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kgasmart's avatar

Smith and Klein and their ilk still have no idea how the perjorative "fake news" came about. It's like - "Yeah we made shit up but you should still respect our journalistic integrity."

That's literally what they ask. No shame - no self awareness whatsoever. The enemies of "disinformation" are the biggest purveyors of it. And yet they don't quite grasp why the media is in freefall. Must be because the rubes are so stupid.

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Skeptic's avatar

I lost two close friendships, spanning several decades, over the 2020 election. I mean close (I flew to Israel for one's daughter's Bat Mitzvah, and they both attended the baptisms of my children).

I've always found Trump kind of grotesque, but I felt I had to vote for him in 2020 because the intelligence services and federal law enforcement tried to arrange so I could not, and I would vote for the devil himself to push back against that. (While there were other issues, the need to push back against selective and bogus prosecutions of political opponents was decisive for me in 2024.)

In my last conversation with these two friends (we used to be the Three Musketeers), I thought I could find some common ground by saying, "Don't you think they kind of overpromised and under-delivered on the whole 'Trump is taking orders from the Kremlin' thing?" I deliberately put it in such an understated way that I thought they'd have to agree. From there, I was going to try to get them to see that Trump's opponents "broke the norms" more seriously than he did, or at least understand that a decent person--their friend for more than 20 years--could think that.

But with all the evidence that had emerged by the summer of 2020, they still vehemently disagreed, and found it disgusting and enraging that I would even say that. One of them said, "There was plenty of evidence of attempted collusion." (I'm a lawyer and have no idea what that means; it certainly isn't in the federal criminal code). The other said that it was very "sad" that I had become so "deluded" as to support a "fascist." And that was the last time we spoke.

You really can't overstate the damage from the Russia collusion hoax (especially combined with the Very Fine People hoax). It played such a huge role in making us unable even to talk to each other. In my case, it cost me personally in ways that are still painful. You can make new friends. You can't make new friendships that span decades of the major moments of your life.

So yes, Matt. These laughing hyenas Smith and Klein make me so furious I could spit.

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