How Donald Trump's perverse brand of BS took over American politics

[babylonsister]

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/how-donald-trumps-perverse-brand-of-bs-took-over-american-politics/


How Donald Trump’s perverse brand of BS took over American politics
Written by The Washington Monthly January 4, 2020


Are you tired of the limitless avalanche of B.S. from the White House, not to mention the well-oiled GOP mendacity machine? Are you worried that masses of “low-information” MAGA voters will gleefully upturn the American experiment and replace it with a racist, theocracy-infused non-stop reality show? Well, you have reason worry.

I used to be optimistic that the systemic antibodies embedded in our democratic structure would always tackle political infections like Trump. Indeed, I thought that would be enough to rid us of them. I am no longer. When a society is split into parallel universes—each with its own enclosed informational ecosystem, divergent values, and expanding mutual animus—expect the worst. If our functional democracy comes to a demise, the key catalyst will be our lacking a shared baseline of facts. Olympian liars like Trump (and his enablers) will be the handmaidens of destruction.

Of the more than 15,000 lies (about 14 per day) Donald Trump has spouted since taking the oath of office, the fact checker PolitiFact has chosen his attack against the Ukraine whistleblower as its “Lie of the Year.” The reason: It “speaks to a falsehood that proves to be of real consequence and gets repeated in a virtual campaign to undermine an accurate narrative.” Simply put, Donald Trump is a bullshitter in a class of his own.

snip//

In the backdrop, Trump and the GOP are sowing the seeds for the country’s unraveling—be it through voter suppression efforts, packing the courts, and an inflammatory, truth-immunized right-wing media. A disturbing consequence: Perhaps a third of Americans view those who call out this administration’s corruption and lawless actions as existential enemies. As George Orwell once put it, “The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.”

We have been through wrenching and divisive periods before. Eventually, we emerged healed, But today is different. A sizable portion of the country has walled itself off with the help of a balkanized media. It has become more radical, demonstrated a dwindling devotion to democratic norms and has come to view those with different worldviews as sworn enemies. This is how the societal seams then begin to come apart.

As we turn a new decade, America eerily resembles the charged atmosphere of the 1850s. It took an enormously bloody civil war to sort things out then. I’m not predicting a repeat scenario, but I fear our domestic instability could lead to more violence, which would then make it easier for foreign adversaries to take advantage of our weakness.

Once Trump is gone, it will take exceptional moral and political leadership to overcome the underlying causes of our current dysfunction. The first step will be to abandon Trump’s perverse form of bullshit.

[elleng]

1. 'it will take exceptional moral and political leadership

to overcome the underlying causes of our current dysfunction.'

[NoMoreRepugs]

2. Perverse Bullshit in the future will be known

as Trumpism.

[JHB]

3. It's all very simple: BS was integral to the GOP long before Trump...

...and so made it ripe for a consciousless bullshitter to simply walk in and take over.

In the end, Trump isn't doing anything that Rush and Newt and Karl and W and Dick and Glenn and Sean(*) didn't make standard operating procedure.

*(...and Rick and Steve and Bill and Charlie and every other "Never Trumper" who had a career in Republican messaging and/or conservative media.)

[Cosmocat]

7. This x 1,000,000

They have been gas lighting their base and this country my entire adulthood over 30 years.

The pos is a symptom not the cause. And I told people when he came down that escalator, and folks were discounting and that he was no joke because he embodied what the Republican party was devolving into.

[Mc Mike]

4. Birchers pushed the orgs, individuals, and values that he rode in on and epitomizes.

Far right oil nazis funded and controlled the birchers.

Rump's a nazi flunkie, like hitler was. Elements within our big 8 ruling interests want a nazi strongman flunkie. Like hitler, Rump pretends to be an all powerful leader, and never does anything to attack the financial interests that put him into power.

[ck4829]

5. You know why we're here... it's because we give "equal time" to this nonsense

Having a racist rapist incomprehensible conspiracy theorist as potus is only a symptom and not the cause of what's going on.

I love deplatforming these fringe right wingers getting closer to the "mainstream" and it will be the way to heal the damage.

We also can't tolerate this "both sides" insanity, I'm hoping we find ways to resist that as well.

[Cosmocat]

8. Y E P

We will continue to lose ground as long as this country wants to cling to bothsiderism.

What's happening now is an example.

This never could have happened if republicans would have lied and bullied this country into a Iraq in the 1st place.

It's a distant memory now, but in their Craven lunacy dozens of congressional republicans seditiously sent a letter to Iran begging them not to sign the Iran treaty. All of the endless prejorative attacks on democrats patriotism, I don't remember anything even remotely as unpatriotic as that was by one of our parties.

And, Iran was under control after the treaty. They only started backup with their bad acting after the a** whole pulled us out of the treaty.

The media is talking about none of this now, its all the usual meandering sports like coverage of the real time politics, which is meant to massage Republican jackassery and equate Democrats with them.

[moondust]

6. Self-serving BS artist

is liable to make up a false flag claim and use it as an excuse to start bombing or extorting or canceling elections or whatever else he decides he wants. So what if somebody proves it's all BS? That's just the BS of a Never-Trumper who hates him--politics as usual.