The Echo’s Massive Disinformation Campaign a Real Threat to Democracy…Our democracy & free society are in danger from President Trump & Fox News, but it didn’t start out that way. The origins of deceptive propaganda fueling risks of tyranny began evolving many years ago. The broader conservative media that we always refer to as the echo, started off as a cottage industry around 3 decades ago being a worthy counter to what the right perceived as a liberal bias in the mainstream media. The internet came along which allowed conservatives to receive/exchange messages as their ideological brand spread & opinions became more freewheeling, which along with a proliferation of radio talk shows turned that fledgling cottage industry into a monster.
Fox News became the go-to cable TV network for conservatives but had not yet turned radical back then. When Obama was first elected & the tea party was formed, the conservative mindset became more of an extreme grievance movement, a collection of laments featuring a culture war, economic despair zeroed in on a war against the welfare state, plus fueled by a bitter racist & xenophobic component. When Trump came along & Fox made a business decision their viewers preferred a far-right narrative that mimicked the rest of the echo, the entire conservative movement leaped headfirst into tribal entrenched warfare in a world of make-believe, accepting of fairy-tales no longer constrained by facts or real news.
The current echo has carved out a market for hardcore extremism that’s gone off the rails & way out on the far-right, along with the proliferation of echo-blowhards making it a more competitive marketplace, so it’s causing these shows to try outdoing each other with ever-more preposterous propaganda & conspiracies. As their psycho-conservative audiences are increasingly snookered with radicalized psycho-babble, unfortunately they’ve dragged a sizable portion of the GOP base along with them. So as delusional & destructive as Trump & Fox have become, they’re really an extension of a much bigger problem which has venomous fangs latching onto the mindset of previously sane conservatives.
If everything Trump says were actually true, he would truly be a great president. Unfortunately, most of what he claims is utter nonsense, dishing out over-the-top bluster & hyperbole in crafting a faux reality existing inside his own mind. With the walls closing in from impeachment, Trump now lies virtually every time he speaks. The problems come in when the echo doubles-down on his lies & his Trumpeter base inexplicably believe the counternarratives that simply are not true. And it’s hard for a nation to even function when we can’t agree on the facts, as so many citizens live inside a fictional world while bucking the truth at every turn, believing only in the state-media messaging of a demagogue. We’re America, not North Korea, so it’s astounding to see these things now happening in our own country.
These numerous articles here in Part 2 are shocking accounts of what’s happening to our nation, stemming from the proliferation of disinformation circulating out there which far too many conservatives have come to accept. They also detail more examples of what a menacing disgrace we have in the White House, a person utterly devoid of any discernible moral code or sound thinking:
https://www.motherjones.com/
A Perverted Sexual Predator
With so many credible accounts of sexual depravity, I’m fairly certain all these stories are not publicity stunts or political attacks. So the sexual attacker deserves our derision, not our respect:
Trump’s Americanized Gestapo Attacks Their Opponents
Here’s the real witch hunt! Obviously desperate & trying to divert attention away from his mounting Ukraine scandal, it’s not just coincidental they’d announce a criminal probe at the same time proof of an illegal quid pro quo is being uncovered. They’ll do anything to sell their base on a counternarrative. Plus it’s as though Trump has unleashed his henchmen to do Putin’s bidding, since we’ve seen for years how our American prez is Russian kompromat, wanting to absolve Russia from their interference in our 2016 election by trying to legitimize all sorts of crazy alternate conspiracy theories. Trump also seeks to squash any narrative which offers even a hint his election win might have been tainted.
The basis for this new DOJ criminal probe doesn’t even begin to make sense. It’s rather curious that while both candidates were under FBI investigation in 2016, they only revealed the Hillary probe a week prior to the election which may have swayed the win to Trump. So why do they think there was a plot against Trump? Nope, there is no credible evidence the FBI probe which began in 2016 was out to get Trump & any conspiracies tied to that have long since been debunked, but when our prez gives his marching orders to his compliant gestapo, they dutifully follow his commands no matter how irrational. So despite the collective damage they might cause which includes compromising vital intelligence sources & ruining the morale inside the intelligence comminity, our American fuhrer & his loyalists are willing to smear good public servants in the hopes they can keep their corrupt leader in power. They’re ruthlessly without cause targeting political opponents & investigating the investigators as most any authoritarian dictatorship is prone to do:
The Continuing Saga of Obstructing Justice
The public hearings are coming soon, but during an ongoing investigation we don’t want witnesses coordinating their narratives (excuses) in advance:
Whether it was Watergate, the President Clinton scandal or Benghazi, the congressional hearings started off behind closed doors. Plus public hearings tend to become spectacles when congresspeople play to the cameras for their constituents back home. We also know we have a president who is coordinating unprecedented stonewalling & cover-ups as they invent alternate narratives/conspiracies in discrediting the facts, so are just itching to know what witnesses are saying. There are good reasons for private hearings & there’s no good reason for far-right reps to start a riot during a scheduled testimony.
Rest assured the process is fair as GOP reps on their respective committees are in the hearing room asking questions. But note how we never hear of any new evidence that would actually favor the president’s legal defense. Trump’s loony cronies can’t defend their master on the merits, so as seen in links below they resort to nutty arguments about the process while turning these serious criminal hearings into a circus. If their guy was truly innocent, we would think they’d be helping the facts come out, not obstruct at every turn:
Fox Fake News & Their Echo-Head Viewers
Myself as basically a lifelong center-right conservative, GOP supporter & evangelical, I’m horrified watching the conservative mindset falling for what I perceive to be a movement with all the characteristics of a cult. Among the chief deceivers are echo-media talking heads including most who disgrace our TV screens from the studios of Fox fake news, & even some prominent evangelical leaders. I’ve seen firsthand with friends & family members the hold the echo-cult can have. Sure they can sometimes get nasty about it with untenable opinions, but we have truth on our side. I’ll even admit to having lost respect for those I know still expressing a fervent support for Trump since they’re denying reality, while they’re also bringing great harm to our country. Fox News brainwashing can be such a horrible, debilitating self-induced condition.
The conservative base have been so immersed in the echo-messaging for so long, they’ve failed to recognize the unmistakable steady shift way to the far-right over the years, & don’t even comprehend the extent they’re being lied to. They’ve drifted into a conservatism in disguise based on tribal delusions. Even those who don’t directly tune into the echo, they’re still being influenced by the most vocal conservative acquaintances who get all amped up by the echo on a daily basis. I implore my conservative friends whom I once aligned with ideologically to escape that illusionary bubble they’ve trapped themselves into, along with leaving behind all the despicable traits they’ve latched onto as part of this radical right-wing movement, including the lying, hypocrisy, selfishness, corruption, sacrificing moral values & living deep inside their never-never land far removed from reality. As Elijah Cummings often famously said, we’re better than that!
Outside the opinionated shows on both sides appealing to their respective base (progressives have their messaging sources too but not nearly to the same extent), I would say the network news is actually less biased than ever. With both sides having become very hardened & far apart from the other side as they stay entrenched in their corners, the mainstream media is trying hard to play it straight in avoiding controversy, wanting to not offend one side or the other. But with Trump constantly creating chaos, falsehoods & scandals, the media has no choice but to cover it, since as Americans we’ve never seen anything like this. The echo-head audience members who we find most revolting are those who get ALL their news from the echo, ignoring the real news or totally dismissing them as fake. America is in chaos & in decline largely because a sizable portion of the population cannot agree around basic provable facts. Yep, it’s the echo messaging that has them so baffled & deceived:
Sounds more like a spokeslady for Kim Jong Un:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/
Echo war-room strategizing from the dungeon:
These People are Nuts!
Impeachment & removal would produce some rough times ahead for America, but the crimes by Trump leave us no choice, while any healing process for our nation can only begin long after Trump is out of office. Ambassador Taylor laid out proof this week of a quid pro quo in incredible detail, while the other witnesses are corroborating the evidence. Let’s just hope the coming evidence to be made public the rest of this year in transcripts & public hearings are so overwhelmingly conclusive, even some hardened Trumpeters will concede he has to go. The proof of crimes needs to help stifle the enthusiasm for starting up a civil war among Trump’s most unhinged supporters, which there are plenty of those wackos out there bent on fighting:
How Could Support for Criminality & Moral Debauchery be Virtually Unanimous among Certain Groups?
The PRRI Survey shows astonishing results: https://www.prri.org/research/
A Sentence from the Survey:
Prior to the announcement of impeachment proceedings, however, Republicans were united behind Trump, with 94% saying he should not be impeached and removed from office. Feelings are essentially unanimous among two subsets of Republicans: Virtually all Republican white evangelical Protestants (99%) and Republicans who say Fox News is their primary source of news (98%) oppose Trump being impeached and removed from office. Republicans remain unified across education levels, with 96% of Republicans with a college degree opposing impeachment, alongside 92% of Republicans without a four-year degree.
We may be reaching a point Americans had better not be so complacent about what’s going on. As a spirit of deception sweeps through many in the church among the flock, brought about through evangelical leaders & Fox News, the mindset among some has gotten deranged & dangerous. The faithful are certainly not following the teachings/examples of Jesus if they believe these buffoons:
So I believe this heresy needs to be called out before it destroys everything we love & stand for. God gives us free will, & if we don’t use it to stand for truth while calling out the lies, the Lord may let our destruction happen when there’s nothing left to save. Maybe evangelicals love Trump since he may well bring about Armageddon. In this unique American era when conservatives en masse are buying into the crazy propaganda & conspiracies, our inaction & laissez-faire attitude may doom America, the GOP & the church, if we ultimately drown in our unrestrained deceit & hypocrisy which we watched happening but did nothing. This first article explains how certain intolerant evangelical blowhards have tainted the faith, sounding more like echo-extremists than men of God. Who would have ever believed we’d have evangelical leadership losing their greater purpose & serving to drive others away from the faith?:
My Response to a Christian Bro…
Thanks for your heartfelt letter. You hit it on the head with if my people…
2 Chronicles 7:14 14if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
But if his people actually drive so many others away from the faith through their rank display of hypocrisy, being deceived by not just Trump but other earthly leaders they trust like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh & Franklin Graham, we’ll continue our downward spiral. So for now we should far prefer secularism (Dems) over the risk of fascism (GOP). I really think we need to drain the swamp & destroy the remnants of this insane version of conservatism so we can start over with a clean slate, where revivalism can only become possible when everyone of faith can unite around truths & display to the world a genuine faith.
In Conclusion a Good Interview
Personally as a long-time fixture in typical conservative demographics, for decades being a GOP supporter, white evangelical & Fox News viewer, in recent years I have clearly seen the messaging go amiss into lies & deception. So I’m still searching for answers whatever happened to my fellow-conservatives? Trying to explain the inexplicable, here’s an excellent interview with Peter Wehner & Jim Wallis:
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