I really liked this breakdown of stolen-election-believers by type. He doesn’t lump them all as die-hard Trumpers.
So far, so predictable. But speaking as a cynical observer of the Trump era, one feature of November did crack my jaded shell a bit: not his behavior or the system’s response, but the sheer scale of the belief among conservatives that the election was really stolen, measured not just in polling data but in conversations and arguments, online and in person, with people I would not have expected to embrace it.
I have a relative by marriage that this whole category describes perfectly. Through several conversations, I asked sincerely “Do you really, truly believe these things?” which were a hodgepodge of bits and pieces of things that weren’t actually connected at all. Her response was “Absolutely! You don’t?”.
At that point It was no longer a conversation. It was more like a kid showing you their matchbox collection.
What’s interesting to me is the demographics for sharing false information. It’s true that education is all important and it should be covered in schools etc as part of rational thought. But, it seems that older generations share much more false information and there’s at least one study backing that up.
That’s too long a phrase to out on a t-shirt, but I’d wear it.
Depends on how old the “older” generation is I suppose. Older people in my experience have a much stronger radar for bullshit, as well as having lived through some legitimately scary times with the Cold War, Nam, and all. But they can’t seem to get this internet thing. It’s like it scrambles their common sense circuits or something.
Where? Nobody has listed any. Not one. Not one person has brought up a single scandal though I have asked specifically, now too many times to count. No one even bothered to make up a fake scandal. No one even said “Russia!” I expected at least one “Russia!”
What exactly is this ‘false’ information you are generically labeling as false being perpetuated by an entire demographic you arrogantly dismiss as intrinsically stupid?
The specific article I read (perhaps not what tails1 read) was about conspiracy theories. I have read a few of these articles, as I find this stuff interesting. Belief in conspiracy theories (specifically about Covid being a planned event) and education level, political affiliation, race and gender was looked at by Pew in this one.
For this particular one (Covid being planned), older adults were less likely to think that it was true or likely true and less likely to think it is false (perhaps more unsure is accurate). Significant differences between Dems and GoP supporters in believing Covid was a planned event (which doesn’t surprise me).
That’s what I was referring to. I used the word ‘seems’ as it is only one study. There’s also other demographic splits mentioned in the study. Such as republicans more likely to share fake news than democrats.
Okay, some people believe in conspiracy theories. I’d like to see a time when this wasn’t true. I have a few of my own, for which I am awaiting evidence to present should they come to fruition.
But how can you blame these people for thinking what they think? This whole covid situation has been and is currently being exploited to the max. And the result is the biggest power grab and biggest transfer of wealth in recent history. People want to know why and nobody is giving them answers. The powers that be are simply saying, shut up, bend your knee and take it.
This causes an information vacuum. If you are taking actions that are causing tremendous suffering and you don’t give them sufficient answers, they start to think things.
If you owned a business that sells, I don’t know, uh, T-shirts. The government has ordered you to close for a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks turns in to 8-9 months, meanwhile Walmart, Target, Amazon are all selling the shit out of T-shirts and in the meantime you are losing your shirt. And if you dare ask why, they target you, call you names and sometimes even arrest you if you dare to sell a T-shirt.
People’s lives are being ruined. 60% of small businesses are closed permanently. And now, we’re going to dismiss these people as kooks?
The reactions to covid have been far more devastating than the disease itself, it’s unjust and people are left to fend for themselves. Do you blame them for thinking Bezos or Pelosi or Garcetti, etc. All these people who strangled these people, while they themselves have flaunted the rules and haven’t sufficiently explained the ‘reasoning’ behind it, are crazy, stupid, uneducated for thinking something is up?
When you treat people like crap, eventually they are going to react. And they are going to have a reason for their reaction.
I think it’s shitty to disparage these people who have suffered so much. I think it’s shitty to crap on people who have lost everything because of the government and have gotten no answers as to why it happened.
My conspiracy is there is a reckoning coming. I don’t know how or when, but it’s going to be soon and it’s going to be ugly. You can only push people down for so long.
That’s a prediction, not a conspiracy. The problem with those interacting with @pat is that he doesn’t understand relevant words. Like conspiracy and scandal in this instance.
There is a difference between suspecting something and believing it. Conspiracy theories are hypothesis. Hypothesis usually make some sense otherwise they likely wouldn’t be tested. What people are doing is running with the hypothesis without the testing or data to back it and calling it fact (because it makes sense to them). That is the problem.
People have believed silly things all of history. Sometimes it does no harm, sometimes it does a lot of harm (sometimes it is in the middle). Sometimes it can have a benefit too. I think we would be better off as a species if we didn’t take hypothesis as theory (if we placed value on knowing our knowledge is true).
Why do you think people believe these sorts of things, in the large numbers that they appear to? Is it because they are evil and stupid? Or just stupid? I cannot read their minds either, but I am pretty sure it has to do with being kicked, lied to, and forced to endure undo suffering for reasons that are insufficient.
People are suffering. Suffering badly and continually being forced to suffer over edicts that are suffocating and in some cases, literally killing them and all they get is “…because covid.”
A disease we know to be bad, but not overwhelmingly deadly to 99.83% (give or take a few hundredths) of the population. A disease that even the WHO, who are a bunch of commies, has and continues to state that lock-downs are a course of last resort. Yeah, there is a glaring line between reality and the science and these life crushing orders from the state despots desperate to hang-on to their power.
And when there is an information gap, people will fill that information gap up.
These new lock-downs do not make any sense, people are seeking for order out of the chaos and will settle for an explanation that makes some sort of sense. Like, these American oligarchs are just trying to squeeze every last penny from people who already don’t have much else to lose.
Put yourself in the position of these people who are suffering. Have a little heart.
Oh my Hell, @pat…could you have posted a WORSE Strawman?
Many: Trump is literally trampling on one of the Pillars of a Democracy…voting in a Democratic Republic; making claims of widespread Voter Fraud, with an election that was stolen from him. The Nation should be up in arms at this travesty!
Pat: But COVID! People’s lives are being ruined. 60% of small businesses are closed permanently! And now, we’re going to dismiss these people as kooks? A reckoning is coming!
Again…what the hell, @pat? PLEASE enlighten me what belief in one of the most overt scams and lies directed at one of the foundations of American Democracy has to do with the suffering of individuals during this Pandemic? (Left AND right, by the way…)
And speaking of left and right…you list Pelosi and other left-leaning/Liberal people as “benefitting” from it all…but not Trump and his family? (Look it up for yourself). OR Purdue and Loeffler in Georgia (and other GOP members of Congress with questionable stock trades (perfectly timed, by the way) to benefit from COVID when many of the American people were still in the dark?
I couldn’t disagree with you more. It’s sad to say, but many people do not want and need answers…they want confirmation of what they have already chosen to believe…and to look for someone to blame. And when you do that; you become ripe for the rantings of a demagogue (and yes, clearly mad-man) like Trump.
I don’t necessarily think it is an intelligence thing. I’ve learned to evaluate claims more skeptically over time. I don’t think my IQ has changed much during that time. I think it is perhaps a lack of education in the area of evaluating information, perhaps a bit of lack of effort by many to evaluate information too.
Perhaps some value truth more than others. Perhaps wanting to believe something comes into play as well. People believe things for a lot of reasons. Unfortunately, many of the reasons are not sound reasons to believe something.
I have empathy for these people. Them suffering doesn’t make a conspiracy theory true though either.
How are these two related? So, COVID is causing suffering so therefore those that are suffering are now believing conspiracy theories they otherwise wouldn’t have?
I therefore answered according to that framing. And you’re accusing me of strawmaning? What strawman did I introduce?
Then you produce this rant:
…to which, I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Are you talking about the elections, election-fraud, covid, the senate run-off in GA, Pelosi, American Democracy? And what does that have to do with what I said in regards to the proposition that a whole bunch of people have crazy theories about covid? And somehow you infer me to be the crazy one.
Further, there is still a question on the table whose answer has never been given, that has nothing to do with this, that neither you nor anybody else has provided an answer for. What scandal has the President been involved with that is the result of his own hand?
Sure. Interesting study, and I was about to peg the “older” generation as 65+ but didn’t want to in case you had something else in mind. I think most of the people in that demographic don’t quite get the internet–you have some savvy users but many of them seem to the of internet news as the same news sources they were used to pre-internet era… Which is to say they give too much credence to it.
I don’t have a study, just my own observations based on interactions with older (non-research) people.
It might, but I’d be careful with that. No idea who Pew surveyed and I tend to distrust surveys, but there IS a bias against conservatives in academia. So if they looked at academics and the question is phrased in a way that talks about personal experience, then it’s possible.
More generally though, I think there are issues with any poll like that.
IQ is pretty much an immutable characteristic. One can only move it within 5 points, approximately on average.
Okay, fair enough. Would you agree then, that there is a pretty wide information gap in places like CA for instance, where the governor gives edicts, doesn’t follow them himself, but with the force of enforcement mandates others do. I think it’s a fair question when you have 2 tier justice system acting out in real-time, ‘what the hell is going on around here?’
And perhaps they answer them with conspiracies. As for me, Gov. Newsome being an asshole, despot who gets off on people suffering is as good an answer as any at this point. Because, certainly science does not support that he can do whatever the hell he wants, while he subjugates others to unfair rules that are killing off their livelihoods.
No, I don’t think these people are crazy or stupid. I think they are desperate. And God help Newsome if they band together under a common cause.
