Authors Nick Carmody JD, MS Psych

7 days 30 days All time Recent Popular
The real danger for the country isn’t the election results, it’s the reaction to, and the refusal to accept the results. For more than four years, Trump and the Right Wing Media Echo Chamber have conditioned his supporters to believe the election is “rigged”. They believe it….1/

In a recent thread about collective election anxiety/PTSD, I wrote that “one half the country doesn’t believe in evidence, the other half can’t trust it.” 2/


This couldn’t more evident than by the fact that 87 percent of Trump supporters believe he will win re-election, despite the fact that… 3/

…the empirical data that shows Biden *should* win easily. This has resulted in https://t.co/e8JNg5tYmK calculating that Trump has only a 10% chance of winning. To be clear, 10% is a non-zero number, much like the 30% chance that Trump had in 2016. 4/

But the real problem isn’t necessarily about low probabilities, the real problem…..or more accurately, the danger…..lies in the pathologically unrealistic expectations of the cult of Trump: 90% of them have been conned into thinking that a 10% probability is a “sure thing”. 5/
Trump's speech was another incitement for violence. The Right views the military as an impediment against another insurrection/potential coup. This is why Trump & the Echo Chamber have been coordinating an assault on the legitimacy/stability of the military. It's important...1/ https://t.co/Lvs4a0jKl3


....to remember that 53 of the 500 people arrested for the Jan. 6th insurrection were former/current military. The Right knows the military has a potential extremist problem, except that rather than attempt to understand and solve the problem,...2/


...Trump, and the Right Wing Media Echo Chamber are attempting to exacerbate and inflame the problem.

The Echo Chamber knows that FOX is on nearly every TV in and around military bases, so when Ted Cruz talks about the military being emasculated....3/


......and when Matt Gaetz and J.D. Vance talk about the military losing


...5/....https://t.co/23iwQikwgH
Observations about Covid, vaccine effectiveness, media portrayals/hypocrisy, and even Jan 6th to show the dangerous effect “trickle down irrationality”:

When disinformation causes otherwise irrational behavior to appear rational.

Let's unpack.....1/

In the video above, @rubinreport uses Johnathon Isaac’s response about being unvaccinated to correctly encourage people to
- avoid summarily demonizing people
- have a measured, good-faith interpretation of other people's potentially good-faith “rational” motivations/actions
2/

I agree. Jonathon Isaac was very impressive in that interview.

We won’t make progress as a society by engaging in the same behavior that helped create the problem. And : 3/


Yet, just 12 seconds into the show, Rubin’s characterization of efforts to contain covid as attempts to “control”/tyrannize not only demonizes medical professionals (“elites”), but it’s also an implicit refusal to acknowledge ANY good faith motivation to protect public health: 4/

“[Covid is] going to be this constant cudgel that they can always use to control us and lock us down and put more rules on us, and all of the *stuff* that you all get since they’re always going to do that….. 5/
It's a perfect storm of emotional immaturity, arrested development, and the fetishization of "freedom" to the point where the *right to ignorance*....and the "freedom" to put others at risk...... is equated with "liberty".

Relevant threads:https://t.co/6at83OnxpK


It's a perfect storm of emotional immaturity, arrested development, and the fetishization of "freedom" to the point where the *right to ignorance*....and the "freedom" to put others at risk...... is equated with "liberty".

Relevant


https://t.co/W78IMiOAmA


https://t.co/UDgKTmjHOG
Trump's call to @GaSecofState highlights the intersection of "Trickle Down Pathology", the emasculinization of the rule of law, and a gaslighting technique I describe as "the manipulation of the interaction timeline".

To review: 1)Trump attempted to extort election fraud....1/


2) @GaSecofState, perhaps as a result of wanting to protect himself...as well as American Democracy...learned his lesson after taking a phone call from @LindseyGrahamSC, refused to take Trump's first 18 phone calls (attempts to commit voter fraud). 2/

3) Finally, relenting, and taking Trump's call...... Raffensperger recorded the call and publicized it only after Trump attacked him and the process.


Predictably, Trump and the Right Wing Echo Chamber immediately went into gaslighting mode in an attempt to "manipulate the interaction timeline". Here is a breakdown of how it works: 4/


....5/....https://t.co/0BBwgMNWQD
The, “how do we fix this” is perhaps the most important question we face as a country. To the extent that it can be fixed, it starts with framing and language used to describe the problem/solution. The “deprogramming” and “brainwashed” verbiage has to be eliminated. 1/


No one is receptive to finding “common ground” when the starting point of the person who claims to desire common ground is telling them they’ve been brainwashed, and that they need to be “deprogrammed”. 2/

This plays into the “Totalitarian” narrative that Tucker Carlson is propagating, even going so far as using the “don’t believe your own eyes” to reinforce the narrative. 3/


Of course, this is exactly what occurred during Trump’s presidency. Basically, it’s another attempt to confuse and distract with moral/false equivalency. 4/

In the past, the Right attempted to excuse Trump’s pathological dishonesty with allegations of the Left lying: if everyone is lying, then no one is lying……because lying is normalized.