• AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    So is the conspiracy that she’s being coerced? Because she’s a billionaire in the land of legal political bribery, so she has the means to tell our politicians what to do far more than the other way around. She’s allowed to have and to express a political opinion, just like any other random person.

    You ever notice everything and everyone Republicans don’t like is a conspiracy against them?

    “OW! Stubbed my toe! God damned wall corner is a leftist plot to injure me so I can’t vote for the fuhrer!”

    Sorry, the soft serve machine is being cleaned right now.

    “Did Brandon get to you?! Who sent you to deprive me of soft serve?! Fucking Pelosi?!”

    • Telorand@reddthat.com
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      9 months ago

      Because she’s a billionaire in the land of legal political bribery, so she has the means to tell our politicians what to do far more than the other way around.

      Yes, but don’t you see? She’s a woman, and therefore needs to be told what to do and think by the super smart and totally handsome male politicians. /s

      • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        The funniest bit about this Taylor Swift thing if you think about it is that Modern Republicans love the negative attention they get for all of their hateful causes, they literally try to make people outside their in-group hate them for their own amusement. They welcome the rest of America’s disgust of them as a badge of honor. It’s in their rhetoric, threatening “Give me an excuse to shoot somebody” door signs, and “fuck your feelings” bumper stickers.

        They’re blowing a microchip over Taylor because hatred is their brand, positive popularity is something they’ve always shunned and devalued, and now their ENEMIES have most of the popular figures they drove away, leaving them with… well… kid rock.

        They want to be hated, and they want to win, at the same time. So it’s literally offensive and not fair to them, and anything not fair to them is a “conspiracy,” that social popularity is relevant in an election. 😂

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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      9 months ago

      Devil’s avocado here, but it must be nice to go through life with nothing ever being your own fault. There’s always a convenient plot against you, and you’d be a billionaire running a casino on the moon if it weren’t for {insert scapegoat here}.

      • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        {insert scapegoat here}

        Ooh I know this one! Children in poverty getting subsidized school lunches instead of going hungry like they deserve to for being poor!

        • trafficnab@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          No no no, you misunderstand, we’re just solving the childhood obesity epidemic by not giving children any more food

    • Omgpwnies@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Of course it’s Pelosi, she can’t let anyone else get their grubby paws on her precious ice cream! /s

    • darth_helmet
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      9 months ago

      If there is a conspiracy happening to stop these idiots from further footgunning the country, where do I sign up? Are there tryouts?

  • gloss@discuss.tchncs.de
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    9 months ago

    Eighteen percent believe there is “a covert government effort” for the pop icon to help President Biden win re-election, according to a Monmouth University survey.

    Why would they need a covert operation? It’s already well known she’s favors the Democrats and hates Trump. Why the need for a conspiracy layer to it? I’m sure the Biden team would be thrilled if she endorsed him, but that’s not “a covert government effort”. It’s so stupid.

    • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Anything to make it sound nefarious, because to Republican voters, everyone is as dishonest, tribal, and ammoral as they are.

      This is all Fox “News” and other conservative outlets do all day every day, take the news and add sinister innuendo to it. If Biden were doing a state visit to the UK, Fox would almost certainly say “Biden flees overseas to avoid American’s scrutiny of his administration’s failures” or the like. If he had that state visit planned but canceled it due to some urgent matter, the headline would be “Biden cancels state visit. Health concerns? What’s he hiding?”

      Republicans basically spin any positive or neutral information about their many enemies, everyone outside their in-group, as an attack on them. Republicans have no empathy, so of course the sun moon and stars all revolve around them in their view.

      • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        They think they are the real ones and that any opposition is hate. Rather than, ya know, feeling sorry for them.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Yeah but the needed to covertly rig football games to make Taylor Swift popular. Because nobody heard of Taylor Swift before a few months ago, right?

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
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    9 months ago

    Written another way: “At least 1 in 5 Americans are exposed to unreasonable amounts of dangerous and persuasive propaganda.”

  • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I’m Canadian, and every time I hear a stat like this I think of the following quote:

    “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” -Pierre Trudeau to Richard Nixon

  • Ekybio@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Im reading this as: Nearly 1 in 5 people will reliably vote for Trump

    Good: Trump only has 1/5 of people fooled and there is hope

    Bad: 1/5 peoples live would be improved by lobotomy

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Im reading this as: Nearly 1 in 5 people will reliably vote for Trump

      You’re discounting the number of RFK Jr voters and Sovereign Citizen “Voting is just a trick to get you to create joinder” folks in this mix. Also, the guaranteed number of chucklefuck respondents who reply “Yes, and that’s good actually”.

      Good: Trump only has 1/5 of people fooled and there is hope

      Plenty of Trump support has nothing to do with QAnon-tier witch hunts. I’ve got Trump neighbors who are entirely in it because they think he’ll be good for the Houston O&G economy. Its the “Climate Change is a hoax and only Trump will protect our jobs” folks plus the “Illegal Immigrants are going to rape my daughter and hot box my son with the dankest Chinese fentanyl” folks who are the backbone of the campaign.

      The “Taylor Swift is a 12-Dimensional Psychic Parasite Channeling the Spirit Ghost of Joseph Stalin” crowd are merely the most exotic and lurid supporters.

  • kromem@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    There’s some people who are highly suggestible. Like to the point it’s arguably a disability.

    There was an interview with Trump supporters that captured one that other day that’s worth a look to understand what’s going on:

    https://youtu.be/Ud3btbISggA?t=06m08s

    You can watch as the person interviewing him about falling for scams over and over jokingly tells him to walk off in a given direction - and then the dude just starts to, until he realizes his car is in the other direction.

    • acetanilide@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I think that’s kind of misleading.

      It looks to me more like he is just looking in that direction (even if he does take a step or two). He was more asking/saying, well why should I go that way when my car is this way. Not, oh shit, my car is actually this way.

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        9 months ago

        If you watch the entire interview with him, I don’t think it’s at all misleading to portray him as highly suggestible.

        The dude falls over himself agreeing with whichever way the wind blows in an interview about how he keeps being taken advantage of by scams.

        In that broader context, him shuffling off several steps in the direction some guy jokingly told him to head off in really shouldn’t be discounted with a parenthetical.

    • MagicShel@programming.dev
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      9 months ago

      I wish we could find the gene for critical thinking and apply a little gene therapy to every fetus. Imagine Cletus and Sally Bobbi Anne having a toddler who questions bible stories and plays along with the Santa thing because they are so excited when he pretends to buy into their bullshit.

      • iquanyin@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        a good education and ripping away church tax breaks would go a long way. and jailing megapreacher con men just like any other con men.

  • EtherWhack@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Well, of course it’s real. The 49ers are from one of the most liberal areas in the US. So, yeah they were fine with taking a loss if it means Biden’s pawn can help his agenda. /s

    • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Keeping those details vague is intentional. The purveyors of such conspiracy theories know that the worst thing they can ever do is make a clear falsifiable statement.

    • BigBenis@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      They thought she was going to endorse Biden at the end of the Super Bowl and that the White House had rigged the game for the Chiefs to win in order to maximize the spectacle and coverage.

      • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I mean… She endorsed him last time around so I don’t know why it should be a secret for anyone really. But even then, I can’t see why anyone would change their vote, duento a singer or idol

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          9 months ago

          She is a self proclaimed democrat. For her to announce support for Biden is like announcing that tomorrow is Friday. We already fucking know, dude.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Something to do with rigging football games to make Taylor swift popular (because she wasn’t popular already, I guess?) so she could endorse Biden so he can get re-elected.

      But I’m kinda more interested in the one where she’s a vampire.

    • Psythik@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      The flaw in your reasoning is that you’re using Google. Stupid people don’t research things, so of course you’re not going to find anything.

  • ArbitraryValue
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    9 months ago

    Lizardman’s constant is 4%

    Public Policy Polling’s recent poll on conspiracy theories mostly showed up on my Facebook feed as “Four percent of Americans believe lizardmen are running the Earth”.

    (of note, an additional 7% of Americans are “not sure” whether lizardmen are running the Earth or not.)

    I think the results here can be explained by Lizardman’s constant and an additional few respondents who interpreted the question to mean “Do you support Trump?” and then gave the answer that corresponded to supporting Trump.

    • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      Regardless of the nuance, when 20% of people - let’s be conservative and say 10% even - translates into tens of millions of people, it normalizes very odd, if somewhat tamer, theories and ideas.

      This is a cornerstone of rightwing thinking and spreading conspiracies. Qanon says “there is a secret democrat soros-clinton pedo ring and they all talk about it in code via emails. That’s why the Clinton emails/server are so important.” Then Breitbart says “liberals protect pedophiles and are corrupt with their emails and servers.” Then Fox News says “Are liberals protecting pedophiles? Who can say. But this Clinton lady and her emails/servers are very corrupt and that’s bad for America. We’re just here asking questions and protecting the country.”

      Each version is more diluted so as to be more palatable to less and less extreme audiences. But it’s a foot in the door. Because now someone has an opinion about pedophiles that is clearly laid out as one party’s issue, so they are now receptive to things like “Biden is inappropriate with children.” While further up the extremism ladder (or down the spiral, depending on your preferred analogy) they’re already saying he’s single-handedly running pedo camps or whatever insane idea they have that week.

      It’s just the same crap over and over again.

      • s0ckpuppet@kbin.social
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        9 months ago

        Big problem is that these fucking idiots who come up with these theories used to not have this practically unlimited reach the internet and particularly viral social media gives them.

        And these stupid fucking ideas are really contagious among stupid people who have a chip on their shoulder and wanna have some sorta inside information that makes them feel in some way superior to others. That’s QAnon in a nutshell as well.

        Prior to all this social media bullshit there’d be enclaves of these dummies spotted around but they couldn’t organize and breed like this.

        • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          I think for a lot of folks it’s also the idea that there is a neat, identifiable cause of all their problems that falls under easy to tap in to prejudices. They don’t want to accept that sometimes bad things just happen or maybe the people they vote for/believe in aren’t doing everything they can to help them. It has to be someone putting their thumb on the scale. And dammit, Trump is going to stop that person!

          • s0ckpuppet@kbin.social
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            9 months ago

            I like how he didn’t stop shit (drain the swamp) whatsoever and that’s not a topic of discussion with those people.

            So crazy that anybody could revere that guy. He’s all the worst aspects of humanity wrapped into a single person.