Hey, Viking! This morning I introduced a Facebook post like this:
Yesterday, I had an interaction with a Trump-Vance supporter, and when I cited an article by the New York Times as evidence of right wing malfeasance, he was quick - and prepared - to make the categorical statement that The Times was untrustworthy because in the 1930s its Berlin bureau chief was sympathetic to Hitler.
I researched the matter and discovered that it was true, albeit a dubious maneuver because the bureau chief had access to many Nazi officials who were not easily accessible: and so they decided to keep him in place.
Plus, in the 1930s, it was as difficult for Americans to see the gathering fascist storm, just as it is difficult now for many Americans to see that Trump and Vanc are part of a gathering fascist storm.
Widespread right-wing eagerness to disregard generally reliable (but admittedly fallible) sources of information while elevating bullshit to the status of "God’s Truth" is a characteristic of today’s so-called "conservatives" who are completely unaware that sound thinking is the result of a long and diligent educational process.
Instead they assume -- and assert with the vehemence of Vesuvius -- that their unsubstantiated opinions are at least as good as the probed truths of well-educated people who respect the findings of science and stand on the foundational basis of the scientific method.
Notably, the same guy with whom I interacted was unfazed by the fact that just a couple years ago, Vance voiced numerous damming opinions about Trump, including his opinion that Trump looked a lot like an "American Hitler."
So...
What we have here is a right wing ideologue who thinks that a New York Times bureau chief in the 1930s obliges him to disregard the New York Times as a rather trustworthy news source, but who simultaneously believes that Vance's recent criticisms of Trump have no significance whatsoever.
Epistemology, my friends.
Epistemology!
In MAGA world, NOBODY even knows what the word means.
Yet it's as important to good politics as neuroscience is to a brain surgeon.
*****
Here is a partial collection of Vance's damning comments about Trump: https://www.axios.com/2024/07/16/jd-vance-trump-statements (I did not realize that Vance called Trump "cultural heroin.)
It appears that to climb the political ladder, Vance started to suck ......... up to His Malignancy in order to get the endorsement from His Majesty that Vance needed wo win his senate seat.
