Ideally, I’d love for Dems to just start taking credit for everything MAGA brags about. Since apparently the Republicans aren’t in charge.
Ideally, I’d love for Dems to just start taking credit for everything MAGA brags about. Since apparently the Republicans aren’t in charge.
Oh so good information on the left must be searched while good information on the right is actively searching for me?
See any problems there?
Why has the left failed to understand this
The firehose of
bullshitfalsehood plus, A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its ShoesThis isn’t that the left has failed to understand, this is that the left actually values accuracy where the right doesn’t.
“They’re eating the dogs!” he said, just making shit up. Proving that they are not, in fact, eating dogs requires a bit of work. The right works on ‘feels’ and their ‘guts’ where the left values truth and reality. It’s easy to make something up as a meme and just post it, with no intent to ever defend it. Some amount of people will see it and believe it’s true.
A thing that separates left and right is that we are skeptical and require proof before we believe.
[Emphasis mine.]
I would strongly disagree with the idea that the right is putting out “good information.” I will agree that they are searching for gullible people like you. In this thread alone, we have the most powerful people on the right stating the shutdown is caused by the dems. It took an intern 10 minutes to print a “the democrat shutdown” sign, but takes significantly longer to write an article that describes why that isn’t accurate, and that article won’t be read by the people who need to see it. Falling to their level and making a ‘the republican shutdown’ sign and holding a press conference with it just enforces the ‘both sides’ narrative that only discourages people from voting.
I don’t have a solution, but it certainly isn’t “meme harder”. It’s more like “encourage critical thinking and expect people to be informed before voting”. I’ll even put out a point: Democratic leadership wants to encourage education by making it affordable to everyone while republican leadership constantly pushes to de-fund teachers, schools, and programs that would let the poors into college. I could back that up with examples and proof, but it would take that time I’m talking about, go looking for counterpoints instead and spend your own time making yourself better.
donald trump famously said, “I love the poorly educated”. I don’t think he loves them because they are amazing people, or that he wants to take care of them. He loves them because they are rubes and marks and he is a con-man.
This is your wake-up call. There is no such thing as a ‘fence-sitting lefty’. You are either:
You’re still missing the point. Accuracy doesn’t matter first. Engagement does. Nobody listens to a perfectly factual argument if they’ve already tuned you out. Humans don’t operate on data — they operate on emotion, identity, and story. That’s why propaganda works. That’s why memes work.
If exaggeration, satire, or outright lies are what make people look long enough to even hear a truth later, then that’s the cost of entry. You can’t correct someone who never engages. You can’t educate someone who scrolls past you.
The moral panic over “lying” misses the bigger picture — refusing to adapt to human psychology isn’t virtue, it’s self-sabotage. When the other side is willing to weaponize story, fear, and spectacle, and you cling to purity, you’re not defending truth — you’re surrendering it.
Sometimes, yes, the ends justify the means. Because the alternative is letting the “truthful” side lose to those who don’t care about truth at all — and that’s how you end up with demagogues, fascists, and history repeating itself. If preventing that requires bending the truth to win hearts before minds, then it’s not immoral. It’s necessary.
And here I will not disagree with you that the accuracy doesn’t matter right now, and I’m not missing the point. I see how we on the left are losing the “cultural war,” but I’m not sure that turning to propaganda with blatant lies or half truths is going to work.
If I saw an advert for my local statesman that claimed that their republican opponent eats babies, it wouldn’t change how I vote, but it would diminish my fervor for voting for them. The end-game of this propaganda war is that nobody pays attention at all, since it can’t be trusted, or that everyone believes everything they see regardless of it’s merit. Obviously there is a spectrum, and you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, but I don’t think aiming for that lowest common denominator is the way to go.
Calling back to my previous post, you don’t seem like a ‘fence-sitting lefty’ to me. You come across as a cranky lefty like myself. I know I don’t have a solution to this issue of messaging and you think you have yours. I do disagree that it would be better to meme harder at the expense of truth, but we’re broadly on the same side and have the same goals.
I’m just curious at this point: What would your memes look like? I’m such a sucker for accuracy that all I can come up with are things like: “Republicans could end the government shutdown at any point: They have the majority and can change the rules whenever they want, but they can’t even come to an agreement amongst themselves about how hard to fuck you over”, or “You can’t have informed voters if they can’t read [temple-tap]” and I don’t think those would sell.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. - Winston Churchill
I commend you for using yourself as an example. You’re right. The bar to participate in politics should be raised above you. Unfortunately… that’s not really democracy, anymore. But good argument. I still stand by your right to vote. Even if it hurts a bit inside.
No it shouldn’t be raised up. The left need to wake the fuck up and start playing the game. You all are outclassed against the right wing. It’s not money or anything else that’s making the left lose. It’s their own ignorance and ego. They keep calling the right wing stupid while being beat every single day by them. There is no self awareness on the left.
You seem to be under the impression that I may be part of the tolerant non-auth left. I am not. I am part of the intolerant non-auth left. The right wing is stupid. Fuck 'em and their sympathizers. Also, you’re a right-wing apologist if you’re actually ‘leaning left’ as you claim. For your… uhh… self-awareness.
Oh great you don’t tolerate them. How about not tolerating the leftist who let these Nazis spread their bullshit. How about getting pissed off that 7 million leftist can muster the energy to drive miles to stand around for a single day but can’t be bothered to fight the spread of right wing bullshit.
I mean, I tolerate leftists but not always without discord. If you look at my history – really, feel free – you’ll see that I go to bat with them all the time. I’m 100% on board with this message:
There’s no disagreement, here. I call them out all the time. It’s… like what I do.