I don't buy that 76million+ Americans were so misinformed, hoodwinked whatever term you like to use that in order to solve their problem they came to the conclusion a vote for Trump was the answer. That would be one of the most successful information campaigns of any kind in history and even with X wading in full on MAGA it doesn't explain it. As you say in the article these 76 million were free to vote as they saw fit. Think about that for one minute. After all the news coverage of Trump, all the misogyny all the civil and criminal law suits are you saying those 76m+ just didn't have the right information to base their decision on. Or they could not sufficiently analyse the whirlwind of information to make a proper choice. It does not take a genius to know Trump and his acolytes are moral vacuums. Watch any news bulletin from 2020 onwards and that is plain for all with eyes and a brain to see. I think something moreb profound is going on. The US political and justice system no longer serves the purpose it was designed for. Justice is a tragic joke unless you are a rich white male. That's why Trump despite civil and criminal judgements against him is still in a position to appoint Matt Gaetz. Any system that imprisons and executes so many innocents ...knowing full well they are innocent... ii morally corrupt. And the participants in it know it is morally corrupt in this respect. The political system is like the proverbial camel....so ripe for manipulation it should be torn up and rebuilt from the bottom up. Everything in these absolutely core systems screams corruptionand lack of moral force so when 76m+ users of that system vote for a moral cul de sac to lead them no one should excuse or explain it away as voters being misinformed.
Disinformation and outright lies are endemic in the right wing media bubble here in the US. Perversely some of that leaches into the mainstream, so even people who don’t look for right wing/nationalist policies are significantly exposed to intentional deception. Voters in the US have been marinating in lies at least since the rise of Fox (cable “news”) and the right wing has been driven into ever more extreme positions.
The Republican Party of today bears no resemblance to the one that most voters grew up with and yet many, perhaps most, right leaning voters continue to support the Republican Party regardless of what it now represents. They now believe deeply in utterly false narratives because Fox and the fake-christian fascists tell them to.
It is clearly impossible to have a functional Democracy where people make informed decisions based on rational opinions of what both political parties are offering when one party simply traffics in lies. In my opinion, the US right wing is the greatest danger to the west and all liberal democracies, because the right wing in other democracies learn from the US.
Great article. This isn't new in that newspapers have been doing the same for years, and then television/radio, but social media has made it exponentially worse. Never had the quote "a lie can be halfway round the world before the truth can get its boots on" been truer. The lie can be instantly across the globe now.
Thank you this is very helpful in understanding the impact of Twitter/X. I think this combined with Oligarchs, Russian influence, poor media all contribute to manipulating the narrative for the benefit of those who only want to support their own needs and not those of the people they are claiming to represent.
Public Health Practitioners and others must call out misinformation when they see it.
But most of them are employed in the public sector - in the UK, in: UKHSA (where they have been made into civil servants, where they used to be NHS staff and thus not as directly controlled by politicians); local government (ditto); or state-funded universities. I don't know how they will be able to speak the truth. They have already parrotted government misinformation (eg Covid-19 was not spread by airborne routes).
But on reflection the most important reason for Harris’s defeat was the Democrats’ association with identity politics, which alienated independent voters, and Gaza, which depressed turnout on the Left.
I also think we shouldn’t underestimate the role of the pandemic in undermining incumbents everywhere. That’s why Trump lost by the narrowest of margins in 2020; and Harris could not escape Biden’s legacy of high inflation fuelled by the pandemic and the energy crisis
I don't buy that 76million+ Americans were so misinformed, hoodwinked whatever term you like to use that in order to solve their problem they came to the conclusion a vote for Trump was the answer. That would be one of the most successful information campaigns of any kind in history and even with X wading in full on MAGA it doesn't explain it. As you say in the article these 76 million were free to vote as they saw fit. Think about that for one minute. After all the news coverage of Trump, all the misogyny all the civil and criminal law suits are you saying those 76m+ just didn't have the right information to base their decision on. Or they could not sufficiently analyse the whirlwind of information to make a proper choice. It does not take a genius to know Trump and his acolytes are moral vacuums. Watch any news bulletin from 2020 onwards and that is plain for all with eyes and a brain to see. I think something moreb profound is going on. The US political and justice system no longer serves the purpose it was designed for. Justice is a tragic joke unless you are a rich white male. That's why Trump despite civil and criminal judgements against him is still in a position to appoint Matt Gaetz. Any system that imprisons and executes so many innocents ...knowing full well they are innocent... ii morally corrupt. And the participants in it know it is morally corrupt in this respect. The political system is like the proverbial camel....so ripe for manipulation it should be torn up and rebuilt from the bottom up. Everything in these absolutely core systems screams corruptionand lack of moral force so when 76m+ users of that system vote for a moral cul de sac to lead them no one should excuse or explain it away as voters being misinformed.
Disinformation and outright lies are endemic in the right wing media bubble here in the US. Perversely some of that leaches into the mainstream, so even people who don’t look for right wing/nationalist policies are significantly exposed to intentional deception. Voters in the US have been marinating in lies at least since the rise of Fox (cable “news”) and the right wing has been driven into ever more extreme positions.
The Republican Party of today bears no resemblance to the one that most voters grew up with and yet many, perhaps most, right leaning voters continue to support the Republican Party regardless of what it now represents. They now believe deeply in utterly false narratives because Fox and the fake-christian fascists tell them to.
It is clearly impossible to have a functional Democracy where people make informed decisions based on rational opinions of what both political parties are offering when one party simply traffics in lies. In my opinion, the US right wing is the greatest danger to the west and all liberal democracies, because the right wing in other democracies learn from the US.
Great article. This isn't new in that newspapers have been doing the same for years, and then television/radio, but social media has made it exponentially worse. Never had the quote "a lie can be halfway round the world before the truth can get its boots on" been truer. The lie can be instantly across the globe now.
Thank you this is very helpful in understanding the impact of Twitter/X. I think this combined with Oligarchs, Russian influence, poor media all contribute to manipulating the narrative for the benefit of those who only want to support their own needs and not those of the people they are claiming to represent.
Excellent explanation for how the misinformation and radicalization of young men perpetuates
Thanks again Christina. We have a big fight on our hands.
Public Health Practitioners and others must call out misinformation when they see it.
But most of them are employed in the public sector - in the UK, in: UKHSA (where they have been made into civil servants, where they used to be NHS staff and thus not as directly controlled by politicians); local government (ditto); or state-funded universities. I don't know how they will be able to speak the truth. They have already parrotted government misinformation (eg Covid-19 was not spread by airborne routes).
I agree that Musk and disinformation was an important factor in Trump’s victory - I made a similar point in my post on the “red-pilling” of America.
https://open.substack.com/pub/markhonigsbaum/p/what-just-happened?r=rgoak&utm_medium=ios
But on reflection the most important reason for Harris’s defeat was the Democrats’ association with identity politics, which alienated independent voters, and Gaza, which depressed turnout on the Left.
I also think we shouldn’t underestimate the role of the pandemic in undermining incumbents everywhere. That’s why Trump lost by the narrowest of margins in 2020; and Harris could not escape Biden’s legacy of high inflation fuelled by the pandemic and the energy crisis