Stopping The Spread Of Nonsense
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We have crested atop the fabrication and falsehood epoch. Trump did his bestial worst to turn the nation into a large lying sack of horse spit. Thankfully, the spreader of poo, and his spew crew, has died down to a mere slow, floundering burn of sickness, stupid, and speciousness. Therefore, I am able to finally turn my energies toward assessing the damage, and figuring out the way forward.
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My research is not completely thorough on all the proposed government actions, internet applications, or general theories of how to reduce conspiracies and other attacks on logic, science, and facts. Nor have I found out how to prevent the violence against people and the environment falsehoods can elicit. However, I have read enough to know we do not currently have an implementable, all encompassing conspiracy-removing solution that still allows all other civil communication to occur.
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That said, there are three key pillars I see supporting these bogus conspiracies that seem to be Sisyphean to thoroughly dislodge and topple. They are the substantial variability of the aggressors and their aggressions, the consistency of their pursuits, and the emotional heft they bring to each matter. Tapping into emotions is the reason a lot of communication works, some for good, some for bad. Easily igniting, and reviving emotions, engenders and boosts the capacity for consistency. Variability comes into play in two main forms, one is the “disputed” topic itself; the other, who is, or was, initially behind or pushing this aggression.
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The initial person behind the concept may have also been an aggressor, or merely the originator, as in a historical figure, or someone not directly associated with any aggressive actions. Stepping back from the technical problems and looking at the general parameters can help to divine more successful responses. Though there may be other examples of the view from a 30,000 feet technique, each new take can provide other insights.
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It makes sense to diagram at least one current topic to get a better understanding of how to uncover insights using this technique. What I will call Trump’s COVID-19 hoax, is probably the best of the worst to place in the big Petri dish below our macro-fake-conspiracy-scope. In our pandemic sample, significant variability, and emotional heft are obvious; aggressive, and aggressor activities abound.
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Within the significant variability of the aggressions’ portion, there are sub-themes, and sub-sub-themes. Freedom, economics, government control, and partisan politics make up the conspiracy’s sub themes. We should not wear masks; masks harm us; no need to be six feet apart; voting by mail is bad for them, good for us. It is also fine to be inside with big groups; run our business how we want, no matter what the authorities say; be angry at businesses that follow these government rules; ignore health experts; and its many other outlandish iterations make up the sub-sub-themes.
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The aggressors portion includes Trump troller in chief, then sub aggressors like outspoken congressional Republicans, his cabinet, spokespeople, White House minions, pundits, media flunkeys, and sycophant operatives. Sub-sub-aggressors include other congressional Republicans, general supporters, die-hard supporters, social media trollers, etc. Just at this quantity of aggressors and aggressions, a tsunami of complicating factors are making it a near impossibility to curtail, let alone stop, such a ridiculous yet dangerous conspiracy from spreading out of control. Additionally, having a president involved may make this specific kind of conspiracy too much to control even with newly devised technology or communicative measures.
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As to the emotional heft element, the sub-themes come from the patriotic, economic, politics, personal, and religious grievances. The sub-sub-themes are loss of a job, political party, family, or clan allegiance, religious leaders, biblical prophecy, ideological connections, racial differentials, emotionality invested in candidate, loss of control, fear for the souls of our children, and other similar iterations.
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Consistency is wrapped up in the above concepts of emotional heft and substantial variability, but sub-themes include social media options, number of dedicated promoters, and trollers, money and time to invest. The sub-sub-themes are external marketing, overall number of protestors and protests, different staging of protests, protester numbers at each protest, how far beyond the pale top followers will go, and the frequency of other elements and iterations that shorten gaps in consistency, and extend consistency overall.
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Now I have a decent list above of the elements and iterations of all three main themes, variability, emotionality, and consistency. Therefore, I can begin to dissect their strengths to determine the failure points below. Finally, I hope to devise a master strategy to greatly curtail, and possibly end much of their negative characteristics, at least shortly after new attempts arise.
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First, The COVID-19 hoax presents an outsized problem because it not only is international, it brings with it a legitimate fear of death, and actual reduced movement and association. While most full-on MAGA may not fear the warnings, the realities seen and heard do generate emotional energy from oppositional backlash, and their own dissonance. From a specifically Trump Republican standpoint, it brings many real for them, immediate, present-day threats, and hated-by-them government, restrictions and actions.
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Contrarily, the effects and restrictions from climate change stretch out over time to some extent, no matter how many roadblocks climate deniers have put up, or are putting up. It seems a conspiracy will form around whatever structure is required, even if the reaction, or the urgency is opposite to another issue.
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Counter messaging comes from social media opponents of the conspiracy, or with traditional media providing more of the explanatory messaging. Social media companies and authorities provide some gatekeeping as well. This kind of messaging is very active in such a pandemic. Whereas, there is less flat earth, NASA’s moonshot was faked, or the C.I.A. killed JFK, counter messaging, and almost no active explanatory messaging is occurring, except for mostly old website posts.
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Of course, new conspiracies and fake news are grafted from explanatory messaging done by an opposition media. Then those items receive tit for tat counter messaging for a short time, if the topic never gets too hot on the influence meter. Unfortunately, those who believe the conspiracy or floated the fake news often have more energy, time, and willingness to keep at it. This energy quotient becomes a resource and energy usage problem for Democrats in the case of COVID. Where do we spend our time, fighting conspiracies, or on our own causes? While these may represent the same issue in various ways, energies and resources still must be split, sometimes materially.
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A Short Mind Science Review.
The science behind how our minds form our views and choices is very extensive. While we like to believe much of what we do is based on our logical and reasoning faculties, those abilities are manufactured from the newest brain formations, which is the prefrontal cortex part of the neocortex. The older parts of our brain from an evolutionary standpoint direct us below our conscious awareness. These “automatic reflexes” were very important in the early periods of evolution including the fight or flight response that helped us avoid danger, especially before we had language, communicated effectively, built defenses, and formed weapons.
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Yet we cannot say logic and reason are more intrinsic or ready to deploy than they were five thousand years ago. Not aggressively exercising those muscles usually means a non-response flatliner when a vigorous flexing of reasoning is needed. General IQ or previous schooling do not necessarily engender the skills to overcome dangerous groupthink in your clan. So automatic responses are still more prevalent than we would like to believe.
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For example, common sense is typically a short cut to the same scope of clannish ideas that seem only a bit beyond fire is hot, ice is cold mastery. Or just a practical set of ideas above automatic reflexes, and emotional responses. More specifically, common sense responses many times are faulty as to social consciousness and intergroup relationships because they are familiar group, or clan based. Common sense just does not translate as well as we might think.
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Rather than getting deeper into the science, my goal in this section is to work through our proclivities, habits, and our less logical responses. In addition, the use of the terms emotionality, emotions, etc. may be used as shorthand for our automatic responses. And, we must react automatically to most things because using logic and reasoning for all of our minor, and even some major decisions take more time than we have to solve them properly. Emotional responses include anger, disgust, embarrassment, etc. We also regress into groupthink and simplified notions during stressful events, or in confusing situations. There may be some difference in responses by gender, but they are not significant enough to make one gender more or less logic based, and to consider in my macro-scope focus, except when threatening behavior occurs.
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Our minds are the most difficult things to escape from once set into the stone of many years of nurturing by ideology, religion, community, society, family and acceptance thereof as well as genetic code. There are more conservative and more liberal minds, not necessarily in the political range, but in our approach to various challenges in, and aspects of, life. We can be a Republican but liberal in some social views, or a Democrat, but conservative in our fiscal outlook. Some percentage of people are also more one sided, and on the extreme in every area, and every variation in between.
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Today the problem is the capacity to polarize in an extremely siloed manner. The tendency is to side with our clan during difficult times rather than become more centrist. If few clan members are pushing back, the tide can swing very extreme, as we have seen in Trump’s political sphere. Fighting against the status quo is hard, but fighting against the extreme is a greater difficulty still. The lack of internal Republican Party pushback caused a spiraling out of control, which is where Democrats have the advantage, seen in their greater inability to get into lockstep. Think of this spiraling as the Jim Jones effect.
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Why does nearly everyone end up drinking the actual forever-ending-oneself Kook-aid in those situations? Such feverish group cohesion creates more and stronger belief connections. That means fewer in-group members will rebel, and with a portion fearful of rejection by family members especially, and group members secondarily. Still others are fearful of physical harm, if they turn against the group. They delay, hoping for a miracle… as too late arrives.
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Consider the Nazi that is a good parent, another way many people fool themselves into doing something terrible or terribly stupid. The Nazi spent his day at work doing the most heinous things, but never lays a cruel hand on his children, and later the children say, their father was the most gentle and kind person they ever knew. While he may have been putting on an act with them, he may just as likely been that gentle and kind father. This is how people compartmentalize their brains so they are able to say and do things to others, they would never do or say to a family member, friend, or neighbor. Slave holders often resembled this heinous profile.
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Human beings are able to hold two opposing ideas in their heads at the same time, a.k.a. cognitive dissonance. Though some oppositional mergers are likely to be resolved in the future, it helps explain why we compartmentalize, or at least go along with a bad idea, or with a bad group, even for some length of time, before disavowing the idea, or leaving the group. Escaping from our own brain fog, whether our brainpower is of high intelligence or not, often requires a large quantity of refreshing inputs, and much mind cloud cleansing, to release defective ideas. Great scientists can also have this problem; until his death, Issac Newton thought he could turn base metals into gold.
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The same problem occurs in reverse; we can suck up fake news no matter what our perspective or intelligence level. However, people with more conservative tendencies are likely to accept change less than those who are more liberal in their thinking, so holding the party line is a trait they more often possess. That said, it is very problematic to make generalizations, since it depends on the issue and other factors. And again, it is not necessarily about being Republican or Democrat, yet in general, party designations will line up on many, if not most, of the contentious issues.
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We have always been separated into groups, and ways of thinking. There is a myth that when we had only three TV channels, the nation was basically unified. Though there were general areas, topics, and issues where this was true, we should not be naive that it was not worse in other areas at the same time. During the three channels of Happy Days, and earlier, there were many race riots, angry Irish Bostonians pelting school integration buses with rocks, Jim Crow, lynchings by the KKK and white citizen councils, the FBI wiretapped MLK, civil rights icon John Lewis severely beaten by cops, violent war protests, bombings of churches to kill little girls of color, police attacking protesters at the 1968 Chicago DNC, guardsmen shooting students, massive strikes, etc.
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Other divisions were in play between political parties, socio-economic classes, business versus unions, religions, communities, rural/urban, and over racial issues. There were factions in each party, social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, liberals, progressives, etc. The most telling of divisions is inside the family unit, where nature and nurture clash. If we have such differences within families, we see how education and parental influence (harsh or gentle coercion) may not have the effect we expect it to. Understanding this tangled dilemma is likely key to squelching fake news or bogus conspiracies in the general public.
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Emotionalized Responses And The Clan Leader.
In the COVID-hoax conspiracy case study data above, the significant variability of aggressions and aggressors are overwhelming. However, in my opinion, the breadth of components are artifacts rather than where bogus conspiracies or fake news get their strength. The emotional heft and consistency play a large role in holding up variability, especially emotionality. With all the fact-reversal statements and ideas promoted by hoax believers, it is impossible to see how so much garbage could be accepted without great emotional weight undergirding them.
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Secondarily, the higher value a main aggressor or aggressors has in a group can play a large role in reenergizing the sub, and sub-sub-aggressors, and emotional touch points. That being said, there must be an emotional force that connects to, or transcends, the main aggressor(s). And if staying in our group lane is of prime importance to many of us, no matter what the aggressors say or do, we may end up following them, or the messages alone, over the cliff they lead us.
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On the other hand, voting for the Iraq war was a mass bipartisan hysteria event, mob mentality reaction, and jingoistic response. With our typical opposite-side taking disrupted due to 9–11, many liberals on the Democratic side approved of entering the war. While that is only my simplified diagnosis, and there were extenuating circumstances including W. lying to the American public, the vote of approval did occur, and ideological lines are crossed in such complicated instances. Of course, this does not justify bad decisions, but it does show the power of emotions, and the fight or flight response in our decision making.
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Notice how the mob rule epithet is associated with societal change — like giving more freedom to people without as much freedom as white, straight, wealthy men — but an angry mob, or mob mentality is associated with angry, emotionalized killing of some kind, lynching, war, etc. So be very aware of how conservatives will not make any differentiation, as if true democratic rule and lynchings are similar activities.
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Patriarchal influences, racial oppression, class hierarchy, and traditional gender roles also put pressure on people to conform to the aggressor, which can be mixed up in emotionality. Plus the current election dispute shows how party politics can strangulate the facts, and overall reality. Whether there are those who literally believe in the arguments being made is less important than why these people support the promotion and extension of them for any reason. Although the lies being promoted after a traumatic election loss, and its accompanying emotional energy, likely make the arguments more seamless, feel credible, and easier to swallow for Trump Republicans.
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The greater a structural support system there is for a bogus conspiracy makes norm, law, and reality breaking more prevalent. Trump has used the fear politicians have of losing an election as a cudgel to successfully spread multiple conspiracies, and spew constant lies and fake news. Having a large cohort of sympathizers pushing his messages, ginning up their anger at nearly everything not yet tied down, or wrapped in a red-state Attorney General ribbon, reverberates his power over his egoist, politician brethren.
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It seems likely that the aggressor, Trump in this case, may be the key structure to focus on. Yet, the tactic of discrediting him has not been too effective with his core supporters, which still constitute significant power. Then again, it is premature without understanding the whole process to say that an aggressor like Trump cannot be the focal point for disabling a counterfeit conspiracy.
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The Freedom Function And Falsehoods.
Conservatives believe that they own the idea, and term, freedom. The use of the term socialism as an epithet, and their contemptuously subversive, partisan politics give them advantages liberals do not have. That is because knocking down change is easier than lifting it up. Winning through abusive methods and corrupt activities is easier than doing what is best, in a proper way. Squeezing out better government ideas with lies, and by subverting the process is easier than taking on those ideas in an honest and straightforward manner.
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Liberals have built on the high ground of ethics and morals in the Trump era. Unfortunately, the Republican’s delusive hold on the freedom narrative provides cover for their escape from morality and ethics, at least in the political arena. A destructive politics policy is authorized because Democrats allow abortions, and want a social safety net; and Trump Republicans know what that really stands for:
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…a liberal totalitarian socialistic state, owning all the means of genes production, to enforce mandatory eugenics panels that utilize a defunded police force of volunteer septuagenarian hippies. Plus other exaggerations or lies about liberals, and undermining of democracy, is fair because liberals will be ten times worse than absolutely corrupt conservatives, if liberal Democrats ever get power. Perversely, calling out Republicans for actual crimes, and for manipulating the Supreme Court nomination process, is an attack on white freedom, and the sanctity of christian nationalist marriage, as well as Democrats demanding on-demand infanticide, and desiring world government run by the ghost of Hugo Stalin. It is a crazy, crazy, fervent-fever world Republicans have fabricated.
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The party politics and various ideologies weaved into the conservative, and Republican responses to COVID are supported by their theories about freedom, and economics. Religion played less of a role except when it accentuated the emotional heft like defending crowded indoor church services. Most of the anger generated came from the freedom aspect of their bogus conspiracy structure more than any other variable. Their ideas on freedom, explained in George Lakoff’s 2007 book, Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America’s Most Important Idea, fuel many of their angry outbursts and protests. Just call their blustering, bullies in the diddle shop of freedom horrors.
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Freedom cannot be defined as it was a thousand generations ago, or one hundred, or ten, and in many cases just one generation ago. But conservatives cannot seem to accept this change truism about government, worker and civil rights, societal needs, and social norms. As a diverse society closes in, Trump’s conservative junta must force reality outside of its awareness. To win with their freedom from reality theory, requires at minimum exaggerations and lies. Respecting the freedoms, a.k.a. rights, of everyone is difficult compared to merely the rights of late 18th century white male, christian slave holders. Every time some other group gained freedoms, the already enfranchised and dominate group, loses tangential ground, though mostly a perception of loss.
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The losers feel a pressure that is not often welcomed; they are worried, confused, and threatened by it. They must violently react, in which narrowly focused, emotionalized testosterone plays a big part. That also provides a consistency of reactions. Such testosterone fueled anger is not very comfortable in its own space; it must expand its frustration onto others. Freedom to express this outsized anger in another’s face is required.
You may have seen photos and videos of heavily armed men with large rifles at our state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan…www.….com
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When guns are brought into a confrontation about freedoms and rights at the drop of a hat, or the wearing of a mask, it only proves that Republicans believe their lies, and exaggerations will never be enough to win the day. Yet there has been so much ground work laid for a 2nd Amendment appendage being as necessary as a fanny pack in 1994; it is hard for many Americans to see the constant presence of guns as the threat they are. Hopefully, the looking stupid violation of gun toting — to every McDonald’s catered event, a 1st cousin’s, that is your wife’s baby shower, and all hometown kiddie paramilitary parades — will also some day regain its threat status, and die the same appendage death as the sad sack, fanny-pack.
A waist bag, or fanny pack (US), belt bag, moon bag, belly bag (American English), or bumbag (British English) is a…en.wikipedia.org
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Government is an overall bugaboo in Republican threats to freedom. Their response is lies, threats of violence, and norm-to-law breaking dismantling of democratically developed rules and structures. Ironically, the federal government must grow because of freedom selfishness by the large white cohort that is Trump’s Republican Party, and all the white male power grabs of previous centuries.
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If everyone actually had the same opportunities, or were at least given the same basic pre-adult resources, so as to gain a much less dissimilar starting position, a libertarian infused freedom, free-for-all, mega-money, mud-wrestling match may make some sense. Of course, we are not there yet. In contrast, conservatives have been seeing the scales as all even since southern slaves were freed without any formal education, money, land, citizenship, or voting rights.
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But a mere fear of others gaining a similar start that has been denied many citizens due to structural elements, which we can remove or properly reshape, cannot be the reason our democracy devolves into gun threatening, and lie spitting chaos. The lasting or full impact of COVID-19 fake news and bogus conspiracy generating is probably unknowable. Using falsehoods as a foundation, combined with disruption as an overall strategy, cannot hold together anything significant that also has enduring value.
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Variability of aggressions seems to be unending once the valve is opened a certain width and/or amount of time. Aggressors sign on in greater numbers, and stay with greater emotional intensity in that opening as well. Depending on the issue, but in the same general way, a percentage will never come out of the fog, or not completely. Allowing phony conspiracies or fake news to rage and widen as the false COVID hoax, and the lies around it have, create a potential blackhole of political and societal fault lines.
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Reaching my hypothetical apogee of falsehood flow alluded to above does not preclude a non-violent recovery, but it does greatly complicate the interim. The main idea to focus on here is to stop future deterioration via additional bogus conspiracy and fake news acid baths. Once these mind melting actions take hold, facts, logic, reason, and education are mostly useless in the short term. Without quick and powerful reversing regulation, lying politicians and their corrupt politics will ascend higher and higher up unsafe structures, so even the best nets cannot stop their fall that causes the rest of us harm.
A life net, also known as a Browder Life Safety Net or jumping sheet, is a type of rescue equipment formerly used by…en.wikipedia.org
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A Midpoint Data Review.
After a close look at the various themes noted earlier in the essay that make up a falsely fabricated conspiracy and accompanying fake news, lies, or bad science surrounding it, I have found eight elements that stand out. In addition, these eight areas are gathered from a macro-level perspective rather than specifically from the COVID hoax conspiracy.
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The eight are (1) the freedoms held hostage by Republicans, (2) the main aggressor(s), (3) those who are quickest to side with their clan, (4) the quantity of core supporters, (5) weaving in as many aggressions as seamlessly as possible, (6) overall power dynamics,(7) best elements used as a cudgel, (8) and finally, conspiracists have the most energy. The much narrower one, the freedoms held hostage by Republicans, is included because of its constancy in their rhetoric, conspiratorial or not, particularly from an individualistic perspective.
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Nearly everything revolves around their individualist freedoms perspective. They have locked it into a very narrow range, which when extended in any direction becomes a relativistic travesty, and a war on Xmas… Oh sorry, Christmas. This late 18th century concept of freedoms confounds, corrupts, and captures in time their sense of change. Slavery ending, original Jim Crow ending, women getting the vote, women gaining most of the rights men have, some women getting control of their bodies, and LGBT gaining many rights would never have happened if their freedoms theory would have held up to the point before those freedoms were gained.
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About half those Republican freedoms are now sacrosanct from a bipartisan viewpoint. Except for abortion, the 3rd iteration of Jim Crow, and LGBT rights, still considered in current debates, Republicans have generally moved on. But if current the ultra-conservative GOP returned to 1860, their perspectives on freedom would be similar to those of slave holders, not Radical Republicans. No such radical trait transferred to the current Republican Party. Like putting lipstick on a pig will not make a pig into a Pokémon, you cannot make today’s Republicans radical anything progressive. Furthermore, merely because ultra-conservatives gravitated in the last 50 years to the same party designation as Lincoln or Thaddeus Stevens, does not make them kin to the freers of slaves.
"... I advocated through a long life, equality of man before his creator." Name Thaddeus Stevens Birth Date April 4…www.biography.com
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Basically, the conservative party, whatever name it has, always was and is the party of no more societal change. Pick out any time in the past, 50, 100, 150, or 200 years ago, and at that point, they would be advocating no more societal change. If we kept with the Articles of Confederation, which conservatives of today would love, two-thirds of states would be under some governance by a christian sect, often protestant only. Salute their god, in the way they demand!
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If those are their desires, it is no wonder their freedom perspective is linked to a narrow grouping of rights, and cause them to react as aggressive, asinine, and angry gun-toting super archaic patriots when confronted with changes. In a minute after one freedom is partially curtailed by science, these men are grabbing their flintlock, mask-loaders to threaten a health official suggesting they wear a muzzle to avoid a massive death spread. Yes they tread on me so none will be dead in my community. Imagine the horror! Freedom — of the wrong sort — rings in the States’ Rights of Dixieland, as over 300 thousand deaths pile up in the United States of Reality-ville.
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(2) The main aggressor(s) that has the notoriety of Trump, as well as the power of the president, may not be replicated again, but it is important to understand how his kind of nonstop engagement of lies, fake news, and conspiratorial commentary greatly blurs the lines of norms, rules, and laws.
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(3) Those who are quickest to side with their clan will be the lockstep champions. A large cohort of locksteppers can threaten the stability of a democracy. Ironically, a democracy needs at least the herd immunity of some percentage who challenge the status quo. The disruption, by status quo challengers, in a generally positive direction, can prevent the lockstep clan from destroying the vibrancy of a democracy.
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(4) The quantity of core supporters is associated with the lockstep group, but includes other core supporters too, whose size depends on the issue, and other factors. Conversely, some number of lockstep group members are necessary in a democracy, although fewer and to a lessor degree than a highly improbable all conservative democracy. Consider this differentiation from the extreme of every citizen having a totally different idea about everything without coalition building. Everyone would always vote for themselves, never anyone else or anyone else’s ideas. All lockstep, or all different would not work well, or at all.
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(5) Weaving in as many elements into a bogus conspiracy as seamlessly as possible can give the impression everything is connected. When everyone in your clan is accepting everything as truth no matter the inconsistencies or problematic elements, it is likely your clan will go totally off track in a terribly bad direction, at some point. True believers of Jim Jones, and in slavery, “had to” die to be convinced of their error.
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(6) When the overall power dynamics are insidiously connected, and nearly clan member defection proof, this type of conservative cohort will support a conspiracy, the core aggressor’s lies, fake news, etc. for an intensely unfortunate length of time. Trump caught Republicans at a perfect point in their descent into — by any means necessary — and he took as much advantage of it as he could. Luckily, he was more of a bumbler than an orchestrator.
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(7) Finding a very effective cudgel, or many that have the same effect as one good one, likely gave all of Trump’s lies, fake news, bad science, and conspiracies much more power. The main cudgel was his use of shaming politicians for going against him, or the fear he would primary them. Whether that job and power loss cudgel did most every politician in, or some good portion would have kept with him otherwise, is hard to tell, but few bucked his authoritarian asks and demands, except in lame duck status or after retirement.
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(8) And finally, conspiracists have the most energy because achieving their goals will always be more vital than the opponents wanting to stop their craziness. It is a standard asymmetry dilemma. The conspiracists latest crazy may never get much traction, and anti-conspiracists are generally working on their own causes. Will the constant chipping away of conspiracists ever have any effect, or cause any harm? That conundrum puts the anti-conspiracist in the position of dropping some of their positive work to battle a punching bag that seems to perpetually bob, weave, and swing back, time after time, no matter how many good hits are inflicted on it.
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Since many bogus conspiracies come from the right (below the belt), the left (hooks and jabs) must either attack the punching-bag blackhole, or hope it goes away, and does not overwhelm democracy at some point.
After all these years, Bozo has finally bounced back! That's right, folks. You might have thought he was down for the…www.fatbraintoys.com
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Often democracies are accused of mob rule when they perform as change agents. Conversely, conservatives employ mob rule when change is threatened, which in general makes their temperament seem restrained as long as no change happens. Change will always be disruptive to someone, and mob rule is the go-to accusation against those pushing for change.
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Basically the status quo never needs mob rule as long as its status does not change. NOTE: angry mob mentality is different than the mob rule as democracy epithet in this narrative. Conspiracies can be a reaction to a disruptive change that must be put in a different framing by a person, or a group, wanting to regain control of their reality.
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The basic conspiracy comes from a simple emotional reaction, which may never get spread beyond one person’s thoughts. Basic conspiracies could generate fake news, lies, falsehoods, bad science, etc. However, the conspiracies that go public require a strong aggressor, promoter. They can have a real deep belief system developed around it, or it could be a con, someone merely desiring to manipulate others for specific benefits. Most conspiracies spread without many controls, so like a blackhole it pulls in many variants, and aggressors, true manipulators to inattentive followers who have different levels of influence and perspectives.
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Conservatives use conspiracies, and its manipulating elements, to thwart potential changes, or subvert implemented change. They add conspiracy fears to social safety net improvements like making the demand for universal health insurance into a socialistic, freedom culling, totalitarian dead pool panels, and forced sterilization of christian nationalists, state. Literally wrapping the most unsound ideas into a jumbled hyperbolic, impossible nonsense campaign. The most alarmist emotional conflagration, and deep seated clannish solidarity, hold this collection of woo poo together.
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I see the only way to overcome such a widespread campaign is to divide and separate. Every percent whittled away from the pack weakens its productivity. Getting directly into the faces of the most active aggressors, backing them into a corner with their own crazy word salads, subverting lies, and confounding logic, making them constantly contradict themselves, retract elements, and discredit their collaborators. This must be a full-on, data-driven, results-oriented assault with many levels of engagement and penetration.
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The Asymmetry Dilemma.
The conservative attack can be relentless because they will often have little respect for the truth, as can be seen in their holier than thou lies around the abortion debate. That includes the lies about the science of “fetal” heart beats, and pain receptors, as well as women are supposedly more likely to get cancer because of an abortion. These fully debunked and calculated lies are ongoing, and not merely accidental. Once you establish the righteousness of your cause, anything unethical and anti-truth is allowed, a Republican argument staple.
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Liberals, on the other hand, must cross every “t” and dot every “i”, otherwise change is not even considered, let alone allowed. Republicans can easily push back against change by creating a conspiracy of lies to hold onto the status quo. False righteousness is much more powerful when used in suppression by the status quo, or in ancient norm reacquisition than true righteousness focused on positive change.
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Another way to look at this asymmetry is through tax legislation. It is much easier to cut taxes than it is to raise them. So developing a conspiracy of lies and exaggerations to promote tax cuts is going to work better than the truth about how raising taxes can help. Why climb a small hill to societal improvements that gain a minimum of 100 dollars for everyone in a couple decades, when you can stay where you are at, do nothing, and get a dollar back right now? Of course, the top 1% would get a million dollars back for every dollar we do from a tax cut.
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These asymmetries are hidden in plain sight throughout the conspiracy and lying fest. Republicans group in tighter clans, which can be easily sealed off from any big tent concepts. Rather than a big tent, they have millions of pup tents lashed together by a few very strong connectors. They worship a similar god — the god of zero changes, or back to old world ideas — so they do not need to spread their wings much to dissimilar groups.
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Being so tightly tied up, conservatives will swallow, or allow to fester, any conspiracy or lie that is protective of their rigid binding of beliefs, rights, freedoms, and lifestyles. Even bellicose belligerency and illogical argumentation are justified to protect their outdated perceptions. This type of automatic irrational commitment provides consistency to their emotional energy. Democrats must at least double their resources to fight their own issues, and bat away such a conspiracy contingent.
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However, there is another rub. The resources that go into battling the bogus conspiracy may be like working in both a Mars’ land mass of quicksand, and a universe size blackhole. The worst version of throwing good money after bad. The costs will likely continually increase, and the chances of pushing people deeper into their corners may also increase. A societal myth may be uncovered because of this rising costs experiment; there will not be a people of color, progressive takeover in a generation even with the demographic changeover.
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If you consider the big tent versus pup tents model noted above, a few strong emotional ties without a need for much direct interaction can bind enough conservatives together. That gives them the ability to lash on even those who may not benefit at all from their policies. Most non-recent immigrant, black American conservatives probably will continue their Democratic Party commitments, but other non-white conservatives, especially Mexican, Central American, Caribbean, and South American immigrants could be drawn in enough numbers towards the Republican Party, if it survives Trump.
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The Conclusion.
While I was not able to solve specific problems, or write out a detailed strategy in this essay to curtail or end the nonsense, there are points that stood out, and could lead to solutions. Although I do have a comprehensive scheme to compete more effectively in spreading the truth, and ending the corruption of what freedom is, see link after my byline below. First, I will present my top three takeaways from my discovery writing and compiled from the ideas noted above.
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I. The Power of Asymmetry from an Energy Surplus, Empathy Deficit, and Emotionalized Threat Reservoir:
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Strict constructionist conservative Republicans, usually leading the party by the nose, exhibit or inhabit in general the asymmetry elements above. While not found in every Republican to the extreme, the tendency is higher. For some context, let us say maybe 60/40 or 70/30, conservatives are the higher percent. Consider the angry, gun toting individuals as the stereotypical extreme version. My point is that their ability to inhabit this space in larger numbers gives Republicans the advantage in spreading lies and conspiracies. For an extreme example, how do you win an argument at the barrel of a gun?
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The empathy deficit coincides with the family unit and clan element below. A strict conservative may have high levels of empathy for his immediate family, some relatives and friends, but for the entire world community, empathy is severely lacking compared to liberals. While there is no real way to make it a better or worse trait overall, more generalized empathy is required for conservatives to accept changes that help others not like them.
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Asymmetry has already been discussed to some extent, but here I have matched it with its key elements: energy, empathy, and emotion.
II. The Resilience of Patriarchal, Dominant Family Units, Severe Clan Binding, and Belief Persecution Perceptions:
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Key elements above provide the foundation for the strength and harmful potential of a conspiracy prone political party. How much blowback there will be from Trump’s bloated exaggerations of the party’s conspiratorial tendencies is impossible to know. No matter how the Republican Party proceeds, these tendencies will at least be near the surface. And, the strength of the three elements mean Democrats cannot get caught by another onslaught with pants down around the ankles.
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Their family units are more likely to produce lockstep progeny. The clannish ties that bind create the willingness to go to extremes to protect the status quo, or even call back recent societal changes. There is no united nation in this conservatism, sovereign states at best, but mostly the clan and family unit. Conservatives are knots on an ancient and rigid rope while liberals are a mosh pit of changes still to make. The supposed belief persecutions espoused by these harkening conservatives provide much of the anger, disgust, and justification to lie, cheat, and steal to make it their god’s world on earth.
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III. Prodigious Assault Capacity Requires A Leading, Not Bat-Away, Strategy:
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Liberals must understand the power that the conservatives’ resilience and asymmetry possesses. Fact, logic, science, and reasoning are near powerless in an emotionalized hurricane of conspiratorial lies. It is called the Gish Gallop. Battling such a stormy cavalry assault will be a losing contest if the storm walls are hastily thrown up after the hurricane has made landfall.
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Remember, only a few percent, from the central United States particularly, need to be saved from the hurricane of lies to give the Democrats an advantage over Republicans more often than not. Any electoral college changes will not help if conservatives are allowed to bring more into the eye of their hurricane. Since a lot of the conservative personality is hardwired, we must get many lengths ahead of their horse powered manure spreader to gain the advantage. The status quo on its high horse does not need to work as hard as the pony up for change challengers. Just a slew of crazy horse shit lies can be enough to trip us up.
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Finally, to make a dent in the next wave of conspiracies and lies, whether it is a whale sized Trump wave or not, we need a strategy that knocks down the falsehood shockwave before it grows into a tsunami that drags us under. There are two ways to flatten the curve. We either gather more people into our safe area and out of their hurricane of no change, or we drain their swamp of lies before they gather another storm surge.
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While I have a hardwired fondness for antagonizing my opponents, it likely contributes to polarization. Therefore, we should not anger more people in their pup tents of intense anti-interaction and anti-change. The strategy should be heavily weighted towards inclusiveness to build up the conspiracy debunking sea wall ever higher rather than hammering at the charade sharks or barbecuing the orange orca killer-of-truth whales. We cannot move forward if we are making enemies of more and more Americans who are within inches of moving our way. Expecting everyone to be as perfectly hardwired as are liberals, and progressives, like you and me, is just unreasonable and illogical.
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by Richard The Chwalek
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To learn more about the We The People system that is comprehensively inclusive and powerfully targeted at the truth, get my ebook, Our Democracy Requires An Update: A Transformational We The People System.
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