Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"Most ppl have other priorities & are woefully ignorant about politics. Research has confirmed this again & again. *Boundless* ignorance. Average people absorb politics piecemeal, through osmosis. What they generally see is a haze of pettiness, squabbles, & conflict. Viewed from this distance, most people conclude that 'politics' is hopeless, all politicians are venal, & the whole game is corrupt. Unless you're willing to put in serious time & work to suss out the details, 'pox on both houses' is kind of the default destination.

"So when voters are confronted by the idea that one party wants to take from the poor & sick & to fund tax cuts for the rich and the other party doesn't, it simply doesn't fit the hazy 'both sides suck' model. It *sounds* like an unfair partisan attack.

"The truth about the GOP sounds like an attack on the GOP, so people dismiss it as such. It is a perverse form of immunity. And here we come to the true, twisted genius of the decades long RW strategy. They have fractured trust in mainstream institutions so there is no widely trusted person or institution who can tell the truth about the GOP in a way that will be broadly accepted.

[...]

"Which brings us to this current tax bill, which is even more comically malign & grasping than past GOP budget plans. Any attempt to accurately describe it sounds like a f'ing comic book villain revealing their evil plot toward the end of the movie.

[...]

"They do their deeds right out in the open, trusting (accurately!) that a good chunk of the public won't believe it is what it is.

[...]

"Remember: 'respondents simply refused to believe any politician would do such a thing.' And that's how they get away with it."

-- David Roberts, 2017-12-01: start of thread , start of quoted section , thread assembled in one page [thanks to Laurie Beth Brunner for sharing this where I'd see it]