USA Today and Suffolk U last week conducted a poll of 1,000 Trump voters identified through polls in 2020. The results reaffirm that Donald Trump’s big lies are now part of the bedrock of the Republican Party. Denial of uproar, for example:
“Most Trump voters are embracing a version of the January 6 events that has been debunked by independent fact-checkers and law enforcement agencies,” USA Today’s Susan Page wrote Sunday. Asked to describe what happened during the attack on the Capitol, 58% of Trump voters call it ‘mostly an antifa-inspired attack involving only a few Trump supporters.’ That’s more than double the 28% who call it ‘a gathering of Trump supporters, some of whom have attacked the Capitol.’ Four percent call it ‘a coup attempt inspired by President Trump.’ ”
Trump sometimes told the public not to believe their eyes and ears – and some of his fans apparently agreed. The day of the MAGA terror in the Capitol has been thrown in the memory of Trump’s base. “Only 4% say the impeachment trial gave them less support for Trump; 42% say it gave them more support,” Page wrote. “Fifty-four percent say it didn’t affect their support.”
The big lie about Trump winning the election and ‘stealing’ Biden lives on in large part because some people want to believe it and because a constellation of Trump propaganda sources is pumping up a diet of dishonest information that supports it. But it’s also important to see how the big lie continues to be washed off and repeated on respectable TV shows.
Matt Negrin, a longtime critic of public affairs shows,
called out ABC’s booking of Rep. Steve Scalise on Sunday: “He was rewarded with 10 minutes of airtime and pushed the lie again,” wrote Negrin. “The networks are actively helping Republicans spread this lie.”
Negrin too
pointed out that lawmakers denying elections have been welcomed on other TV shows on the network in recent weeks, saying that “the only Sunday show that doesn’t book these Big Liars is ‘SOTU'” on CNN.
ABC representatives would say Scalise was challenged time and again by host Jon Karl. They said viewers watched Scalise avoid the questions and saw Karl hold him accountable. They would say so
Monday ‘GMA’ broadcasts an exclusive interview with a police officer who defended the Capitol on 1/6. They would say this is all part of a news outlet’s mission. But are those defenses convincing to you when democracy is at stake?
The new “Lost Cause”
>> Garry Kasparov
wrote in response to Negrin, “This is like giving air time to people who sell bleach as a panacea, only more dangerous.” He said that “denying the integrity of the 2020 election is the new lost cause” and “the media will be partly responsible if it takes root.”
>> “Somehow”, Jim Sciutto of CNN
noticed, “Recognizing the truth today – January 6 and the election – has become an outlier in the GOP and beyond.”
>> Agree or disagree? “The greatest threat of disinformation and disinformation is domestic, currently led by political party leaders and boosted daily by media outlets strained by decades of bad faith,” said Jared Holt of Right Wing Watch
wrote …A “classic disinfo campaign”
Researcher Kate Starbird
wrote Sunday: “The ‘big lie’ (claiming massive voter fraud in the 2020 election) has multiple hallmarks of a classic disinfo campaign, including: designed to cast doubt (rather than convince a single statement), multiple (even contradictory) narratives, functions to undermine democracy. “
“This is not about finding a coherent story,” Starbird wrote. “It’s about creating doubt by throwing voter fraud spaghetti at the wall. And unsurprisingly, the next step is to use the same false and misleading stories for future voter suppression, making it harder for people to follow the next times to vote. ” CNN’s Zach Wolf recently wrote about that …
Story of two GOPs
On Saturday night on ‘Judge Jeanine’, Lara Trump said her father-in-law is’ the head of the Republican Party. He really is the person everyone will continue to turn to to help them get across the border – whether we’re talking about 2022 or beyond. “
Sunday morning at “Meet the Press,” Chuck Todd asked Rep. Will Hurd: What role should former President Trump have in the future of the Republican Party? Or should he not have a role? Hurd said, “I think very little or not at all.”
Another takeaway from the new poll …
“In a USA TODAY / Suffolk poll in October 2016, 58% of Trump voters said Fox was their most trusted source of news. In the new poll, that drops to 34%,” said Susan Page. “Confidence has risen in two relatively new outlets that have earned their reputation defending Trump. Newsmax is most trusted among 17% of Trump voters, followed by 9% for” One America News.
>> Here’s what David Paleologos of Suffolk said: The findings could reflect a “seismic shift in the landscape of reliable news sources for conservatives …”
