1 in 5 Ballots Rejected as Fraud Is Charged in N.J. Mail-In Election

[homersapien 11,447]

21 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

I have to disagree here (I know, you’re shocked).  The Floyd killing was tragic and needed to be brought to light, however, the outrage has been hi-jacked to suit other purposes other than the brutality of the police.  Why would that be?  A few reasons might be the *Bernie Bros* are still upset Biden is the presumptive Dem nominee, the call for dismantling the police and the appeasements allowed in Democratic run cities that enables further mischief, the call to tear down the system and rebuild it (capitalism is bad, socialism good; see AOC, Omar and others), the perceived weakness of Trump’s campaign strategy as reported daily by the MSM and Biden saying the police are the enemy.  There is blood in the water, so to speak.

The Dems seemed to care more about winning this election than what is good for the country.  This *win at all costs* could be very costly, as if Biden wins he will not be able to walk back the momentum that has been created. JMO.  I’m not sure that whatever Biden has planned in the way of reform, will appease the crowds.  Will the mentality of the protesters (peaceful and non-peaceful alike) be patient enough to let Biden’s policies work?

We’ve already has a couple of *autonomous* that haven’t worked out well and the authorities have acquiesced which will only embolden further escalation.  There is no respect for authority and that is dangerous.

The FBI has run the most back ground checks for new gun owners than they ever have.  A lot of people are worried.  Hint: current gun owners already have had guns and therefore have had a background check.  Are they all conservatives that are living in fear, as your article mentioned earlier?  Or are these liberals that are seeing what may lie ahead?

People are concerned whether you see it or not.

 

Man, you actually think the BS authoritarian propaganda that Trump spews is sensible don't you?

The Great American Crackup is underway

In 2018, Bob Woodward recounted then-White House chief of staff John Kelly’s view of President Trump. “He’s gone off the rails,” Kelly said. “We’re in Crazytown.”

Two years later, it feels as if the entire country resides in the Greater Crazytown Metropolitan Area.

In Provo, Utah, this week, anti-mask demonstrators, some wearing Trump 2020 paraphernalia, stormed a county commission meeting, forcing its adjournment.

In Tulsa, anti-mask protesters, some in MAGA gear, taunted, threw water and waved money at a black minister reading the Bible through a bullhorn and calling for reparations.

In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) sued to stop Atlanta from enforcing mask-wearing to mitigate the spread of the pandemic.

In Florida, longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone, after the president commuted his sentence, said of his and Trump’s opponents: “They’re satanic.”

And here in Washington, Trump surpassed 20,000 falsehoods uttered as president while his administration temporarily took coronavirus data offline, his daughter posed with a can of beans and his trade adviser published an error-laden attack on the government’s top infectious-disease scientist.

The Great American Crackup is underway.

A week ago, I argued that Trump’s conspiracy theories “are spreading faster than covid-19 among his supporters, inducing mass delusion.” So I asked scholars to put this moment into historical and psychological context.

The good news: Americans are no “crazier” — that is, no more paranoid or predisposed to conspiracy thinking — than in the past. The bad news: For the first time in our history, a president and a major political party have weaponized paranoia, to destabilizing effect.

Joseph Uscinski, a University of Miami political scientist who studies conspiracy theories, notes that psychological measures of paranoia have been “entirely stable.” Conservatives are inherently no more conspiratorial than liberals; only low education (and, relatedly, income) predict such tendencies. The difference, Uscinski says, is “we have a president who has built a coalition by reaching out to conspiracy-minded people.”

Dartmouth College political scientist Brendan Nyhan finds that “our political elites are amplifying the fringe more than we’ve seen” in modern times, while a president mounts a “grinding attack on factual evidence.” The result, he says, is “conspiracy theories and misinformation become yoked to partisanship in increasingly powerful ways.”

There has always been what the late historian Richard Hofstadter called the “paranoid style” in U.S. politics: witch hunts, Illuminati, Red Scares. William Jennings Bryan promoted conspiracy theories. Richard Nixon believed in them. But Trump is unique in promoting conspiracy thinking from the bully pulpit, and in building a system in which elites — Republican Party leaders — validate the paranoia.

Americans, by nature, are more distrustful of authority than citizens of other advanced democracies. “You always hear Americans say, ‘I know my rights,’ but you never hear an American say, ‘I know my responsibilities and obligations,’ ” Stanford University public-opinion specialist Morris Fiorina observes. The distrust is compounded by polarization of the political system: the collapse of local media (replaced by coastal national media); the growing tendency to live, work and worship among people of similar beliefs; the divisive effect of social media; and increased “sorting” of political parties into ideologically homogeneous blocs.

This has encouraged what Eitan Hersh of Tufts University describes as “political hobbyism,” in which partisans embrace political parties as they do hometown sports teams. A study of New England Patriots fans (by Nyhan and others) after the “Deflategate” scandal found the most devoted and informed fans were the most likely to embrace conspiracies (e.g., the NFL punished the Patriots to “distract” from other issues). The same happens with Republicans embracing Trump’s “deep state” theories, or his claim that he had a bigger inaugural crowd than Barack Obama (some well-informed Republicans, even after seeing photos of the crowds in one study, insisted Trump’s was larger). Hersh explains the thinking: “I care about truth, but I care less about truth than about supporting the Patriots because the stakes are really low. … It’s a catharsis, camaraderie with our partisan peers.”

But what if the stakes aren’t low? An April study by Uscinski and others found Trump’s supporters were the most likely to believe the covid-19 threat was exaggerated — particularly Trump backers who paid the most attention to politics. This, the researchers said, was “likely a consequence of President Trump and other Republican/conservative elites publicly lending credence to this idea.”

And so strong Trump partisans refuse to wear masks. “The science is very clear: People take cues from political leaders,” Nyhan says. Leaders typically rejected conspiracy theories, and the public followed. Now, Trump embraces them, and his followers concur — some out of partisan solidarity, others out of genuine belief.

“Human psychology has not changed,” Nyhan says. What’s changed is we’re discovering that “democratic systems don’t work well when political elites don’t deal in factual information.”

In other words, it’s not us. It’s him.

[I_M4_AU 7,993]

Well, @homersapien we must disagree again.  I know you think conservatives live in fear, but do all liberals like to blame someone else for all their woes?

[homersapien 11,447]

3 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

Well, @homersapien we must disagree again.  I know you think conservatives live in fear, but do all liberals like to blame someone else for all their woes?

What woes?  I don't have any woes, at least yet.  But the country sure does.

And I didn't say conservatives live in fear, but they are easily manipulated with fear.  It's been scientifically studied.

You're just a local example.

[I_M4_AU 7,993]

2 hours ago, homersapien said:

What woes?  I don't have any woes, at least yet.  But the country sure does.

And I didn't say conservatives live in fear, but they are easily manipulated with fear.  It's been scientifically studied.

You're just a local example.

I didn’t say you personally, I was referring to liberals in general, but you know that.  It isn’t all about you. 

Most of the nation must be conservatives as witnessed by the manipulation of our citizens by the government to temporarily restrict life as we know it.  Trump is a shoe in.  🤣

[homersapien 11,447]

20 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

I didn’t say you personally, I was referring to liberals in general, but you know that.  It isn’t all about you. 

Most of the nation must be conservatives as witnessed by the manipulation of our citizens by the government to temporarily restrict life as we know it.  Trump is a shoe in.  🤣

Well you did address me specifically by name.   I tend to take such posts personally.

The rest of your post makes no absolutely no sense.  (But don't bother to explain, I don't care.)