At this point I think accusing conservatives of hypocrisy is blase and yesterday's news.
Of course conservatives are hypocrites. All they care about are their end goals, and they will say and do whatever they need to say and do in order to achieve them.
One of those goals involves enshrining Christian values into law. Christian values themselves are often hypocritical and contradictory. And inconsistent: ask 10 Christians to weigh in on a thorny moral issue and you'll get 15 different answers.
And on top of that, the conservatives in power have a fetish for using those power structures to enrich themselves and their cronies, under the guise of "small government" and "free markets".
I don't think exposing conservative hypocrisy is a winning or useful strategy anymore. Conservatives are masters at cognitive dissonance, and at hand-waving away inconsistencies in their views, or the very real, very negative consequences of their policy plans. I'm not sure what the right strategy is, though. And perhaps this is why liberals fail to win hearts and minds when it matters.
Whenever anyone has economic woes, there are still plenty of people out there who will reflexively say "maybe we needs some Republicans in charge for a bit, they're more fiscally responsible and will help small businesses" etc etc.
And Republicans will happily run on those ideas.
And then not execute them.
So someone needs to be hammering home the fact that it's lies - that Republicans will only help the wealthy and giant corporations, that they don't care a whit for the deficit, that they will spend spend spend on their pet issues and crony projects - until it stops being an effective campaign soundbite.
Sadly hammering it home means nothing - this is an idea which belongs to a news media environment where something like the fairness doctrine and bi-partisanship existed.
On The Right of the media economy, you surface the best narratives, and there are no penalties for being inaccurate. Because everything is opinion and rhetorical tricks, saying “It’s terrible what happened in this Dem state. Here’s how the dems caused it” and then being able to say “we never said that dems were monsters”, while platforming fringe theories like pizza gate.
If you go against the narrative you just dont get airtime and attention - meaning you get no revenue or political power. Worse, you might get primaried.
Hammering the truth means nothing, because you would only be selling it back to the center and the left.
The right is interested in facts, only to the point that they support their goals. It’s a protected market.
You can’t really outcompete rackets, but you can’t really restrict speech without getting hit by free speech arguments.
It’s a problem worth solving though, and its a problem worth learning about.
One thing that seems to work isn’t counter speech, its angry speech. It’s not the pro-vax group that gets credence vs the anti-vaxxers, it’s the anti-anti-vaxxers who do it.
I wish people had better ideas, but its hard to even realize the specifics of the market failure.
Of course conservatives are hypocrites. All they care about are their end goals, and they will say and do whatever they need to say and do in order to achieve them.
One of those goals involves enshrining Christian values into law. Christian values themselves are often hypocritical and contradictory. And inconsistent: ask 10 Christians to weigh in on a thorny moral issue and you'll get 15 different answers.
And on top of that, the conservatives in power have a fetish for using those power structures to enrich themselves and their cronies, under the guise of "small government" and "free markets".
I don't think exposing conservative hypocrisy is a winning or useful strategy anymore. Conservatives are masters at cognitive dissonance, and at hand-waving away inconsistencies in their views, or the very real, very negative consequences of their policy plans. I'm not sure what the right strategy is, though. And perhaps this is why liberals fail to win hearts and minds when it matters.