People wonder how Trump manages to maintain even his 38% approval rate, being the embarrassment that he is. WaPo takes a deep dive into the ecosystem of lies that continues to support him.
‘Nothing on this page is real’: How lies become truth in online America
He had launched his new website on Facebook during the 2016 presidential campaign as a practical joke among friends — a political satire site started by Blair and a few other liberal bloggers who wanted to make fun of what they considered to be extremist ideas spreading throughout the far right. In the last two years on his page, America’s Last Line of Defense, Blair had made up stories about California instituting sharia, former president Bill Clinton becoming a serial killer, undocumented immigrants defacing Mount Rushmore, and former president Barack Obama dodging the Vietnam draft when he was 9. “Share if you’re outraged!” his posts often read, and thousands of people on Facebook had clicked “like” and then “share,” most of whom did not recognize his posts as satire. Instead, Blair’s page had become one of the most popular on Facebook among Trump-supporting conservatives over 55.
“Nothing on this page is real,” read one of the 14 disclaimers on Blair’s site, and yet in the America of 2018 his stories had become real, reinforcing people’s biases, spreading onto Macedonian and Russian fake news sites, amassing an audience of as many 6 million visitors each month who thought his posts were factual....
In a good month, the advertising revenue from his website earned him as much as $15,000...
The reporter then tracks down one of those readers to see exactly who is reading stuff like this and not being able to bring even the most minimal of critical faculties to bear on what they are reading.
Enter 76-year-old Shirley Chapian, retiree and Pahrump, Nevada trailer-park dweller — just one of millions getting up in the morning and clicking onto their Facebook news feed.
“Click LIKE if you believe we must stop Sharia Law from coming to America before it’s too late,” read the first item, and she clicked “like.”
“Share to help END the ongoing migrant invasion!” read another, and she clicked “share.”...
most items came directly from political groups Chapian had chosen to follow: “Free Speech Patriots,” “Taking Back America,” “Ban Islam,” “Trump 2020” and “Rebel Life.” Each political page published several posts each day directly into Chapian’s feed, many of which claimed to be “BREAKING NEWS.”
On her computer the attack against America was urgent and unrelenting. Liberals were restricting free speech. Immigrants were storming the border and casting illegal votes. Politicians were scheming to take away everyone’s guns. “The second you stop paying attention, there’s another travesty underway in this country,” Chapian once wrote, in her own Facebook post, so she had decided to always pay attention, sometimes scrolling and sharing for hours at a time.
“BREAKING: Democrat mega-donor accused of sexual assault!!!”
“Is Michelle Obama really dating Bruce Springsteen?”
“Iowa Farmer Claims Bill Clinton had Sex with Cow during ‘Cocaine Party.’ ”
She, and millions like her, took it all in as the truth. And worse — the truth that was being hidden from them by the real promulgators of fake news, the mainstream media.
And this, the reporter points out, is a woman who has a college education, worked in a professional field during her working life, lived mostly in cities before retiring, including in Europe, and was a member of the National Organization for Women from the 1980s.
Whatever it is that's happened to her critical thinking, she's done it to herself by choosing to enclose herself in the racist, sexist, xenophobic bubble of right-wing media.
I wonder what her response might be to the Washington Post article. I suppose she might not even want to read it, thinking it's fake news.
In any case, it's hard to see what could ever pierce this level of hard-core brainwashing in a population. The damage is done, and under existing circumstances it can't really be undone, by all the fact checks and explainers in the world.
What does seem clear is that people like this are unable to help themselves in the face of the unending torrent of malicious destructive right-wing propaganda being targeted at them.
The only solution, it seems to me, has to lie in controlling the production and dissemination of the propaganda itself, perhaps through removing financial incentives for producing it, or perhaps through legal sanctions for distributing it. Maybe strictly regulating and/or breaking up Facebook might be enough.
Speech should be free, but a deliberate campaign of lies like the one that's running along full steam ahead for the benefit of America’s fascists has to find some kind of punishment or it's never going to end.