Last night's Daily Show video interviewing Trump supporters about their "evidence" for wacky conspiracy theories, coincides so beautifully with this Desert Beacon post, it seemed a shame not to put them together. -- eds.
“George Templeton Strong, a prominent New York lawyer and diarist, wrote that Lincoln was “a barbarian, Scythian, yahoo, or gorilla.” Henry Ward Beecher, the Connecticut-born preacher and abolitionist, often ridiculed Lincoln in his newspaper, The Independent(New York), rebuking him for his lack of refinement and calling him “an unshapely man.” Other Northern newspapers openly called for his assassination long before John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger. He was called a coward, “an idiot,” and “the original gorilla” by none other than the commanding general of his armies, George McClellan.” [Atlantic]
The descendants of those who passionately vilified Lincoln are with us today. They become particularly noticeable during times when U.S. politics are polarized, polemicized, and full of more propaganda than factual content.
Case in point: Those “30,000 missing emails” on Secretary Clinton’s server. There are, as we speak, some Internet trolls repeating the claim that Clinton ‘lost’ 30,000 emails during her tenure in the State Department. They’ve got the story bass-ackwards.
“So in 2014, Clinton’s lawyers combed through the private server and turned over about 30,000 work-related emails to the State Department and deleted the rest, which Clinton said were about personal matters.” [Politifact]
The rest of the FBI investigation?
Of the tens of thousands of emails investigators reviewed, 113 contained classified information, and three of those had classification markers. FBI Director James Comey has said Clinton should have known that some of the 113 were classified, but others she might have understandably missed.Comey said the Justice Department shouldn’t prosecute Clinton because there isn’t enough evidence that she intentionally mishandled classified information. FBI investigators didn’t find vast quantities of exposed classified material, and they also did not turn up evidence that Clinton intended to be disloyal to the United States or that she intended to obstruct justice. [Politifact]
So, the entire “scandal” doesn’t concern 30,000 emails, those were handed over early in the game; and, it boils down to 3 emails which can’t be shown to have been intentionally mishandled. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that the investigations were entirely political, entirely overblown, and total malarkey but that’s not the point. No matter how often the story is fact checked [MMA] [MMA] [Slate] [Star Telegram] [MJ] [WaPo] it is still being pumped by the passionate.
Those in that Basket of Deplorables doing the arm-work to keep the air in that story intended to cause “distrust” of Secretary Clinton are committed to their version – no matter how untrue, no matter how politicized because it’s their version. Long advised by right wing radio hosts to distrust the media, distrust the ‘establishment,’ and to distrust anything other than the version of events as dispensed by the hosts, they will now easily slip into dismissing any explication which doesn’t fit their personal narrative. In simpler terms, they don’t care if a statement isn’t true – they’ll find a way to make it that way.
We could add another ten links in the paragraph above to articles debunking the email story (or any other tale for that matter) and the emotional voter will dismiss all as “liberal media.” Not that they have any idea what the ‘liberal media’ might be – it’s just that they identify as conservative, and the media isn’t enabling their narratives garnered from right wing sources. Therefore, the media (having been described as liberal on AM radio) must be so.
If a cavalier dismissal of conflicting information isn’t sufficient, there’s always the conspiratorial element – the ‘liberal’ media must be discredited because “they” are always “hiding something from us.” Both the Distrust Element and the Conspiratorial Element make up a portion of that Basket of Deplorables – the racists, the misogynists, the bigots, the Islamophobes, the intolerant – which drive some of the support for Trump’s candidacy.
It doesn’t matter how many times the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or any other major news outlet debunks and fact checks Trump’s characterizations of people and events. These people just aren’t into facts.
Another factor is the capacity of people to filter what they are hearing. Did Donald Trump say that President Barack Obama was born in the U.S. and is therefore a legitimate president? Well, they may say slyly, that’s what he said because he had to say it, he just doesn’t really truly mean it. Interesting that this analysis comes from people who like Trump because “he tells it like it is.”
This isn’t of course to argue that Trump’s 40% support is coming solely from the Deplorables and the Deniers – Secretary Clinton herself acknowledged that there are those for whom our economic system isn’t working. They’re frustrated, fearful, and in need of assistance not forthcoming from our current political systems. They’ll vote “against the establishment” whatever that might be (such as Bush, Kasich, etc.) because they want some form of change.
Nor should we forget that there are those who will vote for anyone on the top of the ticket with an R. There are yellow dog Republicans as well as Democrats.
Hence, this election in 2016 will come down to TURNOUT. Good old fashioned door knocking, phone calling, rides to the polls, TURNOUT. We can be assured that the Deplorable element will be there, as they were for the mid-terms, and the disaffected will arrive. It’s a matter of no small importance that Democrats make the same effort to GET OUT THE VOTE.
Crossposted at Desert Beacon
