'Bullsh*t and gaslighting': Here is why Trump's rabid fans buy into his lies

[applegrove]

Paul Rosenberg, Salon

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/02/bullsht-gaslighting-trumps-rabid-fans-buy-lies/amp/

"SNIP....

It’s not that Trump’s lies are so strong, but that our system is so weak, reflected in its inability to cope with Trump’s often see-through mendacity, which takes three distinct forms: ordinary lying, bullshitting and gaslighting. Ordinary lying involves intentional false claims about the world. Bullshitting involves intentionally false claims and representations about oneself, a chaotic mix of true and false claims. (Salesmen do this all the time.) Gaslighting involves manipulating reality — not just with words, but also with actions — to undermine others’ ability to trust their own judgment and believe in their own sanity. (Abusers, cult leaders and dictators do this all the time). The aim is to redefine reality however they wish. Trump’s claim that “Hillary Clinton started birtherism, and I ended it” was his most succinct, over-the-top gaslighting quip of the 2016 campaign.

Looked at another way: A liar knows he’s lying, while a bullshitter thinks everyone is bullshitting, and that if they think they aren’t they’re only bullshitting themselves. A gaslighter thinks he’s uniquely entitled to gaslight everyone — and they’re lucky to have him do it.  The mentality of the bullshitter dismisses even the possibility of knowing the truth, and justifies all manner of what-aboutism, to avoid responsibility. The mentality of the gaslighter goes further — truth is whatever the gaslighter claims it is, and no one else has any say at all. Global warming is a Chinese hoax.

These last two mentalities are what sets Trump apart, but they defy description merely in terms of lying (or, more innocently, “false statements”). Recognizing these substantially different kinds of lying is essential in cutting through the overloading blur of falsehoods that Trump and his minions constantly spew. But the media so far has made only limited progress in dealing with the first of these, despite some early awareness that much more was going on.


....SNIP"

[Va Lefty]

1. Exactly. George Carlin said "imagine how stupid the average American is..."

"then realize that half of them are even stupider"

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Direct link to the article:

https://www.salon.com/2019/02/24/lies-bullst-and-gaslighting-a-field-guide-to-trumps-reality-warping-mendacity/

[applegrove]

3. Thanks. I like the expansions in the rawstory article too.

[soryang]

4. it isn't just Trump's "deplorable" character

There is a deep historical typically American vein of ignorance he is mining. His ignorance, mendacity, inarticulateness, impulsiveness, and bullying are a part of an old American tradition rooted in class structure and demographics in the US.

Ironically, while Trump mines the endless gullibility of "white trash" in the US, he is in effect, the beau and dude, who swindles the hapless cracker and squatter, out of their pitifully small holdings and forces them into an endless cycle of losses and despair as they vote against their own interests. He simultaneously resembles and exploits his crude dispossessed and poorly educated white fans who are absorbed by his appeal to their deep seated resentments against the "educated elites" who took away their "greatness" as white Americans and gave away their "legacy" to minorities, immigrants, and other lazy "free loaders."

This heritage, this belief system, among a certain American demographic, is as old as the original settlements in Virginia.

Trump is the rentier swindler and conman, the landjobber capitalist, the city slicker that convinced the half literate racist and xenophobic sector of the population that he is one of them.

See: White Trash. The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, Nancy Isenberg.

[uponit7771]

5. the TPM excuse "...is they all do it"