Slate must read "The Facts Are Disappearing. It's Up to You to Save Them."

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/trumps-lies-are-winning-you-can-fight-back.html

A four-step plan (with bonus challenge).
By LILI LOOFBOUROW

These are confusing times, and they’re getting worse. On the one hand, there’s tons of misinformation: Some of it is disseminated through technology, trolls, and bots; some through Trump’s lies and propaganda (helped by a news cycle he drives); and some by Supreme Court cases like NIFLA v. Becerra, which ruled that anti-choice “crisis pregnancy centers”—frequently unlicensed and lacking medical providers—no longer have to disclose those facts to women who come to them for help. On the other hand, real information is being withheld from Americans who need it to live and make choices. Whether it’s the government refusing to promote open enrollment for health care under the Affordable Care Act or the Supreme Court ruling making it legal for states to purge their voter rolls of eligible but infrequent voters, there’s a double challenge facing those who value an informed public.

Compounding all this is the fact that, because this administration is so dysfunctional, we’re all taking a crash course in civics we didn’t sign up for—what exactly is a deputy attorney general? Is it normal for the EPA administrator to spend $4.6 million taxpayer dollars on “security” for himself? Should the president call a small business he’s never visited “dirty” because it didn’t accommodate his press secretary? (And was it kosher for that press secretary to complain through a government Twitter account?) The need for good information has never been more dire.

Luckily, a lot of people are angry about all this. Also luckily, those numbers can be put to good use in what’s starting to look more and more like an actual information war.

The bad news is that years of right-wing messaging—unions hurt the economy, immigrants are criminals, the rich are put-upon, the poor are lazy—have set the stage for an absolute hurricane of disinformation. The good news is that we can learn from Donald Trump’s tactics. If he’s taught us anything, it’s that repeating the same thing over and over eventually works.


snip

the four are (I've just put the headlines - read the article for the details)

1. Pick your facts.
2. Post two of your facts somewhere public every day.
3. Do one IRL broadcast a week
4. Rinse and repeat.
BONUS CHALLENGE: The extreme sport.
If you’re feeling ambitious, you can take this plan to the next level by posting one of your facts every time you hear that Trump has said or tweeted something inflammatory or self-aggrandizing.

[lostnfound]

1. I posted a parallel to this: we need to counteract the rightwing constructs instilled by think tanks

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210813028

People’s basic ideas have been warped so much. They do not have the facts about how the stock market works, they think privatization “will save us money”or run more efficiently, that social security “is going broke”. Think tanks have convinced them that government is bad, rich people provide all the jobs, you should have to pay for everything (college, healthcare, clean water, toll roads) you ever use.

Until the minds are opened up from the wellworn channels, it will be a. Uphill battle on every issue.

[NY_20th]

2. This is the biggest danger facing our Democracy.

K&R

[Scurrilous]

3. K&R