If You Bought the Russia Hoax, Why Should I Trust You on Anything? Ever?

 

If you bought the Russia Collusion hoax, why should I ever trust you about anything?  Of course, you believed it.  That’s not the issue.  The issue is why you believed it.  You believed what you needed to believe in order to silence the cognitive dissonance (look it up, it’s more than a catchphrase) between two narratives.  On the one hand, you had a healthy conservative distrust of most things government and, in particular, the Democrats’ stories about Republicans. On the other hand, you had this on-its-face ridiculous set of assertions being touted by the leftist media.  The further left, the more they loved it, and you went right ahead and loved it too.

Everybody needs to live in their own space.  If your wife is further left than you are, and stronger than you are, then you are likely to adopt increasingly leftist positions, to watch leftist news, to believe leftist stories, and to repeat the stories told by the left about the right.  About us.  How are you not simply a member of the left at that point, regardless of your personal (but unspeakable at home for fear of upsetting your wife), deeply-held, cherished beliefs about how you are a conservative?

There’s a difference between engaging in academic debate over tax rates and equivocating when confronted with a choice to make.  You had a choice, and you blew it.  Years down the road now, and the coup which you unbeknownst-like aided and abetted was successful.  There’s no going back and there’s certainly no going forward — not for us.  The Durham Report is out, and much like the Mueller Report and the Barr Report, “all it says” is that some things happened that shouldn’t have happened, and other things may not have happened.

This was a mutiny and a coup.

I try to keep my despair on a tight leash, but let me tell you, it is a powerful motivator.  Nothing contributes to a sense of urgency like a desperate need for change.  There’s a handy way to avoid making this sort of choice, however.  Believe the ridiculous story told to you by Nancy Pelosi and Rachel Maddow, and accepted by your wife and her friends, or your coworkers, or your Reddit buddies, or the crowd of losers who follow you on your favorite loser social media conformity system.

With apologies to Churchill, you were given a choice between fighting and lying.  You have chosen to lie, and now you will have to fight.  Good luck with that.  I already know that I can not trust you.

Who is Ray Epps?  You are.

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  1. GlenEisenhardt Member
    GlenEisenhardt
    @

    • #1
  2. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    GlenEisenhardt (View Comment):

    Already a rip-roaring thread on that, but yes.  Exactly.

    https://ricochet.com/1446920/poor-jonah-is-being-pestered/

    • #2
  3. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    They chose sides while denying there were sides to choose. Those of us who could see were told we were blinded by a cult of personality. 

     

    • #3
  4. JustmeinAZ Member
    JustmeinAZ
    @JustmeinAZ

    Yeah, I’ve been browsing despair posters also.

    https://despair.com/collections/posters

    • #4
  5. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    BDB: cognitive dissonanace (look it up, it’s more than a catch-phrase)

    It’s more like a catch phrase.  I spent probably a half hour yesterday trying to remember that term.  The wording makes no sense.  The closest I could get was somatic bumptitude or something.  :)

    • #5
  6. ctlaw Coolidge
    ctlaw
    @ctlaw

    Fooled you once, shame on them. Fooled you twice, shame on you. Fooled you three times, stop lying about being fooled Joe Manchin!

    • #6
  7. Jon Gabriel, Ed. Contributor
    Jon Gabriel, Ed.
    @jon

    As I posted yesterday on Twitter, anyone who fell for this Russiagate nonsense was either an easy mark or a con artist. Those are the only two options.

    I kept an open mind about it during the 2016 election, then a few months after that. When hyped story after hyped story after hyped story was discredited, it was pretty obvious that there was no “there” there.

    • #7
  8. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    You’re blaming people for going with confirmation bias?  Who doesn’t? Why should I trust you?

    • #8
  9. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    BDB: If you bought the Russia Collusion hoax, why should I ever trust you about anything?

    I don’t believe anyone looked at the evidence and thought it was real. People wanted Trump out and didn’t care if it was true or not. The FBI promoting known lies to influence political outcomes is a much bigger threat to democracy than anything that happened on January 6th. Much bigger.

    • #9
  10. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    “If you bought the Russia Collusion hoax, why should I ever trust you about anything? “

    BDB,  It’s a great question, but also a much deeper question than you may realize.  Why have millions bought so easily all the utter crap our Ministry of Truth media spews out at us over the years?  It is not just the Russian Hoax, but so many other issues like Global Warming, J6, the efficacy of the VAX, the election fraud, etc. The list goes on and on. 

    I don’t think it is Cognitive Dissonance.   I think there is something deeper; some sort of willful blindness to the Truth from the conservative point of view. I fear it is somehow an ingrained  brainwashing/ psychological conditioning kind of thing where there seems to be a great fear of agreeing with any conservative issue;  perhaps a  fear of social ostracism or cancelation because the resistance to agreeing on any conservative issue is so strong. 

    • #10
  11. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Unsk (View Comment):

    “If you bought the Russia Collusion hoax, why should I ever trust you about anything? “

     

    BDB, It’s a great question, but also a much deeper question than you may realize. Why have millions bought so easily all the utter crap our Ministry of Truth media spews out at us over the years? It is not just the Russian Hoax, but so many other issues like Global Warming, J6, the efficacy of the VAX, the election fraud, etc. The list goes on and on.

    I don’t think it is Cognitive Dissonance. I think there is something deeper; some sort of willful blindness to the Truth from the conservative point of view. I fear it is somehow an ingrained brainwashing/ psychological conditioning kind of thing where there seems to be a great fear of agreeing with any conservative issue; perhaps a fear of social ostracism or cancelation because the resistance to agreeing on any conservative issue is so strong.

    To be fair, pick a subject where Conservatives clearly buy Brooklyn Bridge.

    It’s a human tendency – to agree in order to align with the perceived in group.

    • #11
  12. Charles Mark Member
    Charles Mark
    @CharlesMark

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Unsk (View Comment):

    “If you bought the Russia Collusion hoax, why should I ever trust you about anything? “

     

    BDB, It’s a great question, but also a much deeper question than you may realize. Why have millions bought so easily all the utter crap our Ministry of Truth media spews out at us over the years? It is not just the Russian Hoax, but so many other issues like Global Warming, J6, the efficacy of the VAX, the election fraud, etc. The list goes on and on.

    I don’t think it is Cognitive Dissonance. I think there is something deeper; some sort of willful blindness to the Truth from the conservative point of view. I fear it is somehow an ingrained brainwashing/ psychological conditioning kind of thing where there seems to be a great fear of agreeing with any conservative issue; perhaps a fear of social ostracism or cancelation because the resistance to agreeing on any conservative issue is so strong.

    To be fair, pick a subject where Conservatives clearly buy Brooklyn Bridge.

    It’s a human tendency – to agree in order to align with the perceived in group.

    To be fair, this obvious hoax was designed to delegitimise the duly-elected President of the United States. It has eroded trust in politics and in the media (such as it was in either case) and, by the way, it did untold damage to the reputation of the United States. It certainly was the political “crime of the century”. It went  well beyond keeping in with the in crowd. 

    • #12
  13. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Zafar (View Comment):

    You’re blaming people for going with confirmation bias? Who doesn’t? Why should I trust you?

    You are laundering this with so anodyne a characterization.   Confirmation bias is different, and no, we’re not arguing about it here.  
    Everybody else gets it.  Catch the wave.  

    • #13
  14. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Charles Mark (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Unsk (View Comment):

    “If you bought the Russia Collusion hoax, why should I ever trust you about anything? “

     

    BDB, It’s a great question, but also a much deeper question than you may realize. Why have millions bought so easily all the utter crap our Ministry of Truth media spews out at us over the years? It is not just the Russian Hoax, but so many other issues like Global Warming, J6, the efficacy of the VAX, the election fraud, etc. The list goes on and on.

    I don’t think it is Cognitive Dissonance. I think there is something deeper; some sort of willful blindness to the Truth from the conservative point of view. I fear it is somehow an ingrained brainwashing/ psychological conditioning kind of thing where there seems to be a great fear of agreeing with any conservative issue; perhaps a fear of social ostracism or cancelation because the resistance to agreeing on any conservative issue is so strong.

    To be fair, pick a subject where Conservatives clearly buy Brooklyn Bridge.

    It’s a human tendency – to agree in order to align with the perceived in group.

    To be fair, this obvious hoax was designed to delegitimise the duly-elected President of the United States. It has eroded trust in politics and in the media (such as it was in either case) and, by the way, it did untold damage to the reputation of the United States. It certainly was the political “crime of the century”. It went well beyond keeping in with the in crowd.

    Look, I don’t disagree with you on much of this, but I think you underplay the role confirmation bias and the urge to align with the group played in it.

    People just couldn’t believe that Americans would elect Donald Trump.  What explanation for his win would fit their confirmation bias?  Who else was buying  – or at least paying lip service to – that explanation?

    Was this used cynically and, let’s say it, malignly to decrease public trust in American governance and the government’s legitimacy?  You bet!  But those very human tendencies were the tools that were used.

    • #14
  15. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Jon Gabriel, Ed. (View Comment):

    As I posted yesterday on Twitter, anyone who fell for this Russiagate nonsense was either an easy mark or a con artist. Those are the only two options.

    You’re missing an important third category: cowards.   The coward would rather be known as a fool or even a knave, and will go to great lengths to spin either of those yarns as cover.

    I’ll post about this some other time, but I think that cowardice and boredom are the most destructive of all the heads of the Hydra we face.

    * Boredom being shorthand for a cluster including anomie, alienation, ennui.

    • #15
  16. No Caesar Thatcher
    No Caesar
    @NoCaesar

    John Brennan not only bought it, he sold it, actively and aggressively.  As some of his actions were undertaken while he was head of the CIA, he should receive the ultimate penalty.  Yes, he should be executed by firing squad.  After a public trial in Missouri, or Tennessee, some centrally-located jurisdiction.

    • #16
  17. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Confirmation bias is when honest observers perceive best what they expect to see.  

    Cognitive dissonance is what happens to liars when the lie is more comforting than the truth, and it’s time to start bending facts into mindshare.   

     

    • #17
  18. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    Jon Gabriel, Ed. (View Comment):

    As I posted yesterday on Twitter, anyone who fell for this Russiagate nonsense was either an easy mark or a con artist. Those are the only two options.

    I kept an open mind about it during the 2016 election, then a few months after that. When hyped story after hyped story after hyped story was discredited, it was pretty obvious that there was no “there” there.

    It’s worse than simply no “there” there.

    1. It was internally inconsistent from the start. Collusion with foreign agents to influence our election! Except that the Steele Dossier – the only thing we actually had – was dirt purchased from foreign agents by one partisan side in order to influence the election. Wait, what? Why are we investigating Trump for the specious allegations and not prosecuting Hillary and the DNC for what we knew they did? Wasn’t even a consideration.
    2. If there was no “there” there, then who authorized it on what basis and why did it keep going even after there was no “there” there? Shouldn’t we know that and punish those people? No interest whatsoever.
    3. Why did Paul Ryan kneecap Devin Nunes and tolerate/enable Schiff?
    4. Could it be that this was simply smokescreen for Obama/Biden/Clinton corruption…. and it started working as a weapon against Trump administration on top of being a coverup? No interest back then, and still mostly no interest. Lock Her Up, indeed. FJB too.
    • #18
  19. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    No Caesar (View Comment):

    John Brennan not only bought it, he sold it, actively and aggressively. As some of his actions were undertaken while he was head of the CIA, he should receive the ultimate penalty. Yes, he should be executed by firing squad. After a public trial in Missouri, or Tennessee, some centrally-located jurisdiction.

    Well, I’ll leave the sentencing to the duly constituted authority.  

    But yes.   

    • #19
  20. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    BDB (View Comment):

    Confirmation bias is when honest observers perceive best what they expect to see.

    Cognitive dissonance is what happens to liars when the lie is more comforting than the truth, and it’s time to start bending facts into mindshare. 

    None of us is all one or all the other.  Meaning all of us are human, and therefore have a tendency (among more noble ones to be sure) to embrace the comforting lie.  Jmho.

    • #20
  21. No Caesar Thatcher
    No Caesar
    @NoCaesar

    BDB (View Comment):

    Confirmation bias is when honest observers perceive best what they expect to see.

    Cognitive dissonance is what happens to liars when the lie is more comforting than the truth, and it’s time to start bending facts into mindshare.

     

    Yes.  Everyone is at risk of confirmation basis (e.g. “my gut”).  It’s a human trait.  A wise person recognizes that fact and checks on veracity especially when “it’s too good to check”.  If you are in a “bubble”, ie. your information sources are highly homogeneous, then you are probably at higher risk.

    In my experience very smart (but not wise) people are the most prone to confirmation basis.  Especially when they’re young (inexperienced) or intellectually lazy.  

    • #21
  22. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Confirmation bias is when honest observers perceive best what they expect to see.

    Cognitive dissonance is what happens to liars when the lie is more comforting than the truth, and it’s time to start bending facts into mindshare.

    None of us is all one or all the other. Meaning all of us are human, and therefore have a tendency (among more noble ones to be sure) to embrace the comforting lie. Jmho.

    We’re not in the mood for soothing words or platitudes.  There’s a reason they scourged the women who had lain with Nazis in France.  No doubt each woman had a good story and real needs.  But real French men were killed fighting against the Nazis, and society was right to *at least extract a social cost* of those who betrayed society for them to gain re-admittance.  And French women who fought and who enabled other resistance died horribly while the sob-story sisters lay back and thought of Vichy.  

    There is a highly adaptive social purpose behind vengeance, and a great justification for making the cost of re-entering society after betrayal enormously socially expensive.  Without vengeance, without justice, without enforcement of norms (and these are three different things) our human society will not work.  

    So save it for the pages of The Times of Wherever.   Conservative America has some house-cleaning to do.  

    • #22
  23. Charles Mark Member
    Charles Mark
    @CharlesMark

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Charles Mark (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Unsk (View Comment):

    “If you bought the Russia Collusion hoax, why should I ever trust you about anything? “

     

    BDB, It’s a great question, but also a much deeper question than you may realize. Why have millions bought so easily all the utter crap our Ministry of Truth media spews out at us over the years? It is not just the Russian Hoax, but so many other issues like Global Warming, J6, the efficacy of the VAX, the election fraud, etc. The list goes on and on.

    I don’t think it is Cognitive Dissonance. I think there is something deeper; some sort of willful blindness to the Truth from the conservative point of view. I fear it is somehow an ingrained brainwashing/ psychological conditioning kind of thing where there seems to be a great fear of agreeing with any conservative issue; perhaps a fear of social ostracism or cancelation because the resistance to agreeing on any conservative issue is so strong.

    To be fair, pick a subject where Conservatives clearly buy Brooklyn Bridge.

    It’s a human tendency – to agree in order to align with the perceived in group.

    To be fair, this obvious hoax was designed to delegitimise the duly-elected President of the United States. It has eroded trust in politics and in the media (such as it was in either case) and, by the way, it did untold damage to the reputation of the United States. It certainly was the political “crime of the century”. It went well beyond keeping in with the in crowd.

    Look, I don’t disagree with you on much of this, but I think you underplay the role confirmation bias and the urge to align with the group played in it.

    People just couldn’t believe that Americans would elect Donald Trump. What explanation for his win would fit their confirmation bias? Who else was buying – or at least paying lip service to – that explanation?

    Was this used cynically and, let’s say it, malignly to decrease public trust in American governance and the government’s legitimacy? You bet! But those very human tendencies were the tools that were used.

    Maybe the gullible ordinary people who bought into the obvious hoax can be accounted for, forgiven, on that basis. I’m more concerned about the people in the media/political establishment who knew every bit as well as you and I did, that it was all a pack of lies, but nevertheless purveyed those lies shamelessly and exponentially. And already the wagons are being circled and the liars will give the deluded as much comfort as they need that this is all just a “nothingburger”. 

    • #23
  24. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Look, I don’t disagree with you on much of this, but I think you underplay the role confirmation bias and the urge to align with the group played in it.

    People just couldn’t believe that Americans would elect Donald Trump.  What explanation for his win would fit their confirmation bias?

    I think you’re missing an important step. Where did that public antagonism to Trump come from? For decades he was a known, successful, and popular figure. Then all of the sudden he was reviled. That wasn’t organic, and I think that blaming it on Trump being his own worst enemy is both incorrect and not self aware, when it isn’t just flat out disingenuous. The confirmation bias wasn’t organic.

    • #24
  25. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    […]

    Could it be that this was simply smokescreen for Obama/Biden/Clinton corruption…. and it started working as a weapon against Trump administration on top of being a coverup?

    Absolutely.   People have said so here, and not only in the Baltimore Stockbroker sense.

     

     

    • #25
  26. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    BDB (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    […]

    Could it be that this was simply smokescreen for Obama/Biden/Clinton corruption…. and it started working as a weapon against Trump administration on top of being a coverup?

    Absolutely. People have said so here, and not only in the Baltimore Stockbroker sense.

     

     

    Yes, I’ve said it here. Many more before and after me too, I’m sure.

    Now I’m going to have to lookup Baltimore Stockbroker. Is that an nsfw search?

    • #26
  27. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    “Maybe the gullible ordinary people who bought into the obvious hoax can be accounted for, forgiven, on that basis. I’m more concerned about the people in the media/political establishment […]

    @charlesmark, you are falling into the trap.   The problem is not the commentariat as much as it is the “ordinary” people who allow themselves to be bought so cheaply.  

    But yes, screw Jonah too.  

    • #27
  28. Charles Mark Member
    Charles Mark
    @CharlesMark

    BDB (View Comment):

    “Maybe the gullible ordinary people who bought into the obvious hoax can be accounted for, forgiven, on that basis. I’m more concerned about the people in the media/political establishment […]

    @ charlesmark, you are falling into the trap. The problem is not the commentariat as much as it is the “ordinary” people who allow themselves to be bought so cheaply.

    But yes, screw Jonah too.

    Like many others, and ordinary though I am, I knew that this was a pack of lies from the start. And like many others, I saw through the dishonesty of the Democrats and their lying agents in the lying media. Like many others, I had the benefit of reading and hearing the truth- here and elsewhere. I don’t particularly blame individuals who bought into the narrative from sources they trusted at the time. But if they can’t see the truth now, and if they don’t question the lies they were told, they are a lost cause and to be pitied, at best. 

    • #28
  29. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Flicker (View Comment):

    BDB: cognitive dissonanace (look it up, it’s more than a catch-phrase)

    It’s more like a catch phrase. I spent probably a half hour yesterday trying to remember that term. The wording makes no sense. The closest I could get was somatic bumptitude or something. :)

    It has a real, psychological meaning and gets misunderstood.

    • #29
  30. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Ed G. (View Comment):
    Why did Paul Ryan kneecap Devin Nunes and tolerate/enable Schiff?

    Because he’s evil.

    • #30
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