Fake history has powered the rise of the right,.. time for the left to fight back

[pbmus]

“Fake news” is everywhere, both as an actual product and a false accusation. But a deeper phenomenon, fake history, is a big part of how we got here. Donald Trump’s signature slogan, “Make America Great Again,” depends on a historical narrative of American greatness, swiped from Ronald Reagan, and a hazy peak in that past that Trump has never felt it necessary to identify.

This has been a long time coming. Back in 2010, with the Tea Party riding high in the news, Nils Gilman (author of "Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America&quot wrote a blog post, "Rightwing productions of history," that brilliantly explained how fake history empowers the right — which writes "history" for immediate propaganda value, with only the most tenuous concern for what actually happened historically — while academic history was too nuanced and complicated to help the left in those terms.

https://www.salon.com/2018/02/11/fake-history-has-powered-the-rise-of-the-right-time-for-the-left-to-fight-back/

[uponit7771]

1. 50% of republicans believed Pizza Gate was real they're 5 times more likely to consume fake news

[Lunabell]

2. It's bizzaroworld.

Up is down. The earth is flat. Truth is "fake news".

[sharedvalues]

3. Exactly. Reagan courted racists. And collided with Iran

Nixon conspired with the South Vietnamese.
Both Reagan and Nixon harmed Americans for their own political advantage.

And the right has written these facts out of history.

History matters!
Next time you hear someone praising Reagan, ask them why he courted racists at Neshoba County.

[pbmus]

4. History most definitely matters...

‘’I think it's absolutely true, and I’ve written about this extensively: The failures of neoliberalism, and the failures to even confront the fact that neoliberalism has catastrophically failed large segments of the population, is a precondition for the rise of Trumpism. I have a line on this: “If the left doesn't come up with decent solutions, the right will come up with indecent solutions.”