Trump's big lies reveal a truth: Right-wing science denial was never about ignorance, just cruelty

[billh58]

Conservatives have been gaslighting the public about science for decades. Now we're reaping the consequences.

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 15, 2020 1:13PM (EDT)

Are they stupid or evil?

When I first started writing about politics, way back in the George W. Bush era, this was a legitimate question when it came to trying to understand the mindset of Republicans, especially when it came to their stubborn refusal to accept scientific truths. Republicans have denied or cast doubt on science in so many ways — denying that condoms are effective, that evolution is real, that climate change is actually happening and largely caused by human activity — and many liberals and progressives have felt legitimately confused about exactly why.

Was it that right-wingers were too ignorant or benighted to accede to scientific realities? Or was it more sinister than that: They knew full well what the science said, but were too selfish and cruel to care, and also selfish and cruel enough to lie about it to our faces?

Well, with the West Coast on fire, a pandemic spreading across the land, and a pathological liar in the White House as the Republican standard-bearer, I think we can consider that debate settled: It's not ignorance. It's malice.

The cruelty, as Adam Serwer of The Atlantic famously wrote, is the point.

Donald Trump is a profoundly stupid man — so stupid that he appears to have actually believed it was a stroke of genius to suggest injecting household cleaners into people's lungs — but even he, as we now know for certain, was only pretending not to understand that the coronavirus is deadly and easily transmitted. Famed journalist Bob Woodward has been steadily releasing audio clips from the interviews he conducted with Trump over the spring for his new book, "Rage." These recordings make clear that Trump knowingly lied about the scale and danger of the pandemic. In one, he tells Woodward, "I wanted to always play it down" and "I still like playing it down".

https://www.salon.com/2020/09/15/trumps-big-lies-reveal-a-truth-right-wing-science-denial-was-never-about-ignorance-just-cruelty/

Although this article is from almost a year ago, it explains the hard truth about so-called "Conservatives." The radical right-wing found the ultimate fascist spokesperson in TFG, and he remains as their sinister "leader" and resident dishonest, QANON-following, megalomaniacal, evil-to-the-bone, cruel spokesperson.

The entire piece is worth a read.

[underpants]

1. 👀

Thanks. Reading later.

[Crunchy Frog]

2. A lot of it is about protecting fossil fuel industry profits.

Much of the rest is about acivating the rubes by feeding into the "culture wars".

[underpants]

6. Racists and polluters - at their core that is who conservatives represent

The people who vote for them are just a necessary thing they have to manipulate.

This was a really good observation by the writer.

Nah. Conservatives were just lying about this stuff the whole time. We know this, because they've rallied around Trump, a man who tells so many obvious lies that he clearly doesn't care that everyone knows that he's lying. In fact, that's why he tells laughably obvious lies. It's a power play — a demonstration that he can do or say whatever he wants, no matter how outrageous or offensive, and no one has the ability to stop him.

[zipplewrath]

3. It's a dangerous philosophy

Conservatism, and to some extent libertarianism is rooted in the belief that if one can imagine it, then it can be made to be true. It is why those of faith are drawn to it, and conservatism drawn to people of faith. One decides how it "should" be and that becomes how it "is". Remember back at the beginning of the second Bush administration, someone within the admin talked disparagingly about the "reality based media". There is a disdain in the conservative movement for facts and reality because it conflicts with what they want to be true. Science specifically, and reality in general doesn't sit well with people who want something to be true, even if it is not. And this can be a very attractive point of view for people in general. If it what you want, it is something that is achievable. And in their mind, achievable without negative consequence.

[markie]

4. posted here a few days ago...

https://timjwise.medium.com/covids-still-here-because-all-lives-matter-is-a-lie-c05210bfaa7d

[billh58]

5. Thanks, and

I hadn't seen this article. Fits the cruel Conservative narrative to a tee: People of color, the ill and infirm, and elderly lives aren't worth anything so let's use them as fodder.

[peggysue2]

7. One of the most astonishing/disgusting things I heard last year

Came out of the mouth of the Lt Governor of Texas Dan Patrick when he suggested that the elderly should happily sacrifice their lives for the good of the economy.

The subtext was that those lives were spent and of little value without any consideration of what all those oldsters had done in their youth. As in, defeating the Nazis and Imperial Japan. Or fighting in Korea. So much for the Greatest Generation meme Republicans loved spouting to prove their love of country and all things military. As with everything else, it was all a lie.

I could almost hear my father (a lifetime Republican) rolling in his grave.

Crimp their bank accounts and Republicans are ready to axe you regardless of who you were and/or what you'd contributed over a lifetime.

They. Don't. Care.

Unless, of course, it adversely affects them.

Positively vile!