Gaslight, Propaganda, etc.
Gaslight means “manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity†see Psychology Today: 11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting and compare the list to what you can see in the news every day. A problem is that when you attempt to deceive others, you often have to start with yourself.
Gaslighting Themselves: Why Trump Critics Miss the Obvious by Henry Olsen – “they have little to no sense of why people might disagree with them and why Trump’s ultimate demise is far from the smug certainty they assume it is.â€
“anti-Trumpers like Kristol would be well served if they took the reasons for Trump support seriously and spent more time addressing them and less time assaulting every maladroit tweet the president sends.
If the last few years of populist movements have taught us anything, it is that the people of any democratic nation know when they are being condescended to and dismissed. When such condescension rises to the level of being perceived as a “long train of abuses and usurpations,†they will invariably “provide new guards for their future security.†Those who claim to be defending American institutions against Trump’s purported depredations ought to be the first to recognize that treating the people with respect as one’s equals is the first, and the most important, principle of American democracy. The fact that this too often seems to be overlooked is perhaps the biggest reason for his rise and his continued—and perhaps his future—success.
NY Times: Sorry for missing 80% of Trump’s rally audience by John Sexton – “God knows mistakes happen when writing stories on a deadline. You really, really don’t have to convince me that can happen. And yet, and yet…â€
“The accidents and errors made by reporters appear to be systemic and partisan, i.e. they arise from bias built into the media system. We know that because these errors don’t arise randomly without any consistent partisan thrust. Instead, they always occur in one direction. You never see a story like this that over-estimates Trump’s crowd size by 80%. If Davis had overestimated the crowd by as much as she under-estimated it, she’d have claimed there were 10,000 people there. In fact, that’s pretty much what Trump himself did, suggesting the crowd may have been 12,000, which is more than the venue holds.
It’s a given that Trump is a political partisan, especially about his own rallies. What’s the NY Times’ excuse?
The fact that Davis corrected the error is great, but this sort of thing wouldn’t happen if the NY Times had even a few reporters who were mildly sympathetic to the President. I’m not talking about die-hard Trump boosters, just someone who isn’t quietly part of the resistance bubble. But of course, you don’t have those people at the NY Times and so we get errors like this that always cut in one direction.
Maybe the NFL anthem protests aren’t about the anthem after all by Jazz Shaw – “Our friend Andrew Malcolm, writing at McClatchy, tackles that question this week. In particular, he looks at the fan reaction to the protests, showing up in the form of falling stadium attendance, reduced merchandise sales and sagging television ratings.†An attempt at gaslighting seems to be encountering problems.
“when millionaire football players began taking a knee in front of the Stars and Stripes as the National Anthem played and their billionaire team owners refused to do anything about it, the simmering resentment found a ready outlet. The press was quick to take the side of Kaepernick and his buddies, hurling insults that those who were offended. The fans weren’t seeing players protesting racial inequity. They saw a group of spoiled, elite, professional athletes spitting on Old Glory.
I think Andrew Malcolm is onto something here. And I think most of the media gets this equation precisely wrong. Rather than trivializing the issues that the kneeling players claim to be bringing to light, you might find a surprising number of us joining in and agreeing that there’s more to be done in terms of racial divisiveness in the country if they would just take their protest off the field and do it during a press conference or at some other venue.
The left’s defense of evil by Katie Pavlich – “Over the past few weeks, Trump derangement syndrome reached new levels after the left openly defended some of the most vicious, evil human elements around the globe in fruitless opposition to the president’s administration.â€
“In the worst form of partisanship, the left has been defending evil for the sake of opposing President Trump. This strategy emboldens the wicked, including MS-13 and Hamas, while resulting in choosing wrong over right.
Enviro-Thugs Sue To Keep Natural Food Flavors Out Of Food by Josh Bloom – “EWG has teamed up with another bunch of geniuses from seven other groups (1) to sue the FDA for allowing food to be added to food. That’s not precisely true, but it’s pretty damn close.â€
“The fact that a chemical is a chemical regardless of its source is misunderstood by most Americans, with the help of the organic food and supplements industries. While it may be brilliant marketing, scientifically it is an abomination. There is no difference between a chemical that is isolated from a plant and the same chemical synthesized in a lab. None.
…
What Earthinjustice is doing will not make a single person healthier or unhealthier. But the bank accounts of EWG, NRDC, and the others will be much healthier once the lawyers get done twisting the science.
That is all this suit is about. Power and money, science be damned.
Rudy sheds light on Trump’s legal strategy – and has some fun, too by Peter Barry Chowka – “Among the topics touched on with new clarity were the validity of the Mueller investigation itself, the disagreements about whether the FBI’s tactics in 2016 entailed spying, the perception that the Trump team is planning a major PR campaign as part of its defense, and the question of whether or not President Trump will testify under oath.â€
“So, you got a group there that’s a lynching mob, so let them do their job and, boy, we’re ready to knock the heck out of you with our report, which will be authoritative. It will be backed up. It will be backed up with law and facts. And we’ll let the American people decide this.
i.e. it’s a lynch mob trying to use gaslighting techniques in order to make their case.
More Evidence Of Mueller’s Overreach by Paul Mirengoff – Earlier today, Scott put the matter this way: “The Mueller team apparently thinks that Trump can be guilty of a crime for the exercise of one of his constitutional powers (or not!).â€
“Looking at the bigger picture, the notion of a prosecutor investigating a president’s personnel decisions (e.g., the firing of Comey) or interactions with cabinet members (e.g., Sessions) is troublesome. I’m not denying the possibility that a president could, in the course of making a request of officials in his government, commit a crime. If there were reason to believe Trump had requested that Sessions shoot Mueller, that would warrant investigating.
But a request that a cabinet member exercise his normal duties is light years away from that.
Mueller isn’t just nit-picking, he’s constraining the president’s exercise of his proper powers.
And it’s not just Mueller. Consider some of the judges issuing injunctions to stop the President.
Trey Gowdy Didn’t Even See Documents He Claims Exonerate FBI On Spygate: Reports By Mollie Hemingway – “Gowdy claimed that the FBI’s use of spies against the Trump campaign was perfectly proper, but multiple reports indicate he never even saw the full records Congress subpoenaed on the matter.†This is the sort of thing that creates questions as things don’t fit together.
“The actual dispute is not whether the FBI used at least one person to spy — or secretly collect information — on people in Trump’s orbit, but whether this is something routinely done against Republican candidates and should be accepted uncritically, or whether it should be fully investigated by the media, the public, government watchdogs, and elected lawmakers obligated by the Constitution to conduct oversight on the agencies to which they appropriate taxpayer funding.
Gowdy’s curious exoneration of the FBI caught many by surprise given his work on the previous HPSCI report that found widespread abuse of surveillance procedures targeting the Trump campaign.
…
Gowdy seemed confused or mistaken about simple facts related to the investigation.
“Right to try†somehow makes it into law by Jazz Shaw – “allowing terminally ill patients an easier path to attempt experimental drugs and treatments which were not yet approved by the government for general use. I’ve never been sure why this is controversial as long as there are guidelines for when and how doctors can determine when someone is beyond hope of recovery through conventional treatments.â€