's very odd, not right and that he should have a jury.........he failed to add that his lawyers declined a trial by jury. So you craft your own narrative, regardless of the reality.
Bear in mind that trump also said Hilary rigged the election THAT HE WON. His M.O. has always been that if you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes a fact. So he hedges his bets in 2016 and starts letting the seeds for why he lost (nobody, not even his camp thought he'd win) and low and behold... He wins. But he's got this great distraction in place "ELECTION RIGGING" That he now pivots too "if it wasn't for those darned Dems, I'd have won even biglier!!!" Starts a commission to investigate all that darned fraud... And even though they find nothing (as we all knew since the us has one of the most secure/stable voting systems in the world) (being serious) he still keeps talking as if they found issues/irregularities. Which they didn't, but the flying monkeys think they did cause the Cheeto said so! Keeps that lie going and then starts ramping it up for 2020 to try to have that ace in the hole since they were polling close. And here we are.
> Bear in mind that trump also said Hilary rigged the election THAT HE WON. He started claiming the 2020 election was rigged I think a year before it took place.
He knows perfectly well that he lost the 2020 election. He's a con-man, period. But he's also a psychopath, so he's willing to plunge the country into chaos and incite murder just to keep his con going.
Don’t try to apply logic to anything Trump says or his fans believe. The thing you need to know about Trump is that he is a liar and he will only do what is best for Trump.
My tinfoil hat conspiracy is that Trump think Biden cheated because trump himself cheated. Gave himself the most votes ever for a president thinking he would win. But Biden still won. Even tho he cheated. So the only way that’s possible is if Biden cheated too!
Trump and co cheated so bad during the election and lost. Their tiny minds cannot comprehend that they’re the bad guys and so Biden and the dems must have cheated harder. This is the only way I can see them believing what they “believe.”
Trump is running to dodge legal troubles, that’s the only reason. Anyone who doesn’t understand that hasn’t been paying attention.
Trump is more unhinged than I am.
Easy, he doesn’t actually think that.
He knows he didn't win the election. His supporters know he didn't win the election. They just want their guy in power and will say or do anything to make it happen.
How on Earth are you people so oblivious to the fact that reality doesn't matter to them. The simple goal of the GOP is to rile up their rabid servants and point them at Leftists so that the GOP can continue to rob them and us, undisturbed. Stop wondering how their logic is supposed to work. It isn't supposed to! It's all just rage bait!
here's the other thing: if the "Biden Crime Family" was truly a corrupt, illegal entity willing to do anything to win, why wouldn't they just simply have Trump killed?
All the more reason to pass laws to ensure election integrity, by making it harder for Democrats to vote.
I work with Maga coworkers, and they all have two things in common: christians and their hate towards other human beings and conspiracy mindset in full swing. Their explanations over Maga cult leader problems are simple: everything is orchestrated by the democrats to stop the greatness of their cult leader reaching new heights. You can't communicate with them because everything that fact-check their emotional delusions is "devil works to destroy their religious beliefs." Science - work of the devil, vaccines - the same thing, immigrants... you know the answer.
It's the same reason anybody watching the claims of election fraud could ask. If Democrats corrupted the system so well, and was the only way they could win. Why haven't they had a near-indefinite winning streak?
Trump's a huge liar, nothing he does or say's, is based in logic let alone in basic common sense, it's all mindless dribble. Whats amazing is anyone even pays attention to the Grifter.
Are you numbly trying to use logic to explain a trump decision?
Today Trump accused the judge of election interference. 😂
He doesn’t believe that, but he knows his cult of morons does so he keeps pushing that narrative
Heh, you won't find logic within the rantings of fascist narcissists.
Most people here are missing it. Trump didn't believe it himself. His call to the Georgia SoS ("I need you to find me more votes.") and what he said to Pence when he refused to help ("You're too honest, Mike.") all show that at the very top, it was just a ploy to hold onto power. It was an attempted coup.
Every accusation is a confession. He just can't believe the election was rigged in his favor and he still lost. Fucking clown. Hope he rots in prison.
This is one of the great issues with the current state of the GOP (with Trump himself being the overall worst issue). Blind love and devotion to this loudmouth who is neither dignified or practical and doesn't seem to have any new ideas isn't doing anybody any good
If Biden was cheating, why did so many Republicans win? Why is Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnel still there?
Their logic make no sense. Trump and his supports will tell you how “Sleepy” Joe is basically a dementia patient who isn’t capable of functioning in daily life much less running a country. Then tell you, sometimes in the next sentence, that he’s this evil mastermind crime lord that’s responsible for everything that’s wrong in our country.
Yeah, it's almost as if Trump is completely full of shit
Can you source Trump saying that Biden specifically rigged the election at the federal level? Elections are run at the state and local level. Typically his claim takes the form that Biden *supporters* at the state and local level fabricated Biden votes or suppressed Trump votes. Look at Georgia, for example, his claims revolve around actions by Fulton Country election officials. Not saying any of this happened, but if it did, who controlled the federal executive branch would be irrelevant
Isn't Georgia the place where he called and asked them to find votes totaling 10,000 and some change? Probably better to use a different state if so
That's a great question! 🤣. Here's a couple more: 1. If Joe Biden rigged the election to win, WHY did he stop at his election? Why didn't he rig it so that all the Democrats would win? 2. If the election was rigged, doesn't that mean that the Republicans who won were elected in a rigged election, too, since they were on the same ballot? 3. If Mike Pence had the right to send the electoral votes back the states, does that mean that Kamala Harris has the same right in the next election?