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I continue to wonder how it is that anyone holds to the belief that the election was stolen when every single actual investigation - even by Trump's most determined supporters - into every single accusation regarding it has failed to provide sufficient evidence to support the claim.
I mean - yeah - obviously it's some combination of a desperate desire to believe and affirmation through the constant barrage of bombastic headlines over stories that don't actually say anything of substance, but isn't there an upper limit to credulity? It just seems ro me that any reasonable person has to conclude that even to the extent that there was near certainly some fraud, it still wasn't and couldn't have been sufficient to change the results.
And yeah - I know that a lot of these people simply aren't reasonable, but it seems that the number of people who (claim to) believe that the election was stolen far exceeds the number of people who could possibly be that unreasonable, even in this benighted country in this benighted century.
Just another of those instances in which I find myself looking around in dismay, wondering how it is that I came to be in a world that's so blitheringly insane, and how it is that seemingly no one else recognizes how insane it is.
it’s a cult tactic - you have to show submission and acceptance to their reality to be part of the “in-group”.
A lot of people do recognize how insane it is but that's not enough to shut down the 30% of people who don't. There's a lot of reasons for that but suffice it to say that rural idiocy has an outsized electoral influence.
I'm absolutely with you though. I'm convinced that I will go to my grave bewildered by the level of delusion I've witnessed in this country over the last 8 years. No amount of empathy or attempts to see things from another perspective have come close to justifying the sheer volume of obvious bullshit you have to swallow to be a Trump supporter in 2024.
>I continue to wonder how it is that anyone holds to the belief that the election was stolen when every single actual investigation - even by Trump’s most determined supporters - into every single accusation regarding it has failed to provide sufficient evidence to support the claim.
dinesh d'souza lied to everyone about ballot drop boxes. but if i spent 2 hours watching a "documentary" about it (and believed the message), i don't think i'd be likely to believe any debunking.
now, i did watch that shit show, and i will say that my philosophy degree gave me a leg up on spotting the dishonest rhetoric. lots of innuendo, a lot of unexplained methodology, and a lot of footage without knowable context. so when i found out that the crack investigative team told a judge they didn't have evidence per-se, my suspicions were confirmed.
i doubt anyone who believed dinesh even heard about the court case.
It's not meant to be a demonstration of belief, it's about a demonstration of subservience. Getting people to say something that everybody knows to be a lie, and do it in public, is a way of getting them to demonstrate that loyalty is more important than anything else.
Ah...
Yes - that tracks.
I used to buy into the conspiracy theory that 9/11 was a government plot. Given the unusual circumstances I don't blame anyone for holding that view at one point, but it's been over 20 years and not a single American has confessed to the plot. Conspiracies are based on secrets and it's hard to keep secrets for long, especially when it's a big scale operation like 9/11. I eventually shook off the belief after seeing a few engineers debunk the claims and back it up with experiments and, again, the fact that the movement had zero momentum (i.e. the claims were bs).
So why did I buy in at all or for so long?
First, the seeds of doubt were planted by some charismatic people that didn't seem like basement trolls or had an at least somewhat positive reputation up until then (so they had something to lose by being labeled a kook or being proven wrong).
Second, lots of unusual stuff happened all at once. Not going to list all of the stuff, but as someone that knows little about air traffic, security policies of airlines, protocols for hijackings, explosions, and the stability of skyscrapers I thought, "No way this is normal." I wasn't really claiming to be an expert in these things but my "common sense" did me dirty and I kind of refused to hear explanations. I don't think I had a fear of being wrong, but (leading into reason 3) I had a laser focus on "the truth" and I was convinced my view was correct.
The biggest reason I probably stuck with the belief is that it kind of felt good to believe in it. I was in college and was doing fuck all. It felt good to be part of the group, to feel like we were crusaders for truth, to feel smarter than everyone else for seeing what others couldn't see. This was the hardest thing to overcome (especially without separating from the group). My subconscious didn't want to let me go down the road of "maybe I'm wrong" because not only would the ride end, I'd feel like an idiot.
All that being said I'm not sure if I have any advice for helping to snap people out of the trance. I think it's gotta be a self-realization thing unfortunately. Their subconscious needs to register that they're not getting a good enough "high" from believing in something, which can allow them to think critically. Or they need to form some negative association with the belief (e.g. the belief causes them to lose friends or gain friends they dislike).