"When the dust settles, I expect the people who assess elections will tell us disinformation was key in 2024.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

"When the dust settles, I expect the people who assess elections will tell us disinformation was key in 2024. It wasn’t the economy, it was the disinformation about the economy. ...

It requires education and discernment to separate fact from fiction, and often that's lacking. That’s the problem: educating people so they can make judgments about what’s true."

~ Joyce Vance

#Trump #Republicans #fascism #cruelty #future #disinformation
/1

https://joycevance.substack.com/p/the-importance-of-information

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

A lot of people who chose to vote for Trump are now in for a rude awakening. They made their choice thinking that only someone else is going to be hurt.

They're about to find out otherwise. And this includes all those superior beings who think want to waste time now pretending that the Democratic party is the problem, and not the party determined to bring us fascism and the voters who have chosen to give the party free rein.

#Trump #Republicans #fascism #cruelty #future
/2

[jamesbritt@mastodon.social]

@wdlindsy

Substack pays Nazis.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

'An important lesson from Nazi Germany: Dumb people are more dangerous than evil people. Ignorance will destroy America like it destroyed Germany during the Nazi era."

~ Oliver Markus Molloy

Molly quotes W.E.B. DuBois:

"Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States."

#Trump #Republicans #fascism #cruelty #future
/3

https://badchoicesmakegoodstories.substack.com/p/an-important-lesson-from-nazi-germany

[lisabet8931@universeodon.com]

@wdlindsy that and voter suppression

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@jamesbritt And trolls still manage to find their way here. Go figure.

[philip_cardella@historians.social]

@wdlindsy my quibble with this (and I haven't read the whole thing yet so maybe it addresses it) is I think it deflects too much blame from white supremacy.

I absolutely agree that misinformation was key to the Trump win. No question. But misinformation is a tool. Who used the tool? White supremacists to advance white supremacy including Musk and Putin.

But--very likely also at the minimum NK and possibly China--which certainly are a differently motivated.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Lisabet8931 It's not an either-or, is it? Meanwhile, I'm determined to keep focusing on how dismal lack of education among many of my fellow citizens opens the door to very bad choices and the welcome of authoritarianism.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@philip_cardella I suspect that, as a Jewish woman living in Alabama, Joyce Vance is keenly aware of the challenge to overcome white supremacy — and that when she speaks of our willingness to embrace disinformation due to our lack of sound education, she'd factor in white supremacy as a key factor egging that willingness on.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

"The defining feature of Trump's campaign was its appeal to racism, misogyny, and white supremacy. He pushed those themes despite pleas from his advisers to focus on the economy. Having campaigned on themes of hate and division, he won decisively. The most compelling inference from those facts is that Trump's campaign themes appealed to a broad swath of the voters who supported him."

~ Robert B. Hubbell

#Trump #Republicans #fascism #cruelty #future
/4

https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/sunday-morning-break

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

"But the media is (again) sane-washing Trump's depravity. Rather than acknowledge—or even mention—his dominant campaign themes in analyzing his victory, the media insists that Trump won because Democrats are ;elitists; who somehow ;alienated' major portions of the electorate or that Democrats lost because Kamala Harris and her advisors refused to run her campaign in the manner demanded by the legacy media."

#Trump #Republicans #fascism #cruelty #future
/5

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

The media have done this persistently for some years now. By trotting out their tired (and mendacious) refrain that the Democrats are out of touch with "real Americans," the media absolve themselves for pre-emptively obeying fascist dictators in the making and abdicate their responsibility to educate us. And they have lots of willing tools among the many pretend-liberals eager to pounce on the Democratic party while pretending fascism is not the real threat.

#Trump #Republicans #fascism
/6

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

"Choosing to write stories that 'blame elitist Democrats' ignores the real story of what happened on Tuesday. That distraction normalizes the grotesque, existential threat of Trump's electoral victory. Trump could not buy more favorable and helpful coverage if he paid for those stories with Elon Musk’s billions."

~ Hubbell, ibid.

#Trump #Republicans #fascism #cruelty #future
/7

[philip_cardella@historians.social]

@wdlindsy I have very liberal friends this is like crack to. They love this theory.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

As Don Moynihan notes, while the media and their fellow travelers pile on in a big gloat fest accusing Democrats of losing support because they're too "woke" and promote identity politics,

"You will never guess who did run on trans issues: Donald Trump."

As the Harris campaign bent over backwards to de-emphasize identity politics….

#Trump #Republicans #fascism #cruelty #future
/8

https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/who-is-allowed-to-practice-identity

[vruz@mstdn.social]

@wdlindsy

Not at all. The latter is a consequence of the former.

The existential threat is possible and has happened because of the elitist Democrats, not despite of them.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@philip_cardella Of course. Many of us are so privileged that we think we can afford to pretend that when things begin getting very bad very quickly for targeted minority groups, they won't also get very bad for us. So we love playing the elitist game of pretending that the Democrats are the problem even as outright fascism looms in front of us very soon.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

"This is a lazy pre-existing [corporate media] narrative to be sold, not because of any actual analysis of the electorate. These are writers who for various reasons have committed to an anti-woke narrative. And once you have committed to that narrative, you are determined to force it into every story, no matter how misleading."

#Trump #Republicans #fascism #cruelty #future
/9

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

"What is true: Trump, and the right, are very good at taking basic respect and empathy for other humans, and portraying that as dangerous: social justice, wokeness, diversity, equity and inclusion have all been converted into terms of mockery. Trump did not win because someone you were on a zoom call with used pronouns, or Latinx, or some college grad corrected you for using the word homeless."

#Trump #Republicans #fascism #cruelty #future
/10

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@vruz Sorry, as one of those targeted by Trump and the Republicans, I don't have the luxury of pretending that the Democrats or the problem, or of wasting time and energy playing games. I intend to stay focused on the real threat to all of us. Others who have more privilege may choose to do otherwise. Not I.