this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2024
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I don't think the audience Vance's message is supposed to resonate with cares about being fact-checked, or facts in general.
Trump doesn't care if he's being fact-checked because facts don't matter to him, and his voters have the same outlook.
It's actually worse.
The core MAGA people are utterly convinced that 'fact checking' is literally the moderators lying to prevent Republicans from saying what is actually true.
They are way, way, waaaaay down the rabbit hole of the lugenpresse, I mean fake news, that basically any time the figures they adore/worship are ever fact checked, well actually that is evidence of a vast liberal media conspiracy against them.
They actively despise fact checking, and when it happens, this triggers their conspiracism harder.
The reason why Vance made a show of crying about fact checking was partly due to personal anger/embarrassment/whatever, but the other part is that he knows that complaining about it is appealing to core Trump voters.
And the fact that Lügenpresse has even come up at all is freaking wild. That's something which should send a chill down the spine of anyone with even a whiff of understanding of modern history.
That they're down the rabbit hole about it should be impossible. The whole idea should have been political suicide. I take it as evidence of the extreme control years and years of Republican propaganda has on its constituents. They not only vote against their own interests, but they now actively stand against democracy. Absolutely insane.
For clarity: Vance did not literally say lugenpresse or fake news, he just performatively complained about fact checking.
I am the one saying lugenpresse.
...Because one of the many fascist elements of Trump's cult is his repeated refrain of 'fake news', which is exactly the same tactic as Hitler and many other fascists have used in their rise to power.
Again, Vance did not literally say lugenpresse at the debate.
Personal Aside
But uh yeah, in general, widespread American conservative adoption of fascist culture and talking points is not surprising to me.
These people it appeals to the most are narcissistic assholes who have largely failed in life, and are fueled by raging against their inability to achieve the American Dream(tm) ... and then that rage is directed toward anything that conservative hate mongers can blame for that failure.
I grew up in a religious, conservative household and had to do a considerable amount of research and investigation to learn it was all bullshit, then learn how to argue to be able to refute it, and then expend basically all my wit, energy and resources to escape these toxic people.
Incurious people who grow up in that setting often never really have any inkling to challenge any of it and are basically always ostracized, negged or disowned for doing so.
They just get more and more indoctrinated, culminating in basically QAnon/MAGA worldview: Just make up a narrative that makes you superior righteous and truly knowledgeable , and all your ideological enemies extremely brainwashed at best, literal, actual demons (reptillians?) at worst.
My dad went from making me listen to Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage every time we were in the car together, to, last time I spoke with him, attempting to convince me that Tom Hank's son actually was a pedophile who raped and ate babies for their adrenochrome.
The... more and more time I spend away from my family, the more and more I talk, either in person or online, with other people, the ... more and more I realize just how absurdly insane my life experience has been, that I can best describe myself as a traumatized survivor of it.
Its taken me around two decades to escape the constant physical, mental and financial trauma inflicted upon me by the narcissistic, moronic hypocrites that raised me, taken me two decades to undo all the brainwashing.
Its a cult. American conservatism is a cult of rage and hatred.
That's why it isn't surprising to me that it finally went mask off with Trump. It's always been there seething beneath the surface of begrudging civility.
You just have to have come from it, been born into it, and then escaped, to know how bad it has been, and still is.
It is not a stretch to say that Lügenpresse is a key talking point of the Trump platform. Was the exact word said at the debate? No. Has Trump (and potentially Vance) called the press liars when it comes to the Trump campaign? Yes, on many occasions.
We shouldn't split hairs about semantics in the face of fascism.
When did they mention the Lügenpresse?
Ah ty, I thought they meant that the republicans said it, which - even when considering how surreal some of their takes are - would have surprised me.
Btw while I'm at it: I never got how half of the USA can ignore all these things and vote for Trump, but this article captured it very well (got recommended to me on Lemmy)
https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about
To all US-americans out there: please remember that the only realistic way to stop Trump is by voting for Harris.
The parallels with Weimar Germany are stark. It Happened Here.
I should be getting my mail-in ballot pretty soon.
Unfortunately, since I'm in California my presidential vote won't matter, but I'll vote for whoever the most progressive candidate is for every position, as always. It's often two Democrats, so I can't just go by the letter by their name to know who that is.
but, like, also make sure you're not spoiling a more popular Dem if they're at any risk of losing to a GOP
Usually the top two people from the primaries are the ones on the ballot, so it's just one Democrat or the other.
...seriously?
This is exactly what they are saying on a few conservative subreddits I saw today. That the moderators fact checked him about migrants, then when he tried to explain some detail that explained everything they cut his mic.
As if Vance hasn’t famously been lying about the topic for weeks and endangering a whole community.
I'd say it's even worse than that. Part of the culture on the right is that "yeah, it's a lie but that's fine". Even proving they lie beyond a shadow of a doubt doesn't dissuade the core, because they have been conditioned to take lies in stride, so long as it agrees with them.
You have Vance going on and saying the lies are necessary because unless they lie about Haitians and paint them as barbaric savages then people will fail to recognize them as the barbaric savages that everyone knows "those people" really are, even if the facts don't support that. That maybe they can't accurately state how they are savages or they can't support it, it "sounds right" and that's good enough because surely they are up to something like that, because they are "those people".
You have people in their camp like Scott Adams spinning things as "directionally true", again, they may not be actually true, but common sense tells everyone Haitians are bad people, so it's good enough.
Speaking of common sense, Vance said during the debate that experts are explicitly people to disregard and to follow that "common sense". Expertise, research, honoring the facts, all these are bad things because "common sense" knows better (so long as "common sense" agrees with whatever Trump camp feels, if your "common sense" disagrees, well then you don't have common sense or you are somehow evil).
Like the one "outright lie" they caught Walz in, that 35 years ago he was in Hong Kong in August instead of June, Walz seemed genuinely ashamed about that pretty mild scenario. Meanwhile Vance just effortlessly carries on without a hint of caring about being called out on anything.
JD Vance actually said that it doesn't matter because, "It's how it feels."
This mirrors almost exactly what the Alex Jones staff said during depositions. It didn't matter if they had facts. What mattered is that the alternative felt true and they would report on that.
I think Lindsey Graham said the same thing after the RNC back in 2016. It's been going on forever, but that's the first time I remember one of them saying it out loud. Paraphrasing, "I'm a politician. You can have your facts, I'll take people's feelings every time."
I mean, giving him a very very large margin of doubt, there's a part of this that makes sense. Like you're dealing with people and you need to understand their feelings.
BUT if those feelings are so far divorced from facts that they think that immigrants are eating pets, you stand up to your constituents with heart and concern and tell them why they are wrong.
Kellyanne Conway, senior member of the 2016 Trump admin, wanted people to look into Trump's heart for the truth:
That's soooo much worse! She has to know that right?
Facts are a variable to some. These types are always trying to bend things around and back peddling when they encounter a situation that they can't lie their way out of. Fact checking is to them unfair since their made up facts/lies should be okay as far as they are concerned.