one thing that comes to mind reading this is that the right is fully post-truth, post-reality, post-empirical grounding. conservatives don’t seem to think that anything is real and that nothing they say matters or should weigh in any judgment of their character. it’s all trolling, all the time

Why Trump’s lies about Haitians are different

Trump says nasty things about immigrants all the time. But these ones have disturbingly specific Nazi parallels.

Did that begin with Karl Rove calling one perspective "reality-based"? I know Trump has relied on lies and his party of choice sees it now as The Way To Politick, but did it begin with Rove, and Roger Ailes' FOX to really point fingers at things that prepped Republicans to believe BS.

These attacks on Haitians are nothing if they're not stochastic terrorism. youtube.com/live/DQTgFMV...

A lot of it feels like the natural outcome of hyper individualized rhetoric for decades where all identities are basically just seen as fucking scams. 'They lie about being oppressed? Let's lie about their crimes. They can do it, let's do it back'

They're the postmodernists! The statue avatar accounts are liars.

Every lie incurs a debt to the truth. But MAGA doesn't care because someone else always pays their debts.

I think that with what you say here (“post-truth, post-reality, post-empirical grounding, all trolling”) you go beyond the Vox article, and very rightly so. That rhetoric is purely destructive for destruction’s sake, i.e. for destroying all institutions and barriers on their way to absolute power.

Somebody needs to go full Mel Brooks on their ass because they are as pathetic as hell.

We need to burst their balloon. Let’s start with the fact it was all MISS SASSY who was actually in THE BASEMENT. Kids bomb threats in school because MADGE (or whatever her name is) lost MISS SASSY (who was hiding in the basement), blamed some Haitian refugees, and Vance brought the KKK to town.

I wonder how much of this is the tail wagging the dog. Right-wing media is all-in on every conflict regardless of accuracy, and so the politicians follow suit. Governance doesn’t really become a consideration.

This extends to *actions* as well. Conservatives reject empirical measures of policy success or failure, and in fact insist “success vs. failure” is a category error. Policies are either right or wrong, a priori, irrespective of consequences. If innocents or constituents die, so be it.