The Putin-to-Tucker disinformation/conspiracy pipeline is real, and it's brainwashing countless American conservatives who *still* can't tell good information from bad because about 15 years ago Conservatism, Inc. thought it was a GREAT idea to scream at the top of their lungs that "the mainstream media is lying to you on purpose!" Welp,…
The Putin-to-Tucker disinformation/conspiracy pipeline is real, and it's brainwashing countless American conservatives who *still* can't tell good information from bad because about 15 years ago Conservatism, Inc. thought it was a GREAT idea to scream at the top of their lungs that "the mainstream media is lying to you on purpose!" Welp, 15 years later we have American conservatives who think that RT and Sputnik and Alex Jones are better sources of information than the Associated Press or Thompson Reuters. Thanks 2008-2014 GOP!
Goes back WAY before ~15 years ago. This has been a prominent line of conservative attack for at least 30 years. I remember reading an article in 2000 or 2001 on Slate (may have been Will Saletan!) discussing how the Right's attacks on the "liberal mainstream media" were an amazingly effective way of working the refs and provided a catch-all excuse to waive away any criticism of the Right/Republicans. If the news reporting does refutes or does not support the conservative worldview, it isn't because that view is incorrect it is just "liberal bias" in the media; but if the reporting does support it, well then "even the liberal New York Times" is admitting that we're right! It's a great heads-we-win-tales-you-lose approach.
Yea you can draw the line back into the 90's with the Limbaugh/Gingrich/Rove revolution as Charlie often does. It's just that you can track tweaks in the messaging during major attack shifts. 2014 was one of those years. That's when the GOP took an even darker turn pre-Trump running in 2015. That was the sickness that gave rise to the symptom that was Trump. The shift from "MSM/Socialism" attacks to attacks against BLM & police reform left. That dominated the attack messaging from 2014-2020+.
I stop at 2014 because that's when Ferguson/BLM started and Conservatism, Inc. switched from going after the media & "socialism" (most conservative voters can't even define "socialism" without using google) to going after BLM and police reform groups. The culture war entered a new phase in 2014 and the media/"socialists" were no longer the primary target, "radical leftists" who wanted police reform were the new target.
The Putin-to-Tucker disinformation/conspiracy pipeline is real, and it's brainwashing countless American conservatives who *still* can't tell good information from bad because about 15 years ago Conservatism, Inc. thought it was a GREAT idea to scream at the top of their lungs that "the mainstream media is lying to you on purpose!" Welp, 15 years later we have American conservatives who think that RT and Sputnik and Alex Jones are better sources of information than the Associated Press or Thompson Reuters. Thanks 2008-2014 GOP!
Goes back WAY before ~15 years ago. This has been a prominent line of conservative attack for at least 30 years. I remember reading an article in 2000 or 2001 on Slate (may have been Will Saletan!) discussing how the Right's attacks on the "liberal mainstream media" were an amazingly effective way of working the refs and provided a catch-all excuse to waive away any criticism of the Right/Republicans. If the news reporting does refutes or does not support the conservative worldview, it isn't because that view is incorrect it is just "liberal bias" in the media; but if the reporting does support it, well then "even the liberal New York Times" is admitting that we're right! It's a great heads-we-win-tales-you-lose approach.
Yea you can draw the line back into the 90's with the Limbaugh/Gingrich/Rove revolution as Charlie often does. It's just that you can track tweaks in the messaging during major attack shifts. 2014 was one of those years. That's when the GOP took an even darker turn pre-Trump running in 2015. That was the sickness that gave rise to the symptom that was Trump. The shift from "MSM/Socialism" attacks to attacks against BLM & police reform left. That dominated the attack messaging from 2014-2020+.
I stop at 2014 because that's when Ferguson/BLM started and Conservatism, Inc. switched from going after the media & "socialism" (most conservative voters can't even define "socialism" without using google) to going after BLM and police reform groups. The culture war entered a new phase in 2014 and the media/"socialists" were no longer the primary target, "radical leftists" who wanted police reform were the new target.