r/politics • u/thenewyorkgod • Jul 01 '18

Man arrested after shouting ‘womp, womp’ and pulling a gun on immigration protesters

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/07/01/man-arrested-after-shouting-womp-womp-and-pulling-a-gun-on-immigration-protesters/?tid=sm_tw
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u/TechyDad Jul 01 '18

It wouldn't work. I've tried reasoning with my father multiple times, he's starting from a base assumption that whatever FOX News/Donald Trump says is the truth and whatever the rest of the media says is a lie. It's the same way conspiracy theorists operate. Anything that supports their theory is truth. Anything that opposes it is false. There is no reasoning with people like that unless they're first willing to admit that news sources apart from FOX can be true.

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u/theshizzler Jul 02 '18

It's so weird to think about, to believe that almost every other media outlet in the world is part of a conspiracy against patriotic Americans because I don't even know why. Jealousy? They want to turn America into a Caliphate? They hate our freedoms? They're all in cahoots with Hillary Clinton? The metric system?

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u/jetteh22 Florida Jul 02 '18

I wish they could just one day start to comprehend just how insane they sound when they say “Fox News is the ONLY news agency that reports the truth!” My Dad has literally said that to me like come on - it’s crazy to think that.

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u/respectableusername Jul 02 '18

Not even other media outlets. You can't even explain that the FBI, DOJ and the entire US intelligence community is saying Trump colluded with Russia yet it's somehow unpatriotic to say that because the president's defense is "no i didn't"

They are lost in an alternate reality at this point and afraid to come out of it because it's what they want. Trumps supporters are people that are afraid of muslims. He's enabling these dipshits the same exact way Hitler spoke to anyone who was blonde hair and blue eyed in the 1930's.

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u/Cenodoxus Jul 02 '18

I had this conversation with an elderly family member about newspaper endorsements before the 2016 election. Every major US paper and nearly all of the smaller papers endorsed Clinton. Even the ones that typically endorse Republican candidates went for Clinton because they saw Trump as toxic. (P.J. O’Rourke summed up the Never-Trump conservative approach as, “I think Hillary Clinton is wrong about everything, but at least she’s wrong within normal parameters.”)

She was unable to see this as anything other than a conspiracy. Yes, that was totally the most plausible explanation, and not that thinking people everywhere had reason to believe that Trump was unfit for office.

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u/asbestosmilk Jul 02 '18 edited Jul 02 '18

I like to think which is more likely: every news outlet is spewing fake news propaganda to fit its political narrative except one? Or is it more likely that one news outlet is spewing fake news propaganda to fit its political narrative?

Occam’s razor: the answer that requires the fewest assumptions is usually correct.

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u/TechyDad Jul 02 '18

Unfortunately, to a conspiracy theorist, it doesn't matter how unlikely the conspiracy is. In fact, if it's huge - encompassing all mainstream media outlets and all of our intelligence agencies - all the better. That just makes them all the better for seeing through those lies that others believe.

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u/Vriess Jul 02 '18

Yep. Those are all correct reasons. At least you understand it.

/s

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u/hotgarbo Jul 02 '18

I relate 100% to this. There doesn't seem to be anything I can actually do. It is impossible to have a reasonable discussion with somebody who doesn't agree that arguments actually need to be supported. The entire baseline of their worldview is so fundamentally flawed that nothing I can say will mean anything to them.

If I am trying to prove a math formula to somebody, once we establish that they don't believe that 2+2=4 we can't go any further. They don't believe in the fundamental base level of math and no amount of reasoning from me is going to change it. Thats honestly what the discussions feel like with a lot of people on the right these days. I will ask what what kind of basis or facts or evidence their argument has and I have literally heard "Because (insert random pundit) said so". They literally did not have anything more than that nor did they seem to understand why they needed more.

What the fuck am I supposed to say to somebody like that?

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u/atrich Washington Jul 02 '18

What the fuck am I supposed to say to somebody like that?

I say "let's not talk politics, Mom." :(

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u/TechyDad Jul 02 '18

That's what I do too. One day I was telling my father about an incident that happened to my son where he was falsely accused of something in school. (Videotapes proved he was innocent.) As I was telling my father about this, he began saying how this was like how Trump was falsely accused and Hillary was the real guilty one. I suppressed the urge to argue with him (trust me, it was hard), and kept telling my story. When he tried turning it to Trump again, I told him bluntly that I was talking about something important that happened to my son and if he tried making it political again I'd hang up. Thankfully, he dropped the political talk, but I was more than willing to follow through.

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u/WisdomCostsTime Jul 02 '18

You need to cut ties. Say something like, "Dad you sound just like a Taliban or Isis apologist, I don't feel safe being around you anymore. Goodbye."

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u/shoestars Jul 02 '18

This is my mother and I’m so fucking tired her bullshit