When did the conservative right decide: We're making up our own reality?

Exodus 3:1-14 Moses at the Burning Bush

Probably along the lines of the same time when liberals were yelling at everyone to “BELIEVE THE SCIENCE” while at the same time insisting “TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN!”

OP exactly.

Op, you are correct, but this has been happening for years now. I actually think this is the biggest challenge we are facing as a country, There is an entire media ecosystem and echo chamber that legitimizes a whole host of dishonest puckey. I’m not sure there is anything we can do but race them to the bottom.

separately, while I generally loathe whataboutism, r2 makes a very good point. The ability of OUR side to call out hokum without being pilloried will be critical to any progressive turnaround. Honesty about things like transgenderism will be critical to winning back voters who should be left but have instead left the party.

Politics are two groups of people each armed with their own set of self described facts yelling at each other from across a divide.

One side though has the true facts. And surprisingly it’s always the side I am on.

R2: typical rightwing reactionary bullshit and hyperbole.

Years ago, I took a government class in college taught by a GOP ex-congressman. He made a very telling statement that politics is all about perception, not reality.

Turns out he was one of the architects of that strategy--he was just shocked when it went from perception to their own reality.

[quote] he ability of OUR side to call out hokum without being pilloried will be critical to any progressive turnaround. Honesty about things like transgenderism will be critical to winning back voters who should be left but have instead left the party.

So when we were losing the gay marriage battle, we should have just given up?

What actually happens is society resets in a progressive direction and the right completely forgets about its former bogeymen and moves on with new ones. Transgenderism won't even be an issue in the next elections, because it would mean the GOP didn't fix it.

They've always made up their own reality. It's just that the MSM lets republiqans get away with it.

In 2016, before the election, social media platforms rolled out their curated algorithms, replacing the more linear feed. This created all the echo chambers people live in now. The election exacerbated this trend.

The legit news, of course, is obsessed with "showing both sides."

I remember reading in the New Republic during the W. presidency that it was a shock to the political class when they realized that there was no end to the lies they could tell to an audience receptive to their message.

But in the Trump era the lies have become an actual alternate reality. Black is white. Up is down.

If anyone tells you to "do your own research", realize you are talking to a fascist zombie.

The resurgence of far right and populism all over the world is, in large part, driven by the feeling that neoliberal capitalism and Francis Fukuyama's post-history world order, Davos-style trickle-down humanist enterprises, etc, haven't really served well large swaths of humanity. But, the thing is: the way modern world and its economy are set up, there's very little alternative to neoliberal capitalism, particularly since even those who complain about it enjoy the nice aspects of hyperconsumerist lifestyle it has brought about. Even someone in, say, Tajikistan is consuming the American popular culture, is craving the signifiers of social mobility, luxury goods, the ability to travel and post about it on Instagram, etc. So, you have that frustration that you may not afford it and blame "the global elites" but, at the same time, you don't have a viable alternative in the economic sense since you can have that lifestyle only in the neoliberal capitalist economy. And, since you can't do much about it, you focus the attention of the great unwashed on the other aspects of the society which have changed in the post-Cold War world: social progress, culture wars, etc. It's also much easier to invent narratives in those areas since talking about economy is talking about numbers, statistical trends, economic indicators and so on; basically, the things most people would listen to for 5 seconds before tuning out.

What R13 is basically saying is that late stage capitalism isn't working for huge swaths of the population. They are swinging from party to party hoping for a solution.

Republicans have always gaslit people with 'what if' scenarios, scare mongering and name-calling (SOCIALIST!!).

The worst part is that there is no memory of it - and journalists don't bring up their track record.

Do you really want to live next to negroes or have your kids go to school with them?

Gay marriage is going to be the downfall of society - you just watch.

Women working will destroy the family.

On and on - go back in time, every scare tactic is now met with 'well, it was a different time then' - but they were proven WRONG.

Also Republicans don't necessarily want facts, they just want to confuse people with alternative false counterpoints. If there's SOMETHING they can believe against a policy (universal healthcare for example), then it won't get the support it deserves.

PR and propoganda at its finest.

[quote] journalists don't bring up their track record.

So true, They acted like drags queens and trans people really were some big problem and not bogeymen invented by the GOP to win an election