It seems like more and more lately, we’re seeing deniers at all levels making bad faith arguments. (So often, in fact, that some folks from Media Matters have put it into a format that Trump supporters are sure to like.) We’ve rounded up a few.
Deniers have been touting a study that supposedly shows how the electric cars are more carbon polluting than regular ones. Apparently, they’re concerned about Tesla’s emissions. Except, of course, that isn’t true at all.
Another example can be seen in “CoreNews,” the blog of the GOP’s opposition research group. They’re currently running stories attacking Tesla for using rare earth metals, despite the fact that gas cars use the same ones. They’re also touting solar’s environmental problems, a story that comes from “Environmental Progress,” a pro-nuke group that you know is serious about being pro-environment because it attacks environmental groups, and encouraged people not to go to the Climate March.
These baldly bad faith arguments can be seen coming from the administration, with Pruitt’s bogus “EPA Originalism” and Perry’s “total BS” call for a red/blue team debate on climate science.
So please, don’t get suckered into arguments when we know they’re not actually trying to have a discussion, but are clearly pushing politically correct talking points. Don’t feed the trolls, even (or especially) those who troll their way to the White House.
Because the bad faith arguments have bubbled up from the blogs and into the highest level of US government. Case in point, the Washington Post’s Pulitzer-winning David Farenthold revealed that in at least eight Trump properties, there is or was a fake TIME magazine cover with Trump’s picture on it on display, spurring a wave of memes. The same day, Montgomery County Sentinel/Playboy columnist Brian Karem made headlines by pushing back on the White House’s media antagonism, after Sarah Huckabee Sanders was teed up for a fake news rant by a Breitbart reporter. (Fun fact: Karem’s column on the incident appears on Playboy’s safe for work website, because apparently people actually do read it for the articles?)
Sanders referenced a video about CNN from conservative troll James O’Keefe, whose past works have been so misleading, they’ve it’s landed his people in legal trouble for their deceptions. So to refer the public to his work while decrying fake news is “pretty hopelessly one-sided and self-serving.”
Though pointing out the self-serving nature of the Trump administration is stating the obvious, and telling you that deniers argue in bad faith is no doubt preaching to the choir.
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