Mustang
Gold Member
Yeah, there's a lot of people who believe it. But it's damn sure not because someone has proved it to them or because they've seen any evidence. It's because they want to believe, and they'll never require any evidence to continue believing it.I'd guess it's most likely that some really believe this stuff and some are just playing partisan games.In a lot of cases, yeah.So it's more of a game for those people, a tactic?I'm not so sure that's true for all of them. I say that because, over the years, I've seen conservatives eagerly and enthusiastically jump on arguments that other conservatives make even when the arguments are illogical or even nonsensical. I'd have to call it a political argument pile on. After all, they're clearly not independent thinkers by any stretch of the imagination. They're followers.The problem here is that they are completely serious. They're not kidding, or even lying. They really do believe this stuff. All of it.Pushing the orange Big Lie for your lard & master, I see.the swamp stole the electionNeither Pence nor McConnell could have done anything. He has to know this, at some level.
But we can't change that now
When Kennedy stole the 1960 election Nixon (who was a swamp rat himself and part of the club) accepted his defeat gracefully and was rewarded by the team with a win in 1968
But trump is not part of the washington crowd and he's damn pissed
and so am I
A true group pathology, something the world hasn't seen since Europe, 85 years ago.
The danger of this kind of argument is that even though they haven't proved it, and they never will, it can't be disproved either simply because you can't disprove a negative. It's likely that conservatives who are more educated understand this, and that's why they continue to push the argument because they understand that nobody will be able to prove it isn't true. So, they keep on pushing the argument that the election was stolen, and all the other conservatives do what they always do. They pile on.
Think of all the threads over the years. I learned a long time ago to be highly suspicious of every claim they make. At first I tried to keep an open mind. But if there was one thing that truly surprised me, it was the sheer overwhelming number of false claims, misrepresentations, and wild exaggerations I encountered day after day, and week after week. Eventually, I couldn't give these posters the benefit of the doubt anymore because it was like they were all running plays from the same playbook, and that playbook said to just make stuff up and push it out there. It's little more than a Machiavellian effort because they believe that the end (getting what they want) justifies the means (say anything).
One of the most recent examples that stands out in my mind is the poster who claimed that 120 former Generals and Admirals said that our nation was in deep peril. It had all the signs of an orchestrated disinformation campaign.
Then there was the thread that claimed that Article 2 Sec 1 of the US Constitution stated that only state legislatures could make changes in how elections were conducted. It clearly wasn't true. It's actually very likely that the poster wasn't even aware of it since I had read that somewhere else when I was too busy to check it out. He likely just heard it and ran with it without bothering to check, and I doubt he cared that it wasn't true anyway.
It's simply one more way to hopefully convince someone who's sitting on the fence, and thereby increase the overall numbers of people who are willing to believe that the election was stolen.
However, it IS instructive because it shows that the concept of 'conservative principles' which conservatives are all too eager to mention as if they have very high standards of conduct is pretty much little more than a false advertising campaign to mislead people from understanding just how unscrupulous they truly are.
When I sit down with clients who are Trumpsters -- so I'm not talking about the politicians, politicos and pundits who make a living at playing games -- I look in their eyes, and these people are just fucking terrified. They've bought into the whole thing, and their misguided and mal-informed paranoia is as real as anything else to them. But they're sincere.
Then there are the politicians, politicos and pundits who are just doing this to advance their own professional agenda.
I'm not sure where to draw the line. I'm always asking questions, though, looking for clues. My guess is that the majority of Trumpsters on this board are like the clients I described -- they're like kids who think pro wrestling is real.
So tough to say for sure.
A lot of other people simply don't care if it's true or not. It doesn't matter to them one way or another as long as they can use it without having to worry about any real repercussions.
The worst of the lot are the people who know it's not true, but they pile on anyway because they see it as a means to an end. They'll be able to pull in more campaign contributions (like MTG), and votes, and hopefully eventually political power, influence, and access to power and money. That's probably how Rudy got sucked in to Trump's orbit.