Liberals "denying reality" is a really popular talking point of the right. The left supposedly can't define what a woman is, can't define what a recession is, etc. Now of course those are unintelligibly exaggerated strawmen; acknowledging that trans women exist or that high wages coupled with low unemployment should be factored into analyzing the economic state as a whole is not denying reality so much as taking more variables into consideration when pressed to answer something for political gotcha soundbites.
But I think we can all agree that declaring elections to be fraudulent and rigged with no evidence whatsoever is an example of denying reality in a pretty blatant way. However this is something people on the right are apparently comfortable with as a political strategy. For instance, AZ gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake cried foul at the election results in her state. Then she started winning. Once she took the lead and it became clear she would win the race, the insanely pathetic response from her camp was “We out-voted the fraud, we didn’t listen to what the fake news had to say.” When asked to substantiate those claims of fraud, Lake told the press that she didn’t “expect to turn you guys around,” and called them a “lost cause.”
Obviously this position is completely and utterly illogical: the idea that there was clear and massive fraud while at the same time having legitimate results in her favor makes no sense, but Republican voters just don't seem to care. They simply do not give a shit that politicians on their team are so brazenly and pathologically desperate for power that they will go as far as denying reality and straight up spit in the face of voters - just straight up mock their intelligence with bald-faced lies and explanations like this but it's like "haha, whatevs, Dems are just trying to distract from inflation." Hmm.
I bring this up because what happens if this starts becoming a really popular and widespread tactic used not just by Trump and his cult of minions, but all over the world such as we've seen with Jair Bolsonaro recently in Brazil? What if Democrats started doing it? (Pointing out disinformation campaigns to influence elections doesn't count.) I mean I know denying election results is nothing new; it happens in third world countries all the time. What I'm asking is what if U.S. voters continue to legitimize or simply ignore and disregard the nonexistent claims of fraud though? Are we watering down the accusation to the point where it means nothing, and if so couldn't that be dangerous?
With all of the Alex Jones stuff in the news again recently I've been thinking about how this man and others make massive profits in the conspiracy theory business. During the middle of Jones' trial with Sandy Hook parents recently, he couldn't help but go on his show and mock the trial's legitimacy, mock the jury's intelligence and suggest the judge + outcome were all predetermined plants, etc. I thought to myself is this guy friggin insane? Why the hell would he do that knowing it would play so horribly in court? And then I realized DUH, because it's more profitable for him to keep his conspiracy customers brainwashed. Who cares if he has to pay ~50 million in damages? (Hopefully more with additional lawsuits.) He's worth upward of 200 million, and perpetuating these lies without backing down ensures his conspiracy cash cow keeps producing. So there's no incentive for Alex Jones to give any relief to the grieving families he's tortured and lied about; there's no reason for him to back down, admit the truth and stop manipulating people.
This brings me to what I feel like is a really scary state of the world. There has always been government secrecy, there has always been bias in the press, but we seem to be in unprecedented territory as far as the widespread popularity of conspiracies, at least post Information Age. It's not just about fringe topics anymore or things we can't easily substantiate such as the moon landing or some dumb ass story about Bill Gates committing genocide in third world countries. People don't accept anything these days. A school could be shot up with a bunch of kids dying, it could be filmed, there could be witnesses, there could be a physical location where you go and see the damage right in front of your eyes - yet tens of millions of people are simply like "NOPE! FAKE!" because charismatic people like Trump and Alex Jones say so.
Isn't this a bit more problematic than Democrats mincing words about what a "recession" is? Isn't this a bit more consequential than someone insisting they are male when they were born with a vagina? How would it affect anybody else's day or anyone else's life if I were to decide that I want to go by the name Daniel and cut off my tits? Who would I be hurting? Alex Jones is actually hurting people. Election deniers are actively brainwashing people solely and specifically to bolster their own popularity and power.
I wonder if/when this will ever be considered a big deal by conservatives, and if not, why not? If they don't mind lack of evidence for election fraud then why demand more proof of climate change? I feel like having faith in institutions such as the FBI or New York Times, which is biased AF but includes redactions and corrections vs. people in the media like Alex Jones that straight up disregard the facts and with whom there is zero expectation of substantial evidence or accountability is a bit different.
What if heavily armed minority groups or militias refuse to accept the results of the next election? Theoretically everyone who believes the election was actually stolen from Trump should be shooting members of Congress and killing them (like they wanted to do on January 6) since the whole point of the 2A is to fight against that kind of tyranny. I think the fact nobody is really doing that and the Oath Keepers et. al. have backed down says quite a bit. But what does it say about the U.S. generally if citizens become comfortable accepting lies about how elections are rigged before they even occur and regardless of what the outcomes are?
I feel like the fact that candidates are still beholden to the rich, still spend billions on campaigns, still try their hardest to gerrymander in their favor and Republicans go out of their way to make it more difficult for minorities to vote proves that voting is still pretty important. But who cares about facts like that when we can just say "it's rigged!" and move on like rigged elections are NBD and to be expected? Who cares about facts when they can just be ignored and denied? I feel like everyone should just deny anything they don't like for funsies. The next time someone tells me gas is expensive I'm just going to call them names and swear to god they're lying because I only pay $2 a gallon. How can they prove me wrong? With a receipt? Yeah okay, as if hackers can't manipulate receipts. Open your eyes...
