Changing Minds
The Economy
For those dedicated to wringing hands over the economy, here’s the beginning of Prof. Heather Cox Richardson’s post of July 25:
President Biden’s determination to “build the economy from the middle out and the bottom up,” appears to be paying off. Last Friday the global financial services company Morgan Stanley credited Biden’s policies with driving a boom in large-scale infrastructure and manufacturing, a boom large enough that Morgan Stanley revised its gross domestic product growth projections upward to 1.9%, a projection almost four times higher than its original projection.
Analysts doubled their projections for the fourth quarter, and raised forecasts for next year, as well. “The economy in the first half of the year is growing much stronger than we had anticipated,” Morgan Stanley’s chief U.S. economist Ellen Zentner wrote.
Read her essay. It’s full of wonderful news and vitally important truth, stuff that the crazies attack and lie about.
Will our outstanding economic performance change the minds of Trump voters or the hallucinatory far right crazies?
Answers: NO and NO.
But that doesn’t matter. They’re the crowd that’s super-glued to conspiracies and obstruction.
The battle is for those who are open to accurate information. This positive economic news just might change their minds and motivate them to show up to vote for candidates who will fight for our democracy because there’s something in it for them. It’s about changing these minds with the truth.
Lies
From reader and contributor Diana Dobrovolny Hefter:
It’s all beginning to fall apart.
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Last [Tuesday] Rudy Giuliani admitted in a court filing that he made false claims about Georgia election workers Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman.
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These are the two individuals that Trump, his attorneys and his followers claimed to have committed election fraud in the state of Georgia, leading to Biden’s victory.
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Giuliani now admits that it was fabricated.
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Will this change the minds of Trump voters who still believe Trump’s lies of massive election-changing voter fraud? Will Trump stop pushing these lies?
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Answers: NO and NO.
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Once again, from an election perspective, the truth is only valuable to people who are not super-glued to fantastical, extremist lies. The rest of us think democracy, rights and freedoms are good things. We think lying like Giuliani lies is a bad thing. If we can change some minds, these folks just might get off their La-Z-Boys on election day and vote. That would be most democratic – lower case “d” – and helpful – for a change.
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The Fall of the FBI
No, it didn’t fall. But trust in the Bureau is extremely low. The important part is why it’s so low and it turns out that it’s extremist propaganda, conspiracy lunacy and a very large number of googly-eyed lies told over and over. You know, like The Big Lie.
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Dana Milbank has detail on this in his Washington Post piece, Republicans celebrate their successful deception of voters. Here’s a summary.
The extremist Republicans are and have been on a relentless tear of telling lies to poison the minds of We The People. And they’ve been quite successful at undermining trust in the FBI, the Justice Department and our intelligence agencies. Here’s a piece from Milbank’s post:
[Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA)], the leadoff questioner at Wednesday’s hearing, told [FBI Director Christopher] Wray about a recent NBC News poll in which “only 37 percent of registered voters now view the FBI positively, down from 52 percent in 2018. That’s a serious decline in the people’s faith, and it’s on your watch,” he told Wray.
Milbank goes on to say,
The Republicans are well aware of “those numbers” — because they are the ones who assassinated the reputation of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. [emphasis mine]
Those prevaricators sure did change some minds, but not for the better.
Sensitive readers are cautioned to read Milbank’s piece with no sharp or heavy objects nearby. The story is, let’s call it, unsettling.
The point is that the hyperbolic crazies, using a tsunami of misinformation, is driving down public trust in those who keep us safe. It’s a garbage dump of Big Lies. And that affects our elections.
BTW, weren’t Republicans the ones who claimed to carry the mantle of law and order and tough justice? Big supporters of law enforcement? But now they’re ripping the FBI. What happened to that mantle?
Good Guys Winning Elections
It is beyond human capability to change minds of the super-glued crowd. If we’re to get sane, democracy loving officials, we’ll have to appeal to independents, those with minds open to reality. We’ll have to appeal to every non-extremist voter to vote. In short, we’ll have to do whatever it takes to motivate ALL OF US to participate in our democracy. That would be a fine change of minds.
Would that there were moderate Republicans with the courage to speak out against the lies, but alas, we cannot count on them to do the right thing. Those with a backbone seem to be on the edge of extinction.
“We are the people we’ve been waiting for.”
There is but one way to stop the flood tide of dishonesty and that is for us to saddle up and be the cavalry charging over the hill. Obama said it best: “We are the people we’ve been waiting for.”
We are the ones who have to protect and defend rights, freedoms and democracy because we are the ones who believe in reality.
This is no thought exercise. This is a call to action, to canvas, to text, to donate, to make calls so that those who believe in truth and democracy are the ones who take office in January 2025 and in the states following the state and local elections between now and then.
We have to change a bunch of minds – for the better.
Betcha You’ve Never Heard of This Kind of Thing Before
Jadarrius Rose, a 23 year old Black man, was driving his 18-wheeler in Circleville, OH on July 4 when he was stopped by the State Highway Patrol for a missing rear mudflap. He got out of the cab of his truck and was told to get on the ground. Instead, he threw his hands up in obvious surrender.
In the body cam footage an officer can be heard repeatedly telling Circleville Police Officer Ryan Speakman, who was the handler of a police dog, “Do not release the dog with his hands up!”
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That was when Speakman released the dog. It savagely attacked Rose.
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- It’s easy to understand how that might happen, as Rose was quite obviously guilty of surrendering with his hands up while being Black.
Oh wait: maybe you have heard of such a thing. And maybe refusing to teach kids the truth about systemic racism in America is a very bad idea.
A lot of minds need to be changed about this.
Just For Fun
Now that there are 37 charges against Trump in the documents case, it’s time to see how the We The People feel about this.
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Today is a good day to be the light.
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- Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
- Fire the bastards!
- The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.
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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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