Has any modern movement been more dependent on fabrication than the American Right?

[ThoughtCriminal]

We've all had this experience, especially in the past 20-30 years. It happened again at my work today with this one:

"Obamacare requires that doctors ask how many guns you have in your house if there are children."

The resident conservatives shook their heads in agreement and marveled that there was anyone who did not see that we were sliding into a socialist dictatorship. They were dead certain that this story was true. These are not stupid people. They are educated, competent, literate, resourceful and completely brainwashed.

it took only a couple of minutes to find multiple sources debunking of this absurd claim. It is beyond inaccurate, it is a deliberate lie. But it doesn't matter. They have convinced themselves that the debunking sites are all part of the liberal conspiracy. Claimed "Proof": they mostly debunk right wing stories. It wouldn't even matter if you skipped the debunking web sites and showed them primary sources, raw data, text of the law or whatever. Nothing on the internet can be trusted, unless it confirms their point of view. Nothing.

Conservatism has sunk so low, that it no longer has to distort data, use questionable methodologies and misleading statistics. It can now just flat make shit up and get away with it - at least as far as their base is concerned. It is an astonishingly bankrupt, dishonest and delusional political method.

[NCarolinawoman]

1. They lie all the time. Blatant.

But their followers are clueless.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. The dinosaurs were clueless too.

They're extinct now.

The problem this time is that the clueless class, or rather their overlords, have the power to take the rest of us down with them.

I don't hold great hopes for the species some days, and on those days I'm glad that I'm old and got to live part of my life in a somewhat more rational and humane era, in which we were actually making some advances against the forces of darkness.

[TheKentuckian]

3. American "Centrists" are just about as full of shit but are clearly less batshit delusional.

[jberryhill]

4. It's those crazy emails

[Cali_Democrat]

7. How come I never get those emails?

[jberryhill]

8. I don't anymore

I guess anyone I know who is inclined to forward them has long since gotten the message.

[Jamaal510]

5. Fabrication is the foundation for RW politics;

without it, they lose big, as their policies suck and are detrimental the vast majority of the population.

[Cali_Democrat]

6. They've even got their own polls now

Remember the 2012 election? They "unskewed" the polls and were convinced Romney would bury Obama.

They live in a bubble.

[Wounded Bear]

9. Well, televangelism comes to mind...

The two institutions/groups sort of cooperate a lot. Religions have been doing it for thousands of years.

[defacto7]

10. Fabrication is all they have left.

Whatever civility and honesty that may have exited at one time long ago has been completely replaced by the Right Wing Foundry of misinformation and fabrication. They conjure any product that will produce results at any and all cost even to the destruction of America and allow the decimation of it's population through apathy. Ideology and Business are god and moral construct be damned.

[G_j]

11. and you are not exaggerating

To be honest, it's really scary. When
people can not communicate, and do not have the desire to work for the common good of everyone, but rather pick 'you' as an enemy, a godless socialist or lazy taker.
Instead of desiring America to be one diverse group of human beings who work together for a better future, they choose to
put up a fortress, a bubble, and set themselves against their fellow citizens in some kind of expression of anger and even hatred. Fueled incessantly by RW media, it's not at all good. On this day, maybe I'll ponder what Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr. would say. As naive as it may sound, I think love is perhaps the only way to pierce that bubble.

[lapfog_1]

12. your typical right wing idiot...

and worse, they celebrate ignorance.

[Prophet 451]

13. Libertarianism maybe

David Brock actually details the process very well in "Blinded By The Right": The conservative machine (including their pet media) creates a completely fictional opponant and then runs against that fiction.

[JHB]

14. I've made the same point about debunking sites

"The sites aren't 'in the tank for Obama'. It's just the market in action. Most of what they debunk is conservative because of the sheer volume of Horseshit you guys put out. And you put out so much because you fall for every horseshit claim that comes down the pike."

[quaker bill]

15. Never underestimate the level of delusion out there

it is stunning and deep. The American Right occupies this market, but by no means has it cornered.