Liberals Have Returned to the Comfort of Conspiracy Theories
“every bad thing whispered about any Republican is, by default, true”
Within weeks of Trump winning the election last fall, liberals were already shrieking about how the election was stolen by Russia. It’s easier and more comforting to say it was stolen than to admit you lost for a reason.
The tendency to rely on conspiracy however, has become a weekly or sometimes daily occurrence.
Even Chris Cillizza of CNN who is hardly a conservative has noticed this:
Donald Trump is turning liberals into conspiracy theorists
Much has been written about how President Trump’s election has had a profound impact on the Republican party. What’s drawn less attention — but deserves more! — is how Trump is affecting Democrats.
Sure, we’ve seen coverage of how Trump’s election has emboldened the liberal left whose call for confrontation at all times has become the rallying cry of the party. (This New Yorker profile of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer describes the rapid evolution from compromise to confrontation well.)
What’s drawn less attention is how Trump’s presidency has convinced liberals that every bad thing whispered about any Republican is, by default, true. Consider that in the last week alone, liberal outrage has been sparked on (at least) four occasions by alleged incidents that simply aren’t accurate.
1. There was no health care vote beer celebration
As the House was voting on the American Health Care Act, Vice News’s Alexandra Jaffe spotted cases of beer being brought into the Capitol. She tweeted about it:
Cases upon cases of beer just rolled into the Capitol on a cart covered in a sheet. Spotted Bud Light peeking out from the sheet
— Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) May 4, 2017
That tweet became the basis of an outrage campaign among liberals. This headline, from Mic, is indicative of the early coverage: “Republicans celebrated taking away Americans’ health insurance with cases of beer.” (Mic has since changed the headline to: “Reports of beer delivery to GOP health care celebration called into question.”)
Less than a half hour later, Jaffe tweeted again, noting that the beer wasn’t, in fact, for a celebration party for House Republicans. (She had never implied it was.)
Here are the beers. Asked if they were going to a GOP conference meeting & he said "no, different meeting," no further details pic.twitter.com/ugS8oW4kGj
— Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) May 4, 2017
Cillizza goes on to point out the false rumors that rape would be a pre-existing condition under the new healthcare law, the false claim that Stephen Colbert is being extraordinarily targeted by the FCC, and more.
While his article is accurate, Cillizza incorrectly attributes this development to Trump when in fact this sort of thing has happened before. Under George W. Bush, liberals insisted that the president lied us into war and an entire industry sprang up around the idea that the Bush administration was somehow complicit in the attacks of September 11th.
Part of what’s driving this phenomenon today is the left’s new habit of dialing up their outrage meter to ten or higher on a daily basis.
It’s something Kurt Schlichter explores in his new column at Town Hall:
For Fussy Liberals, It’s Always Apocalypse Right Now
Liberals are upset – they’re always upset – that the evil GOP of Hate has condemned America to a return to a marginally more progressive version of the nightmarish hellscape that was our country before Obamacare passed on March 21, 2010. Once again, the lifeless bodies of those who fail to buy themselves health insurance will be piled upon the sidewalks, left to be carted away as they were in the dark ages of the ‘90s and ‘00s – no doubt by industrious undocumented workers who should be paid a living wage for performing this job that Americans just won’t do.
And the Republicans will sit by, watching through their monocles, giggling at this grim tableau of human misery until they grow bored and return to their regularly scheduled agenda of puppy torture and crushing the dreams of young women who want only break the glass ceiling and “be the very best me I can be.”
Or something.
Because, for Democrats trying to appeal to their Party’s base of unaccomplished coastal snobs and indolent, welfare-grifting morons, Armageddon is always just around the corner whenever conservatives do anything.
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Comments
This has been the tactic for quite a while. After all many “reputable” news outlets like WaPo or the NYT are known for spreading hearsay or pure gossip without blatant or clear retractions at some future point. Some even carry the theme throughout editorial thought exercises, sometimes after a credible debunking. But the anti-Trump hysteria has amped it up for certain.
My own millennial daughter read me the riot act over “Rape being a pre-existing condition” and went on to tell me all Republicans hate women and children. This as she and her one year old daughter live with her mother and I pending her divorce. You just shrug it off and walk away.
Not being a parent myself, I stand in awe of you having the strength to ‘shrug it off and walk away.’ I sincerely hope (and pray) your influence rubs off in more ways than you might currently know.
I suggest you hand her a bill for her portion of the monthly mortgage just so she knows how much it would be. And the next time she spouts off about Republicans being women-haters you could remind her about her rent that YOU are paying for her.
What the left doesn’t realize, but that I think Kurt Schlichter does, is that this is a very self-destructive move for the Democrats. It feels good in the short term, since it allows them to give vent to the emotions that drive their lives, but it accomplishes nothing except convince people who are still rational that they are dangerous, foolish people who should be avoided.
Another factor is burn-out – nobody can keep this level of rage going forever. It’s too draining, too all encompassing. It’s fun at first, but as the hating and the overreacting go on day after day after day, it just becomes a bitter slog of constant defeat and betrayal, since nothing will ever be done about all of the “horrors” they’ve imagined, because of course they’re imaginary.
Quite a few wise men of many traditions have, in one way or another, compared hatred this intense to an acid so powerful that it can destroy anything it touches; the problem being that the first thing destroyed is always any container which tries to hold it.
Touche!
Trump knows that.
RE: “Another factor is burn-out – nobody can keep this level of rage going forever. It’s too draining….”
It’s like the spoiled children who lay down in the retail store aisle and yell loudly while pounding their feet and fists in a fury over not getting their own way – for the Nth time.
The smart parent just walks away and igores them totally…..
Remember a basic rule of conspiracies: the less evidence there is of a conspiracy the more the proof that it is successful.
That Town Hall article is probably the funniest (and most true) thing I have read in quite awhile.
RE: “Liberals have returned to …. conspiracy theories….”
Gee, when did they ever leave?
My Goodness, they ran one in the 2016 presidential general election …….
The Demorat libtards are all over the media comment boards crowing about the testimony of former Dir. of Nat’l Security Clapper and (treasonous) former (acting) AG Sally (Rottencrotch) Yates’s testimony before the Intel Committee proving their feverish Russia/Trump conspiracy nonsense.
No matter what these idiots won’t stop until Comey goes on TV again and testifies that his stupid investigation found nothing.
Yates’ testimony vis a vis Flynn was beyond disingenuous, saying she told WH Counsel McGahn Flynn was open to blackmail and then hiding behind classified information so she didn’t have to provide proof.