The Pretense of "Thinking Differently": Latest Euphemism for Conspiracy Theorists

The Most Dangerous Game

President Obama made clear in his interview today that pretending that truth no longer matters, the biggest legacy of Trump's presidency, is the greatest threat to the maintenance of a democracy.

The popular term for attempts to relegate truth to the archive of irrelevance is "Truth Decay. I'll illustrate.

Truth Decay: Covid-19 is no more than a flu that is being blown up as a danger by the left. In fact, it's not even a flu; it's a hoax. Truth: Covid-19 is a serious and complex disease that is extremely dangerous for anyone with pre-existing conditions, the elderly, African Americans, and immune compromised individuals. It kills. Cases of Terminal Truth Decay:Patients near death — and still denying COVID is real."

“I can’t help but think of the Covid patients the last few days,” she wrote after a shift this weekend. “The ones that stick out are those who still don’t believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is going to ruin the USA. All while gasping for breath on 100% Vapotherm. They tell you there must be another reason they are sick.”

She described patients calling her names and demanding to know why she’s wearing the mask, shield and gowns because “they don’t have COViD because it’s not real.”

“These people really think this isn’t going to happen to them,” she described. “And then they stop yelling at you when they get intubated. It’s like a fucking horror movie that never ends. There’s no credits that roll. You just go back and do it all over again.”

Results:Trump voters predominate in "Red States." Those states are experiencing the worst infection, hospitalization, and death rates from "hoax" during the pandemic. These states will be the longest lasting cess pool of infection because the same people who are Covid-19 deniers are also devotees of vaccine conspiracies.

They are the most virulently anti-science.
They are the most resistant to undertaking basic pandemic hygiene.
They are led by the most deluded Trump sycophants who insist on rights that don't exist, wins that never happened, and their personal patriotism in the absence of any love of country.

These are the states, people, and politicians who serve Death and Suffering out of religious "conviction"; out of poor education; out of a sole ambition to "own the libs"; out of fear of phantoms; out of susceptibility to propaganda that affirms their god-ideas, their stupidity, their arrogance, and their fear of facing reality.

Consequences Truth Decay will produce a killing field as the deniers go to their Thanksgiving feasts in the fly-over states, the like of which will resemble the bubonic plague in 14th Century Europe.

Truth Decay will first decimate the Trump cultists who only listen to what they want to hear from a bankrupt "leader," but it will sweep across the country because the denialists' behavior will lead them to insist on exercising their "right" to aggressively spread Coronavirus among the Reality Based Community.

Truth Decay among Trump cultists will reinforce itself among the cult because the reality of why their fellow travelers are dying and of what they are dying is, to them, a conspiracy perpetrated by the Left which has unleashed a deadly force of Satan and fascistcommunists on them because -- and only because -- they think differently.

They cannot be brought to the light of Truth because (just like the "stolen election" lie) their mental state is because of a Leftist/Socialist conspiracy that is so vast and so successful that there is absolutely no evidence of it. It's the ultimate idea that explains all that is distasteful to their world view and that can be produced by the minds of people who "think differently."

Eternal Darkness of the "Truth Decay" Mind

Joe Biden won the election — but RNC Chair tells Fox there was a ‘massive Trump wave.’ She's just thinking differently.

. . .she thought the Democrats “used COVID to rig the laws” so that they could win the election and that there was a “massive” wave for President Donald J. Trump to win.

Lou Dobbs calls the 2020 election "the worst in our country's history."

RNC chair Ronna McDaniel says Democrats "used COVID to rig the laws." pic.twitter.com/mGBvJEjqCt

— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) November 16, 2020

Fox News blasted for creating an alternate reality that endangers Americans: ‘Flagrant lies’

But Fox is only chasing deluded Trump and his legal barrel scrapings that manage to pass (did the cheat the bar exam?) as lawyers -- until they get to court, that is.

TRUTH DECAY VIDEO Giuliani: Trump is contesting the election 'vigorously' in the courts.

“We’re now in a nation where facts don’t matter,” Rev. Sharpton continued. “You make up facts. And not only do you have an alternative reality, how do you debate someone that is dealing with a totally fictitious premise? How do you debate a fantasy that someone wants to sell and people want to believe? I think the danger of that is in the middle of having to engage and try to knock down fantasies, we put ourselves at risk to a foreign enemy or some enemy like a pandemic that is a natural disaster because reality is not going to spare fantasy.”

TRUTH Trump’s Election Challenges Keep Getting Laughed Out of Court

A Michigan judge has denied the Trump campaign's motion to cease certification of the vote in Detroit, noting that if the election challengers had attended orientation, they would know that what they were witnessing was routine.https://t.co/iU0BB9Wqoa pic.twitter.com/Wgos3XPUoX
— Andrew Fleischman (@ASFleischman) November 13, 2020

Even when the truth is directly in front of them AND the opportunity to know it is handed to them on a plate, Republicans choose to "think differently" by inventing a conspiracy that they try, like the Sisty Ugglers in Cinderella, to jam their minds into an idea box where no thinking person's mind fits. And. . .

I must say, I have never seen this before. Typically, you have evidence first and then file a lawsuit.

From the PA lawsuit filed by voters to stop certification⬇️ pic.twitter.com/vGZKUYukJ6
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) November 13, 2020

and

🚨BREAKING: Pennsylvania Court REJECTS Trump lawsuit challenging 1,259 ballots.

Trump and allies are now 1-17 in court.https://t.co/lCmkBsiewC
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) November 13, 2020

Regarding the laughable Dominion voting machine software conspiracy that is so vast and successful that no evidence for it exists,

. . .the key facet to this claim is that Dominion software is not just vulnerable to mass hacking but designed to engineer it. What you have to ask yourself is, why have 27 states, many of them controlled by Republicans, turned their elections over to a communist-controlled software program designed to manufacture Democratic votes?

It's time for this craptastic fantasy to end. Extract TRUTH DECAY wherever you see, hear, read, or find it.

>5 Earthling1:

Perhaps. But you’ll find that this “first draft” will prove to be stunning in its accuracy.

Even if you don’t like it.

>4 Earthling1:, >5 Earthling1:

There's no whining in politics. That's for LOSERS.

No, really, truth matters, it does. Your camp is on its way to seeing just how much that is true. Law also matters--something else your crowd seems to have forgotten, if they'd ever learned it in the first place. Criminal laws matter. Crimes "matter." Fraud, perjury, subornation of perjury, destruction of material evidence of a crime, witness-tampering, mail-fraud, tax evasion, bribery, extortion, conspiracy to commit all these, aiding and abetting all these, being an accessory before during or after the fact of all these.

When this is all done, important people are going to face criminal indictments, trials, convictions and serious prison-terms--some formerly very respected people. This isn't going away, isn't going to be swept under the carpet, isn't going to be forgiven or forgotten.

This isn't Gore v. Bush or Bush v. Gore. No one is going to shake hands and call it square. These election-procedures are going to be thoroughly examined and within them, evidence of systemic fraud exposed and those responsible brought to book.

There are many people right now observing all this going on and, having themselves had a direct personal involvement in the electoral fraud, they are quaking in their boots, crossing their fingers, shitting in their pants and hoping they can hold off the coming day of reckoning.

The better course would be to come forward, face the authorities, relate honestly what they did, when, how and with whom, and bear the consequences. They'll be better off for it. Otherwise, someone else is going to crack, is going to talk, and this entire tawdry house of cards is going to collapse around them with disastrous consequences.

Some new case-law, much-needed, may ensure in addition to new statutes which alter current law. For example, it may become both an illegal and a reversible crime for any corruptly-elected executive, prior to being exposed as such, to preemptively pardon his criminal associates upon his having gained office through frauds in which these same associates are themselves either already or eventually found to have been implicated. The law, thus, making such pardons dead-letters as based on a fraudulent taking and use of executive office powers.

Briefly, we may see a change in the status quo to the effect that, if you gain office via fraud and you then pardon your accomplices, those pardons can and shall be voided, reversed, nullified, upon court review and findings.

This ain't near over.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

"Tick... tick... tick..."

>8 proximity1: No, really, truth matters,

It's good to know you have a sense of irony and can laugh at yourself.

>8 proximity1:
Lordy.

Just can’t admit that your side lost. That is L O S T.

You know, I rather meanly posted to you somewhere within this Group (I’m sure you saw it in your extremely deep dive into my LT history) rather gloatingly about “how does it feel to lose” or words to that effect.

I then edited that post to apologize for being mean-spirited,and said I was sure that you’re suffering, if only at a distance.

Little did I know that you would go right over a mental cliff into Opposite Land.

While I still feel sorry for you, it’s for different reasons.

Let’s revisit this on January 21, 2021. The lawsuits are vanishing, the lawyers are running the other way...because they know this is the whining of that petulant over-70 toddler in the White House, and has no basis in reality. For heavens sakes, smarten up; you’re making yourself look bad. Of course that’s your choice.

See you in January, Proxy, and looking forward to it.

>8 proximity1: When this is all done, important people are going to face criminal indictments, trials, convictions and serious prison-terms...

it may become both an illegal and a reversible crime for any corruptly-elected executive, prior to being exposed as such, to preemptively pardon his criminal associates upon his having gained office through frauds in which these same associates are themselves either already or eventually found to have been implicated. The law, thus, making such pardons dead-letters as based on a fraudulent taking and use of executive office powers. Briefly, we may see a change in the status quo to the effect that, if you gain office via fraud and you then pardon your accomplices, those pardons can and shall be voided, reversed, nullified, upon court review and findings.

So presumably you are not in favour of Trump issuing pardons to either himself or any of his cronies who have been or might be convicted of such crimes?

>13 Earthling1: I’ll just say that there were eight—8 congressional investigators of Hilary Clinton. Most of them were conducted by Republican-controlled bodies.

And yet they found none—not one item to charge her with.

So unless your conspiracy ideas have grown to include the US Senate and the House of Representatives, and all the Republicans as well as the Democrats, your remark is completely fatuous and is of the diversion/distraction/but what about/look over there sort.

Why don’t you directly answer John’s legitimate question?

Truth Matters -- Even a Few Republicans Believe It. . .Now

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger doubled down on Tuesday after saying that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had suggested that state officials should exclude legally cast ballots.

Not a single state has validated Trump’s claims of mass election fraud. Where is this massive conspiracy of Democratic election irregularities that stole the election from the LOSER? Why, as expected by the Reality Based Community, what's to be found of the conspiracy is to be found among the Republican Trump sycophants and loyalists. Only.

Lindsey Graham admits trying to meddle with Nevada and Arizona vote counts in addition to Georgia.

Yep. He did. Georgia secretary of state had witnesses on call when Lindsey Graham plotted to ‘throw out’ ballots. WSJ

Were 2,600 Uncounted Votes Found in Floyd County, Georgia by State Audit? Yes. Yes they were. 800 more for Don Boy. Whoop-ti-doo. That means 1600 weren't. Even if Trump had won ALL 2600, he's STILL the LOSER.

The problem occurred because county election officials didn’t upload votes from a memory card in an ballot scanning machine, said Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting system manager.

In the interests of truth, GA Sec'y. of State FIRED the county elections supervisor the next day. Thank you, Don-Boy for requesting a recount. Without it no reasonable person could have asserted that the election in GA was FREE of election fraud as RWNJs and your supporters claimed. Now they know -- like it or not. Remember: Truth doesn't care about your fee-fees. It's still the truth.

>16 Earthling1: A candidate found ample evidence of cheating during an election

I think the point is that the world is still waiting to see any of this "ample evidence" being proven true. So far virtually all of the "ample evidence" being presented in courts and elsewhere has failed that test.

May I gently remind you that when there was "ample evidence" of wrongdoing by the president, it was the right wing which was rubbishing the idea of the need for an investigation. Lack of consistency here?

Conservative ‘free speech’ app Parler sees US election surge (Al Jazeera)

With Twitter and Facebook CEO’s facing pressure from Congress, competitor Parler provides an outlet for conservative voices... Parler, which calls itself the the “free speech social network” and whose creator has said that content on the Twitter-like site will not be fact-checked...

I suppose most of us can remember when anything with a French name was anathema to the US right wing (French fries becoming "freedom fries"), but perhaps the right wing has a short memory.

>21 Earthling1:

Please refrain from trying to limit the conversations on an international web site to purely domestic US media. As you well know, Al Jazeera is a credible independent news platform which presents news angles which are often overlooked, underreported or skewed by the mainstream western media. It is not a supporter of terrorism.

Probably irrelevant, but when 9/11 happened I was in Khartoum, staying at the well known Acropole Hotel, which had been bombed by Palestinian Abu Nidal "terrorists" thirteen years earlier which I was caught up in and which I survived with only a small shrapnel wound. This was before the days of television in each room (indeed the rooms didn't even have en suite bathrooms) but there was a common television room. That morning George, the Greek proprietor, came from room to room urging us to come to the TV room to see what was happening in America. A multinational group of us gathered there, and we started switching between BBC and CNN, the only two English-language news channels which were available. As the morning progressed we noticed that CNN was become more and more emotional, hysterical and patriotic, while BBC maintained a more professional and objective reporting style, despite clearly being sympathetic to the USA and appalled by the attack. That was one of the experiences that taught me to value a wide range of news media. Incidentally, at that moment the feeling in Khartoum was total sympathy with the USA, but an expectation that we were about to be bombed by the USA as Bush had labelled Sudan part of the so-called "axis of evil". Fortunately for us he turned his wrath on Afghanistan and later Iraq instead.

It so happened in the PA State Supreme Court that Trump lawyers had no such evidence, only whining, and the court ruled against Trump's "claim" of vote counting irregularity. The Trump lawyers were "thinking differently."

It so happened Rudy Giuliani was a complete ass in Federal court today where he appeared "to accuse Democrats in control of big cities of hatching a nationwide conspiracy to steal the election, even though no such evidence has emerged in the two weeks since Election Day."

Giuliani's been "thinking differently" ever since he went from hero as Mayor of NYC to zero as Faux News blithering idiot. He had come to try to salvage the case the day after the judge sent his legal eagles away for having no evidence of fraud filings.

Instead of producing evidence, Giuliani produced his revised filing with all mention of "fraud" withdrawn. None of the affidavits lawyers had come to court with even alleged fraud. So much for Republicans' ideas of "evidence." The issues Trump's campaign and its allies have pointed to are typical in every election: problems with signatures, secrecy envelopes and postal marks on mail-in ballots, as well as the potential for a small number of ballots miscast or lost. Like in Georgia.

To Whom It May Concern: Raw Story is largely a news aggregator like Drudge is. They cite sources for their published articles running the gamut from DJT's Twitter account to WaPo and the NYT. As well, they cite local and national broadcast news stations, all of which are recognized as credible journalistic outlets, unlike Breitbart online "news," which is recognized as a crock of caca. Links to the full story at the bottom of major RS articles take you to those credible sources where you can read the entire original pieces for yourself. RS has an editorial opinion that is progressive, not RWNJ conspiratorial like Alex Jones is.

>20 Earthling1: If it's happening in the courts, then you and I will likely not see it.

Court records are in the public domain. As an example, there's a parallel thread on the fake news (sorry, I mean "ample evidence") about the Michigan electoral process in which the court record is cited, with a link to the full text. No doubt anybody who is interested can find them all online, so that "you and I will likely not see it". And credible mainstream media are reporting on the results of court cases.

#24--he's a persistent cuss isn't he?

>28 Earthling1:

A citation for this opinion piece? Since you don't even give a title, googling it would be time-consuming.

>29 John5918:

https://www.conservativenewsdaily.com/barack-obamas-truth-decay-lie/

>30 bnielsen:

Ah, thanks. Now the Conservative Daily News can deservedly receive credit for publishing this article, although I also see a link to the same article in the Daily Wire. Shared credit, perhaps?

I note that >28 Earthling1: only posted part of the article, without any indication thereof.

When he spoke of “truth decay,” Obama is permitted by the media to assume the premise that he is an objective and reliable authority on what is true and what is false.

An opinion which would be difficult to verify. The media publish the views of an ex-president. He has some "authority" ("status" might be a better word) as an ex-president, as do Bush, Clinton and Carter, and as Trump will after he leaves office, but his views are published for information; the reader can take them or leave them, and an opinion piece can agree or disagree with him. Clearly Ian Haworth, the Conservative Daily News and the Daily Wire disagree; possibly so do the hundreds of news outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch, plus the hundreds of right wing radio stations, and the right wing social media sites; some other mainstream, progressive and/or independent media agree with Obama. At the very least, it is a contribution to the conversation, something to be explored and interrogated. Problem?

>10 Matke:

for your reference (and your conscience, when you discover where you left that):

On not accepting electoral outcomes--legitimate, fair and open electoral outcomes--and attempting to equate your partisanly-supported fraud-ridden electoral preferences with such legitimate, fair and open outcomes.


(F.B.I. attorney) Lisa Page, & F.B.I. Special Agent Peter Strzok, II in a text exchange:

“He's (i.e. Trump) not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Page texted Strzok in August 2016.

“No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok responded.

The text messages' disclosure comes as part of the inspector general's review of former FBI Director James Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.

FBI agent in texts: 'We'll stop' Trump from becoming president | By John Bowden - 06/14/18 12:21 PM EDT

Only in such crazy times as ours could partisanship display the Chutzpah required to equate the refusal to calmly acquiesce in the use of elaborately concerted fraud in a presidential election with deranged partisan obstinancy --even as those doing so defend, excuse and rationalize their fraud which serves their selfish partisan interests.

Victor Davis Hanson, in his most recent essay, addresses just these weird circumstances:

"The Trump CT Scanner" | By Victor Davis Hanson | November 15, 2020
from the site, American Greatness.

"These past four years, Donald Trump, intentionally or not, became a CT scanner that produced three-dimensional images of the innards of elite institutions and people, showing us what is beneath their veneers. He had an eerie manner of replying to critics in such an upstart fashion that those who objected to his supposed crudity proved cruder in repartee than he. And he showcased his successes for America in such a way as to make his enemies wish that successes for their country were failures instead.

"If one suspected before 2017 that White House CNN correspondent Jim Acosta was a lightweight blowhard, be now confirmed you had been naïve in such a balanced assessment.

"If you had thought Hillary Clinton was becoming unstable during the Obama years, in the Trump era she ended up hiring two-bit ex-spies to cobble together lies about her opponent, jabber about La Résistance, and urge candidates never to concede an election.

"If you once concluded that over-meddlesome Twitter, Google, and Facebook were massaging accounts, searches, and postings in a partisan fashion, after Trump you saw they were creepy Big Brothers with no apologies for warping the Internet.

"If in the old days, a busybody Michael Bloomberg seemed a whiny scold with unlimited money he intended to use to get his way, after Trump he became an obsessed politico who threw $100 million here, another $100 million there to stop Trump. In the end, Bloomberg proved only that he knew a lot about making money but not so much about how to spend it.

"So what was strange in the age of Trump was not just the Left’s unhinged hatred of the president (we had seen that before, during the George W. Bush Administration, when the president was tarred as a Brownshirt, a Nazi, and a fascist), but a new sanctimonious and unapologetic furor among establishmentarians of all stripes.

"Trump, in their view, violated all rules of polite behavior, of presidential comportment, of beltway protocols. So they felt no compunction in revealing their own low methods of opposing him on their own theory that only scoundrels might ferret out other alleged scoundrels.

"They were fond of trite superlatives—'the worst in history,' 'never before,' and 'unprecedented,' to name a few—to claim there had never been anyone so bad as Trump before in the Oval Office. Thus, he should be sued for enriching himself (he reportedly has lost $1 billion in net worth since 2017), declared crazy for not consulting the right experts (he aced the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test), investigated by a special prosecutor for being libeled by Hillary Clinton’s libelous purchased dossier, and impeached for bringing up the Biden name to Ukrainian aid-seeking connivers (Google the 65 million matches for an otherwise nonentity 'Hunter Biden').
Grandiose Kristallnacht Fantasies

"The spleen, the hypocrisy, and the often unethical nature of these anti-Trump writs revealed Washington fixtures to the public as something very opposite to what they had claimed to be.

"Take the obvious example of the media.

"Christiane Amanpour last week claimed on CNN that the Trump years were like Kristallnacht, as she compared the Trump Administration to the genocidal Nazi assault on civilization. In her self-revelation of ignorance and unhinged hatred, Amanpour—who warned us shortly after the election that she (like Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times and Univision’s Jorge Ramos) could no longer be a disinterested journalist—apparently believes Trump is an outright Nazi." ...

Really, your moral high-horse died in a mishap--I think it was killed in something called a "Cross-fire Hurricane." As they say, "You could look it up."

>32 proximity1: Please explain the relevance of this post to my >10 Matke:. You are citing news stories and remarks that have absolutely no bearing on my words or actions.

IIRC, and as I’m sure you saw in your extended review of my postings here in the Pro and Con Group, at one point you asked me to name something positive that Mr. Trump had done. I responded with three of his actions that I thought were praiseworthy.

So that gives the lie to your endless nattering about me never, ever posting anything positive about Mr. Trump.

Further, I asked you to respond with one—just one, mind you—act or decision on Mr. Trump’s part. Your answer was to the effect that you couldn’t think of one just at that moment, as you didn’t keep that sort of list in your head.

Really, your grasp of facts is nil. Mr. Biden has won the election. Mr. Trump has lost the election. Of the lawsuits brought by the Republicans which have reached court rulings, the score stands at 25 to 1 against Mr. Trump and his supporters. In at least one such case, the attorneys representing Mr. Trump or the Republicans were asked straight out if they were making accusations of fraud. The answer was “No.”

I’m not on a moral high horse, as you seem to have reserved all of those that are available.

Looking forward to January 20, 2021, Proxy.

>21 Earthling1: You have gone on at some length about how people should be open to different ideas. Yet here you are, trying to stifle the free exchange of information. Please explain how that works.

Are you saying that because of 9/11, every Arab, every Muslim, all news organizations from Arab or Muslim countries, have become an affront to American sensibilities? Based on that rationale, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan should reject any and all things American. Or is it all a one-way street with you?

Speak for yourself. They are not my enemy. The free exchange of information is important. As you have pointed out. Repeatedly.

There certainly is a “pretense of thinking differently.” And sadly, your posts embody that pretense.

ETA You seem terribly concerned about people posting here who are not US citizens (in fact, you repeatedly questioned my citizenship, just as if that were any business of yours).

Why is that? Are only Americans allowed to speak about issues of whatever sort in America? Are you aware that this is an international site that welcomes members, and their input, from all countries? Are you trying to subtly insult those who aren’t US citizens? Are you, in fact, xenophobic? If not, why all this concern about where posters are from?

>33 Matke:

"Tick ... Tick ... Tick ..."

>35 proximity1: Ah, right. When you don't have anything to say, say something anyway. Not exactly the way most of us work, but I guess if you didn't do it that way, we'd never hear from you at all...

Where to go to "think differently":

Conservative Daily News, founded by Parler's "Editor-in-chief" Rich Mitchell--
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/conservative-daily-post/

The Daily Wire, founded by Ben Shapiro, formerly of Breitbart News--
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-daily-wire/

American Greatness, millionaire conservative Chris Buskirk's project--
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/american-greatness/

Strange how these sources are neither interested in facts nor, I see at a glance of their material, in saying anything different than what the stereotypical alt-right extremist sitting alone in a hateful mood after years of being fed fake news (by these same people!) could come up with.

I can find more originality and more fact-checked content in a science fiction anthology.

#37,38,39,40,41--so much to say--so little worth reading.

>44 Earthling1:
When you think your on the side of “Right” or “Good”, you let yourself off the hook. Then you go astray” %
Physician, heal thyself.

Catholics believe that baptism washes away sin. After that, you are a good person.
Take some time to study religion. That isn’t at all an accurate description of what Catholics, or indeed any Christians, believe. Do some studying so that your posts won’t look foolish.

Your statement about what Catholics believe about baptism is flat wrong. Look at a catechism or any standard work on what Catholics believe.

Your posts have repeatedly demonstrated that whether those posts are right or wrong means nothing to you, as long as you garner some attention from others.

More power to you.

Since Earthling has brought up Biden's Catholicism in a negative light once again, it might be worth looking at a 30 minute interview he had with Catholic Jesuit priest Fr Matt Malone for America Magazine five years ago, when he was vice president.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xson7Rg5p3A

For those who prefer text to video, America Magazine put out a two-page press release at the time which contains many quotes from the interview.

http://microsites.americamedia.org/papalvisit/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2015/09...

No American worthy of citizenship gives a damn about anyone else's religion, let alone a president's, especially since the Constitution does not permit a religious test in order to run for the office. The bigotry behind even bringing the topic up as it pertains to a politician's personal faith, or lack thereof, in this country is an exhibition in faithlessness to the First Amendment.

No guilt can be accrued to the person for being a religious practitioner of any kind, nor credit, either. The same is true of the irreligious person who is a non-practitioner of any such belief. Move on.

"Thinking differently" about someone's qualifications to be a public servant in terms of that person's religion has no pertinence nor interest in any political discussion because that's not "thinking differently" it's clearly not thinking at all. A disability miserable Trumpty-Dumbpty posters excel at. Evidence this very thread where spiteful spewing has completely overcome thoughtful writing entirely. Sadly, regardless of the topic.

>51 Earthling1:

It's no secret that the Catholic Church has a sacrament called Reconciliation (previously known as Confession) which celebrates God's forgiveness of sins. It's also no secret that Baptism, which is the sacrament which initiates someone into the Christian community, is also believed to celebrate the forgiveness of prior sins. So the first half of your statement in >44 Earthling1: "Catholics believe that baptism washes away sin. After that, you are a good person" is correct as far as it goes. But Gail correctly points out that the second part of your sentence is incorrect. Baptism makes you a member of the Christian community. It has no relevance to whether you are a good person or not.

>53 John5918: Thanks, John.

And I completely agree with >52 Limelite: .

For those who like “to think differently”, which means to disregard facts, here’s where that will lead you:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/qanon-mom-accused-murder-m...

>56 Matke: That article mentions the "sovereign citizen" delusion - this one is interesting, goes back at least to the previous "militia" movement of 90s. For the last three decades, the Republican party has been closely associated with what can only be described as a series of collective madnesses, and the "Q" thing is just the latest. As this goes on, it strikes me once again that we make a big mistake in allowing these to be treated as separate "movements". I don't think they can be divided: the right wing has been largely driven by complete nutters without interruption since the early 90s, at the least, and this has driven the priorities and choices of the Republican party.

Just let that sink in: for the last thirty years, the Republican party has been, in effect, run by the clinically insane. Is it any wonder we have trouble getting the "cons" in this group to present their ideas in a coherent way? How could they, when their ideology of choice is defined by crazy people?

>59 kiparsky: I recall that whole “sovereign citizen” nonsense from the 90’s, and agree that the available evidence, so very much of it in their own words, links all these “movements” together. The Tea Party; the truly misguided and alarming “militias”, which seem to be groups of simple-minded people who love to threaten anyone with whom they disagree with violence, and believe that it somehow makes them more American to carry a long gun in places like Target; the disgusting Breitbart group—and just think of the ones that even they have dismissed—the lunatic Alex Jones and others of his ilk; it’s all of a piece, isn’t it?

And with each passing year they get further and further from any sort of reality-based thinking, further from realizing that they are now part of a rearguard worldwide trend toward prejudice, hate, and the rule of religion over law.

I can discuss things with those who think that bigger government isn’t the best answer to the world’s problems. I can try to come to something like a workable consensus in which everybody gains a little.

Thanks for refreshing my memory about all of this. It’s a depressing reality, but one we all need to keep in mind.

California man charged with killing his children claimed he was ‘enlightened by QAnon’, FBI says (Guardian)

A California surfing school owner has been charged with killing his two young children after driving them from their home in Santa Barbara to Mexico. During an interview with the FBI, Matthew Taylor Coleman confessed that he had taken his two-year-old son and 10-month-old daughter to Rosarito, Mexico, where he shot a “spear fishing gun” into their chests, according to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent with the criminal complaint. The 40-year-old said that “he was enlightened by QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theories”, according to the affidavit, and that he “believed his children were going to grow into monsters so he had to kill them”...

Emerging Tech
( https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/social-credit-system/ )

We’re closer to China’s disturbing ‘Social Credit System’ than you realize
By Luke Dormehl
April 22, 2018

_____________________________

It’s shocking to see so many leftwingers lured to the far right by conspiracy theories (Guardian)

It’s an uncomfortable thing to admit, but in the countercultural movements where my sympathies lie, people are dropping like flies. Every few days I hear of another acquaintance who has become seriously ill with Covid, after proudly proclaiming the benefits of “natural immunity”, denouncing vaccines and refusing to take the precautions that apply to lesser mortals. Some have been hospitalised. Within these circles, which have for so long sought to cultivate a good society, there are people actively threatening the lives of others.

It’s not just anti-vax beliefs that have been spreading through these movements. On an almost daily basis I see conspiracy theories travelling smoothly from right to left. I hear right-on people mouthing the claims of white supremacists, apparently in total ignorance of their origins. I encounter hippies who once sought to build communities sharing the memes of extreme individualism. Something has gone badly wrong in parts of the alternative scene...

much of what we are seeing at the moment is new. A few years ago, dreadlocked hippies spreading QAnon lies and muttering about a conspiracy against Donald Trump would have seemed unthinkable. Today, the old boundaries have broken down, and the most unlikely people have become susceptible to rightwing extremism. The anti-vaccine movement is a highly effective channel for the penetration of far-right ideas into leftwing countercultures. For several years, anti-vax has straddled the green left and the far right... Anti-vax beliefs overlap strongly with a susceptibility to conspiracy theories...

Enquiring minds or conspiracy theory? I DID briefly wonder how & why so many Haitians made it from South America through Mexico to US border at same time.

John Oberlin @OMGno2trump | 6:05 PM · Sep 23, 2021:
How did 15,000 Haitian refugees all end up at the same remote border location in Texas at the same time? 400 miles and at least a 7 hour drive from the coast. That's no accident or coincidence.

Discussion at https://twitter.com/OMGno2trump/status/1441161875119509504

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Former Trump aide Jason Miller questioned for three hours by police in Brazil
Mychael Schnell 9/7/2021

Former Trump aide Jason Miller said he was questioned by police for three hours at an airport in Brazil on Tuesday afternoon.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/former-trump-aide-jason-miller-questione...

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Social media platforms like WhatsApp helped lead Haitian migrants to Texas
Associated Press | Sep 23, 2021
https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/social-media-platforms-like-whatsapp-helped-le...

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Haitian trip to Texas border often starts in South America
By JULIE WATSON, JUAN A. LOZANO and ELLIOT SPAGAT | September 21, 2021
https://apnews.com/article/technology-mexico-texas-caribbean-united-states-ac7f5...

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Haitians Pushed To U.S. Border By Misinformation Now Angry At Deportation
Audie Cornish, Amy Isackson, Amy Isackson | September 21, 20215:16 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/21/1039393860/misinformation-that-pushed-haitian-mig...

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Border Patrol agents are ‘working to sabotage the Biden administration’, according to insiders
Andrew Feinberg | Tuesday 16 March 2021

The Trump-supporting Border Patrol labor union is reportedly teaming up with Republicans to launch a PR offensive on Biden’s government. At the same time, officers have chosen to continue to treat migrants at the border like Trump is still president

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/border-patrol-biden-crisis-dhs-kevin-mccart...
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Hmm, at some point this topic may warrant being moved to another thread?

Exclusive: DHS tracked Haitian migration for months but failed to predict surge at the border
Jana Winter and Caitlin Dickson | September 23, 2021

As multiple U.S. federal agencies continue to move thousands of Haitian migrants from a makeshift encampment on the banks of the Rio Grande River this week, Department of Homeland Security officials said Thursday that they were also “actively investigating” how approximately 15,000 Haitian migrants were able quickly make their way through Mexico to Del Rio, Texas, without being detected by U.S. intelligence.

On a background call with reporters Thursday, an official with the DHS said that the department has been “closely following the movement of migrants through the hemisphere.” Many of the current influx of Haitian migrants reportedly traveled to the U.S. from South America.

“We did not, however, have any intelligence that suggested we would be seeing the surge in numbers we saw over the past week,” the official said...

https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-dhs-tracked-haitian-migration-for-months-but-fa...

https://www.mediaite.com/daily-ratings/cable-news-ratings-wednesday-september-22...
Cable News Ratings Wednesday, September 22: Nearly 600,000 Younger Viewers Watched Tucker Carlson Last Night

TC's nightly "lecture hall" (provided by R. Murdoch) continues to be a bad omen for the future of our democracy.

>66 margd: Wonder why Biden Admin is using a Trump era COVID public health measure called Title 42? Isn't there also one that disallows migrants who have first landed in another country? Canada, for example.

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September 20, 2021 in a Facebook post:
Haitian migrants took an implausible route to Texas-Mexico border area.
Amy Sherman | September 23, 2021

...Our ruling

A Facebook post suggests that Haitian migrants took an implausible route across the Gulf of Mexico to arrive at the Texas-Mexico border.

The Haitians who are arriving in Texas did not take a direct route from Haiti. They are people who left their country following the 2010 earthquake and went to South America to find jobs in Brazil and Chile. When opportunities dried up in those countries and conditions worsened, they began traveling north through Latin America toward Mexico.

We rate this statement Mostly False.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/sep/23/facebook-posts/why-haitians-ar...

>66 margd:–Biden needs to start firing border patrol agents.

>69 lriley:

BBC reported that he said in today's press conference that people would be held accountable.

Del Rio migrant crisis: How did so many Haitians end up at the southern US border?
Mabinty Quarshie and Javonte Anderson | Sept 21, 2021. Updated Sept 24, 2021

...2010 earthquake...In Brazil, Haitian migrants were granted work visas for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. They were also able to obtain permanent residency for humanitarian reasons. By August 2020, there were more than 143,000 Haitians in Brazil, according to El País, a daily newspaper in Spain.

...In Chile, the Haitian population jumped. In 2017, there were 64,567 Haitians in Chile, with an estimated 150,000 there just a year later, according to the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think-tank.

...Haiti’s escalating violence and political instability

...in Chile many Haitians did not get work visas because of the country's process.

...Haitian nationals were able to obtain tourist visas in Chile, but in 2018, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera canceled temporary visas that allowed Haitians to move from tourists to migrants once they found a job.

(Eduardo Gamarra, professor of political science at the Florida International University) says it's probable that many Haitians were undocumented in Latin American countries such as Chile, Brazil and Ecuador, meaning they aren't able to be deported legally to those countries.

"They can't even be deported to Mexico because under international law, you have to be deported to the country where you have legal residence or a country has to agree to accept you," he said. "And more than likely, none of these countries is willing to accept Haitian migrants because of their status."

...COVID-19 pandemic hit particularly hard in Latin America...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/09/21/what-led-haitian-nationa...

The dark side of wellness: the overlap between spiritual thinking and far-right conspiracies (Guardian)

Extreme right-wing views and the wellness community are not an obvious pairing, but ‘conspirituality’ is increasingly pervasive. How did it all become so toxic?...

In 2011, sociologists Charlotte Ward and David Voas coined the term “conspirituality”. Ward defined it as “a rapidly growing web movement expressing an ideology fuelled by political disillusionment and the popularity of alternative worldviews”. It describes the sticky intersection of two worlds: the world of yoga and juice cleanses with that of New Age thinking and online theories about secret groups, covertly controlling the universe. It’s a place where you might typically see a vegan influencer imploring their followers to stick to a water fast rather than getting vaccinated, or a meditation instructor reminding her clients of the dangers of 5G, or read an Instagram comment explaining that vaccines are hiding tracking devices... While the overlap of left-wing, magazine-friendly wellness and far-right conspiracy theories might initially sound surprising, the similarities in cultures, in ways of thinking – the questioning of authority, of alternative medicines, the distrust of institutions– are clear. But something is happening, accelerated by the pandemic – the former is becoming a mainstream entry point into the latter... Research conducted during the pandemic suggests a link between Covid-related uncertainty, anxiety and depression and an increased likelihood of believing conspiracy theories...

One benefit of the rise of conspiracy theories is the rise of conspiracy-theory explainers... The key to changing minds is to debunk it before it takes on an ideological spin... “There is a strong correlation between the embrace of ‘wellness woo’ and being susceptible to misinformation. And as conspiracy theories and misinformation become increasingly about ideology, it becomes easier to sell both wellness bunk and conspiracy theories as being ‘on brand.’ In other words, if you are part of our community, this is the cluster of beliefs you must embrace – Big Science is evil, supplements help, you can boost your immune system, vaccines don’t work”...

>72 John5918: With a heart-warrior grandbaby and a senior dog, I follow a couple of FB groups devoted to same. I've learned a lot, but it's startling how many members spout anti-vax "facts" and opinions, without being corrected. (Vaxx fights now prohibited in the baby group, which is actually pro-med in that these kids mostly face surgery to live.) It's like two streams of thought--vaxx and anti-vaxx-- co-existing. I suspect more than a few newbies are supported/recruited to anti-vaxx world by following these groups...

(My dearest anti-vaxxer may have had a child with learning disability after a (minor?) rxn to a vaccine, but it was working in a chiropractor's office that began to solidify her anti-vaxx stance. I suspect many patients that medicine can't help end up in such places...)

Secrets and lies: fears of a liberal ‘deep state’ are a phantom conspiracy (Guardian)

A paranoid fantasy began the crisis that is ripping through the Conservative party. In what from a rightwing viewpoint must be the most disastrous column in the history of the Tory press, Charles Moore, a friend and Telegraph colleague of Boris Johnson, used a phantom conspiracy to rally the right to Owen Paterson...

With that cue, Johnson, his cabinet and a section of his party knew what to say: Paterson was a victim of the elite. The real elite, that is, not the Conservative party, which just happens to have been in power these past 11 years, but the true lords of the realm: the civil servants, the broadcasters, the judges, the Electoral Commission and the activist lawyers; the dainty grandees who criticise Conservatives from a position of “pure leftwing snobbery”, in the words of Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary; the unelected “cultural Marxists”, as the attorney-general, Suella Braverman, calls them, who benefited from the 1968 generation’s long march through the institutions so completely they now have the sheer bloody nerve to act as “judge and jury”, as Moore said of Stone, not just of Paterson but of “Boris Johnson himself”. Stone was neither judge nor jury, but Moore and Johnson were the undoubted executioners of Paterson’s career. They provoked the backlash that destroyed him by pushing persecution mania to its limits...

I don’t know whether their supporters or opponents were more shocked by the debacle that followed. Since 2016, paranoid politics has enjoyed continuous success. It allowed the Conservative right to paint opponents of Brexit first as agents of the EU, and then as saboteurs and fifth columnists who wanted to overthrow democracy itself. Above all its other advantages, conspiracy theory enabled Johnson to turn cops into criminals. The Johnson administration can never permit the thought to grow that regulators are public servants following the law. It must paint them as malign enemies with secret agendas. On the paranoid account, {the commissioner for standards} Stone cannot be an honest enforcer of the rules. Only political malice can explain her criticisms of a rightwing politician...

The maligned Stone is not a one-off. The Conservatives have tried to taint every judicial or regulatory action that stops them doing as they please. Track the denunciations and you see that, despite his cheeky chappy poses, Johnson has a Nixonian determination to crush all who limit his power...

Covid denial to climate denial: How conspiracists are shifting focus (BBC)

Members of an online movement infected with pandemic conspiracies are shifting their focus - and are increasingly peddling falsehoods about climate change... It's part of a larger pattern. Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine Telegram groups, which once focused exclusively on the pandemic, are now injecting the climate change debate with the same conspiratorial narratives they use to explain the pandemic. The posts go far beyond political criticism and debate - they're full of incorrect information, fake stories and pseudoscience. According to researchers at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a think tank that researches global disinformation trends, some anti-lockdown groups have become polluted by misleading posts about climate change being overplayed, or even a so-called "hoax" designed to control people. "Increasingly, terminology around Covid-19 measures is being used to stoke fear and mobilise against climate action," says the ISD's Jennie King. She says this isn't really about climate as a policy issue...

Attack on ‘woke’ charities has backfired, campaigners say (Guardian)

A wave of attacks on “woke” charities by rightwing politicians has “backfired”, generating an outpouring of public support for the targeted charities and helping drive a surge in social justice activism, say campaigners. An annual survey of social campaigning suggests many charities feel increasingly emboldened to speak out on contested issues, including race, immigration and the environment, despite attacks they feel are designed to intimidate them into silence...

Nadia Brashier @nadiabrashier | 2:14 PM · Dec 27, 2022:
Assistant professor at Purdue. Studying how people judge truth and fall for fake news across the lifespan 🧠
https://twitter.com/nadiabrashier/status/1607817299402137607

Are conspiracy theorists ‘lazy thinkers’? In a new paper in Current Opinion in Psychology, I argue that conspiracy theorists sometimes think too much, rather than too little. 1/8
http://tinyurl.com/4jp8fsep *

Both belief in and concern about conspiracy theories are currently high. Google Trends data reveal recent spikes in searches containing the term ‘conspiracy theory’ amid misleading claims about COVID, QAnon, and election fraud. 2/8
Graph ( https://twitter.com/nadiabrashier/status/1607817989994283016/photo/1 )

At first blush, it seems like conspiracy theorists don’t think hard enough about the information in front of them. On average, they exhibit lower cognitive ability, think less analytically, use more heuristics, and report other ‘weird’ beliefs (e.g., in the paranormal). 3/8

But conspiracy theorists *do* consider accuracy – by definition, they reject the mainstream explanation of an important event as ‘false,’ often in favor of a more complex account. 4/8

In addition, they expend considerable effort seeking out ‘evidence’ for their beliefs, from misapplications of physics to impossible diagrams. For example, flat Earthers argue that an ice rim at the edge of the world keeps us all from slipping off. 5/8
Diagram ( https://twitter.com/nadiabrashier/status/1607817995925037056/photo/1 )

How can we reconcile these seemingly contradictory findings? I argue that cognitive effort fluctuates across stages of conspiratorial ideation: rejecting a mainstream explanation, accepting an alternative account as plausible, seeking out evidence, and resisting corrections. 6/8

Thus, encouraging conspiracy theorists to think harder about their beliefs could unintentionally push them further down rabbit holes (e.g., by prompting them to retrieve more information from low-quality sources). 7/8

Understanding when elaboration and cognitive effort may backfire is key, since conspiracy theories undermine elections, threaten the environment, and harm human health. 8/8

Cengiz Erisen @CengizErisen · Dec 28
I found a very similar finding in a recent study. Those who score high on the Need to Evaluate scale believe in conspiracy theories a lot more **
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* Nadia Brashier 2023. Do conspiracy theorists think too much or too little? Current Opinion in Psychology
Volume 49, February 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101504 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X22002251

Abstract
Conspiracy theories explain distressing events as malevolent actions by powerful groups. Why do people believe in secret plots when other explanations are more probable? On the one hand, conspiracy theorists seem to disregard accuracy; they tend to endorse mutually incompatible conspiracies, think intuitively, use heuristics, and hold other irrational beliefs. But by definition, conspiracy theorists reject the mainstream explanation for an event, often in favor of a more complex account. They exhibit a general distrust of others and expend considerable effort to find ‘evidence’ supporting their beliefs. In searching for answers, conspiracy theorists likely expose themselves to misleading information online and overestimate their own knowledge. Understanding when elaboration and cognitive effort might backfire is crucial, as conspiracy beliefs lead to political disengagement, environmental inaction, prejudice, and support for violence.
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** Cengiz Erisen 2022. Psychological foundations and behavioral consequences of COVID-19 conspiracy theory beliefs: The Turkish case. Intl Pol Sci Review. First published online April 27, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1177/01925121221084625 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01925121221084625

‘Everything you’ve been told is a lie!’ Inside the wellness-to-fascism pipeline (Guardian)

“They have been moving generally to far-right views, bordering on racism, and really pro-Russian views, with the Ukraine war,” she says. “It started very much with health, with ‘Covid doesn’t exist’, anti-lockdown, anti-masks, and it became anti-everything: the BBC lie, don’t listen to them; follow what you see on the internet”... This apparent radicalisation of a nice, middle-class, hippy-ish group feels as if it should be a one-off, but the reality is very different. The “wellness-to-woo pipeline” – or even “wellness-to-fascism pipeline” – has become a cause of concern to people who study conspiracy theories... Thanks to wellness, QAnon is the conspiracy that can draw in the mum who shops at Holland & Barrett and her Andrew Tate-watching teenage son. The QAnon conspiracy is one of the most dangerous in the world, directly linked to attempted insurrections in the US and Germany, and mass shootings in multiple countries – and wellness is helping to fuel it. Something about the strange mixture of mistrust of the mainstream, the intimate nature of the relationship between a therapist, spiritual adviser, or even personal trainer, and their client, combined with the conspiratorial world in which we now live, is giving rise to a new kind of radicalisation. How did we end up here?...

>78 John5918: After I got Lyme disease last summer my sister emailed me suggesting it wasn't Lyme disease. Not covid either. She fingered my covid vaccinations. That was the problem. I was like WTF! Her father in law got covid very early in 2020 (pre-vaccine) when people were dying left and right and spent months in the hospital. He was lucky to survive but it's like they've been in denial about what put him in the hospital right from the beginning. It's either a Chinese virus or not even real.....some massed induced hallucination....the goalposts continually change with them. The vaccine was already being distributed when Donald was POTUS but it's somehow Biden's way of controlling the population. If you must horsepaste is better. Biden himself is one minute a bumbling dementia ridden idiot and the next the most evil manipulative genius this world has seen since Rasputin. They think they know all the answers but they can't make up their minds.

>79 lriley: "they can't make up their minds." Probably also due to the covid vaccine? Which they didn't take? Yeah, doesn't really add up!

Not just wellness anymore--they pop up everywhere, mostly fiercely confident in their truths and resistant to challenge, e.g., facebook groups devoted to care of old doggies and sick kids. Lots of good info there, but one needs to sidestep quickly when conspiracists join the conversation...

Blaming "wellness" when it was woo-woo wellness advice and products marketed by wealthy, anti-science, conservative-supporting celebrities that segued into anti-health (as in anti-masking, anti-vaccines, and interference in medicine distribution) protests that quickly shifted into broader aggression toward people and democratic political processes...? Interesting choice.

>82 aspirit:

I had never heard of "woo-woo wellness" and still have no idea what it means, so that part of the article passed me by completely!

>83 John5918: that's the unscientific health trends, like deliberately breathing in pathogens such as coronaviruses to "strengthen immunity".

The sources of the current trends apparent in middle-class societies are yet again ignored by The Guardian. I'm irritable about that, because it continues to silently excuse and protect people in power who are leading these movements.

The slow death of Twitter is measured in disasters like the Baltimore bridge collapse
A.W. Ohlheiser | Mar 28, 2024

Twitter, now X, was once a useful site for breaking news. The Baltimore bridge collapse shows those days are long gone.

Line up a few years’ worth of tragedies and disasters, and the online conversations about them will reveal their patterns.

The same conspiracy-theory-peddling personalities who spammed X with posts claiming that Tuesday’s Baltimore bridge collapse was a deliberate attack have also called mass shootings “false flag” events and denied basic facts about the Covid-19 pandemic. A Florida Republican running for Congress blamed “DEI” {diversity equity inclusion} for the bridge collapse as racist comments about immigration and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott circulated among the far right. These comments echo Trump in 2019, who called Baltimore a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” and, in 2015, blamed President Obama for the unrest in the city.

As conspiracy theorists compete for attention in the wake of a tragedy, others seek engagement through dubious expertise, juicy speculation, or stolen video clips. The boundary between conspiracy theory and engagement bait is permeable; unfounded and provoking posts often outpace the trickle of verified information that follows any sort of major breaking news event. Then, the conspiracy theories become content, and a lot of people marvel and express outrage that they exist. Then they kind of forget about the raging river of Bad Internet until the next national tragedy.

...Twitter, once a go-to space for following breaking news events, became an Elon Musk-owned factory for verified accounts with bad ideas, while generative AI tools have superpowered grifters wanting to make plausible text and visual fabrications...

https://www.vox.com/technology/24113765/twitter-x-misinformation-baltimore-bridg...
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Fewer people are using Elon Musk’s X as the platform struggles to attract and keep users, according to analysts
David Ingram | March 22, 2024

X usage has declined as downloads of Threads {Meta} have surged in recent weeks.

...In February, X had 27 million daily active users of its mobile app in the U.S., down 18% from a year earlier, according to Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm based in San Francisco. The U.S. user base has been flat or down every month since November 2022, the first full month of Musk’s owning the app, and in total it’s down 23% since then, Sensor Tower said...

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/fewer-people-using-elon-musks-x-struggles...