William Quincy Belle: Politics: pandering not leading

Two plus two equals five.

Pandering
The right answer is five. Mainstream media is lying to you! Don't be a sheeple! Do your own research! Don't let the establishment oppress you! You should be free to believe what you want to believe! Your freedom above all else!

Leading
The right answer is four. Yes, two plus two equals four. Let me explain the science. Let me show you the math. We're all better off with the right answer. It's beneficial to everyone.

Fox News and Sean Hannity among others have supported the claim of election fraud. On December 21, 2022, during the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against Fox News, Sean Hannity said under oath, "I did not believe it for one second." (source: Snopes)

Then why did Hannity repeatedly support that claim?

Fox News is a for profit company. By attracting as many people as possible, they can get more ad revenue. And what better way to attract an audience than by giving them what they want. Those people think the answer is five. Rather than lead them to the right answer, Fox News panders to them by supporting the falsehood. There's more money to be made by agreeing with the audience than by trying to educate them. While somebody may argue that it's a free country, and Fox News can do what they want, I could argue they are complicit in the January 6th insurrection. I'm sure Fox would argue otherwise in court but there's no doubt about it, they assisted in hammering home t****'s message that the election was stolen from him. Fox News played a role in convincing people to storm the capitol. Even if Sean Hannity didn't believe it, he repeated it as part of Fox's strategy to build and maintain an audience.

t****'s Strategy
If you repeat it often enough, it becomes true. It's come out that at the time of the election, he knew he lost. But at some point, he said to himself, "Why not give it a try? What have I got to lose?" And so, he lied. And he's still lying. In fact, in looking back at his career, he's always been lying so there's nothing new about any of this. What is new is that we all are confronted with somebody who doesn't play by the rules, and we have no idea of how to deal with it.

I've joking portrayed this as we hold a cocktail party. t**** walks into our home, into the middle of the living room, drops his draws, squats down, and takes a dump. We are stunned into inaction. This is so out of the ordinary, so bizarre, we have no idea of what to do. We've never had to face such behavior before; we have no experience in how to deal with the situation. And some of us, immediately begin to rationalize this. We didn't really see that. Donald is just being Donald. What a jokester!

GOP Strategy
Countless conservative politicians are piggybacking on The Base. Denying the legitimacy of the 2020 election, downplaying the pandemic, rallying against all that is progressive liberal, etc., politicians are playing Chicken Little in stirring up fear and hate as if this is the end of the United States of America. Like Fox News, they are pandering not leading.

Example: Governor Ron DeSantis has done an about face on vaccines, now calling for investigations into their use.

Stochastic Terrorism
This is the public demonization of a person or a group for the unstated purpose of inciting violence against the target by a random stranger. The author of the demonization takes no responsibility for the violence but secretly hopes someone else will carry out their wishes.

t**** and his ilk have used over and over again violent imagery when speaking about their so-called enemies. (see MeidasTouch video below) There is no doubt t**** in the months leading up to the insurrection, and in his speech the morning of January 6th, was knowingly stoking the flames. The people who stormed the capitol were convinced they were part of a unique part of history, overturning a corrupt and evil system in favor of their self-appointed savior. The con man conned the people. The grifter pulls off his greatest grift.

Fox News and other conservative outlet by giving t**** and others a platform are complicit in the dissemination of hate speech. It might be indirect, subliminal, but it's hate nonetheless. Is it any wonder somebody broke into Nancy Pelosi's home? She has been cast by others as evil incarnate. Some may argue that it's political hyperbole but others take it literally.

Americans at war with Americans
Think about this for a second. There's a lot of bad in the world: North Korea, Iran, The Taliban, Russia certainly with its war with Ukraine, China not always playing by the rules and eyeing Taiwan, etc. But who are Americans fighting with? Themselves. Yes, Americans are fighting with their fellow citizens. Heck, some Americans, the far far right, have even called for the death of other Americans. (Hello, Marjorie!) I'm sorry, but what?

Everybody seems to be so incensed with the ideological divide in politics that nobody seems to have noticed the lights are still on. Yes, under Obama, the lights were on. Under t****, the lights did remain on. And now, under Biden, the lights are still on. But listen to the ranters and gnashers of teeth, Chicken Little is telling us the world is coming to an end. There's nothing to be done. It's the apocalypse! [eye roll] Oh, please!

Critical Thinking
During the 2016 Pizzagate, the conspiracy theory was that the Democrats were running a child sex ring out of a pizzeria in a suburb of Washington DC. A man from North Carolina drove to the Comet Pizzeria and shot the lock off a door searching for imprisoned children in the basement. There was no basement in the building. Over and over again, I keep hearing people spout off the most inane ideas and remain perplexed at how these people can be so stupid. Outrageous, ridiculous, physically impossible, there seems to be no end to wild theories about the global cabal hell-bent on taking over the world. This so-called illuminati has to be pretty incompetent because people have been talking about them for centuries, and they still have not managed to get into power.

Final Word
The panderers want power. They don't want "the truth" in quotation marks. They don't care about doing good and making the world a better place for all of us; they only care about power. They misrepresent, misinform, and outright lie in the hopes of getting our support. What scares me is that in the long run, they are going to unintentionally hurt themselves. We are all in the same boat, and whether we realize it or not, we're all going to go down together.

Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich (Used without permission. Sorry.)

Postscript
I'm sure somebody's going to immediately conclude I'm a libtard, I'm a Bradon supporter, I'm another one of those blind liberal sheeple. Let me clarify that I want "the truth". I don't want the Democatic truth or the liberal truth; I want the truth. The Left is not perfect. The Left has issues which need to be addressed. I do no blindly follow an ideology as in a Democratic ideology. I admit to being a progressive liberal, but I find the Democratic Party to be imperfect, in need of an overhaul. If Hunter Biden is guilty of something, charge him. If Joe Biden "deliberately" stole classified documents, charge him. However, I find the Democratic Party a better choice than the Republican Party. They're not perfect but I think we all stand a better chance of improving society with them than with the GOP.

References

Wikipedia: Stochastic Terrorism
Since 2018, the term "stochastic terrorism" has become a popular term used when discussing lone wolf attacks. While the exact definition has morphed over time, it has commonly come to refer to a concept whereby consistently demonizing or dehumanizing a targeted group or individual results in violence that is statistically likely, but cannot be easily accurately predicted.

Wikipedia: Pizzagate conspiracy theory
"Pizzagate" is a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle.[1][2][3] It has been extensively discredited by a wide range of organizations, including the Washington, D.C. police.

Published Nov 2/2022 by MeidasTouch
YouTube: Violent GOP (1:56)