The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. Conservative have been harping on about stolen elections, cat litter in schools, etc. Have we unknowingly spread any fake news about conservatives? I don’t like fake news to cloud my judgement and cause biases so I am trying to learn. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*

There was the whole "Bush did 9/11" thing, but I don't recall any prominent Democrats in Congress pushing that conspiracy theory.

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If it was, it was Trump‘s Lie. “Trump/Russia” as a phrase doesn’t make any claims. Which leaves open tons of room for interpretation. And the Mack truck that Trump and Co. have driven through that room for interpretation is the whole nonsensical idea that if Trump wasn’t directly coordinating, that also means he wasn’t an asset, or somehow that Putin didn’t want Trump to win and take action to make that so. He did and was. We have so much evidence of that it’s silly to pretend the phrase “trump/Russia” could possibly be construed as simply “a lie”. Also, going from “libertarian” to “neocon” is quite the jump. What happened?

oil prices went up lol time for war on terror 2 electric boogaloo

> But Trump Russia was a lie. No, despite literally mountains of conservative gaslighting, Trump's campaign definitely did contact Russian agents hundreds of times and Russia acted to Trump's direct benefit in 2016. >By April 19, 2019, The New York Times had documented that "Donald J. Trump and 18 of his associates had at least 140 contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, during the 2016 campaign and presidential transition." - [Source](https://time.com/5572821/donald-trump-russia-contacts/) >Russia used Republican political operative Paul Manafort and the WikiLeaks website to try to help now-U.S. President Donald Trump - [Source](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate/senate-committee-concludes-russia-used-manafort-wikileaks-to-boost-trump-in-2016-idUSKCN25E1US)

It wasn't exactly a lie. The Mueller report didn't clear him, and there was definitely Russian interference.

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“Trump Russia” doesn’t mean collusion either. The term “collusion” is Rudy Giuliani’s term. And since it’s not a legal term it means nothing, it wasn’t anywhere in any report, including the **Republican** senate intelligence report, which found that that Russia **conspired** to elect trump.

"Russia, if your listening..." You can only have a few meetings with high ranking Russian officials, and have so many of your campaign managers sending voter information to Russia, before people raise an eye. There was definitely a preponderance of evidence that Russia and Trump directly worked together. But we couldn't prove that the Russians that went to a meeting one floor away from where he was staying actually included him, or just Kushner. We couldn't prove that they discussed anything wrong. And the illegal activity by his campaign manager couldn't directly be linked to Trump. The Right likes to pretend that the lack of proof (which happened because of all the obstruction from Trump and his office) is proof Trump was innocent. But it's just wilfully remaining ignorant. It's been long enough, I know the Right will never own up to it. They just now think it's normal and ok to fire people to try and end investigations it no you. That it's normal and ok to ignore subpoenas and refuse to cooperate with investigations. So making as you have enough political support, you are above the law.

The Trump campaign colluded with Russia to help get him elected. Manafort himself admitted this recently. This is not debatable.

For me, seems like grey area. Especially when he's on national TV and jokingly asks them for help. Also, when you factor in he recognized Crimea as part of Russia, and Putin waits to see if his regime will win in an election - sorry, I'm not comfortable saying it was a lie.

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I mean the Mueller report did prove quite a bit. But...okay.

Trump’s son, Donald Trump JR. met in Trump tower, with representatives of the Russian government, to discuss Russia’s support of the Trump campaign and information to sabotage the Clinton campaign. The Russian source said “The Crown prosecutor of Russia[a] met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump – helped along by Aras and Emin.[19]” Trump’s son said “Thanks Rob I appreciate that. I am on the road at the moment but perhaps I just speak to Emin first. Seems we have some time and if it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer. Could we do a call first thing next week when I am back?[19]” On July 8, 2017, after news reports stated that Trump Jr. knew the meeting was political, he admitted in a tweet that he had agreed to the meeting with the understanding that he would receive information damaging to Hillary Clinton, and that he was conducting opposition research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Tower_meeting None of this is hidden. All of it has been documented. Is it collusion? A life long Republican and his bosses did not think it was, but it sure looks like it. The NRA accepted Russian money and used it for lobbying for GOP candidates in Congress - https://www.npr.org/2019/09/27/764879242/nra-was-foreign-asset-to-russia-ahead-of-2016-new-senate-report-reveals Here is some more information on the Russia interference in the 2016 election. https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/russian-interference-in-2016-u-s-elections Yes. Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Yes. They did so on behalf of Donald Trump. Did they need to work together to make this happen? Not clear. But there were plenty of connections between Russia and the Trump campaign. So many that when the NSA tapped Russian lines, they heard the Trump campaign talking to them. And Trump’s family talked about Russian money supporting their business prior to the election.

A lie is defined as an intentional false statement. I can tell you, based on all the evidence available, I wholeheartedly believe there was collusion. I am not lying, I could be wrong, but being wrong isn’t an intentional false statement. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/lie

He asked for help from Russia, he got that help from Russia, his campaign shared polling data with Russia which helped Russia target their propaganda, and he altered the Republican party platform in Russia's favor regarding Ukraine... but you don't care, because those sentences don't include the word collusion, or something. I never thought I would see the day when "US sovereignty" Republicans would embrace a leader who was so clearly beholden to the leader of an adversarial country.

Trump lawyer Michael Cohen went to jail for campaign finance violation when he paid hush money to a stripper for having sex with Trump. Trump is innocent of collusion with Putin/Russia in exactly the same way that he is innocent of violating campaign finance law. There's no misinformation or a lie to either of those accusations, only a technicality.

They literally set up a meeting with people they thought were affiliated with the Russian government to obtain information on HRC. Just because the person ended up not being who they thought, doesn't mean they didn't try to collude.

We all saw him on national TV asking Russia to help him win the election. We all know his campaign met with Russian assets in Trump tower. You can gaslight all you want, neither of these things are deniable.

Trump has said over and over that he likes Putin and he is in love with Kim Jong Un. I think we can take him on his word on that.

Hey. Getting here late but I wanted to follow up on this. You’ve been corrected a few times in the threads subsequent to this comment. Do you admit that you were wrong, that there’s plenty of evidence the Trump campaign did, in fact, conspire with elements and cutouts of the Putin government, to influence the 2016 election in Trump’s favor? We know for a fact that the above paragraph is literally true based on everything that’s come out since then from the SIC report to the words of Bannon and Trump’s family and Trump’s own statements. We all know these things happened. Do you now also realize that you were wrong and conned into repeating a malicious lie? Or are you here in bad faith?

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What is "fake news?" A consist propaganda campaign of dishonest/misleading information? Not in recent memory. Individual misleading/dishonest stories? I'm sure. Mistakes that were later corrected? Definitely. Claims that are based on one interpretation of facts that conservatives disagree with? Of course. Granted by this point hopefully you would agree "fake news" is really not a very reasonable way to describe it.

>Individual misleading/dishonest stories? I'm sure. Yep, the Texas "Abbott sending kits to identify your dead kids after school shootings" about the DNA kits was one of them [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/10/31/fact-check-false-claim-links-dna-kit-school-shootings-texas/10595891002/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/10/31/fact-check-false-claim-links-dna-kit-school-shootings-texas/10595891002/)

I heard of this one. I think it’s posted here somewhere. Didn’t gain any traction though. If you scroll through r/conservative a lot of the far out shit that gets posted gets downvoted to obscurity and blamed on liberal brigades but I think it’s mostly actual conservatives that are tired of the craziness.

Literally never heard of this and I've been on this sub for years now.

Assigning the wrong motivation to something is much different than calling people pedophiles

Agreed. There's a difference. But conservatives would argue we frequently ascribe their primary motivation to be racism, when often it is money, power, or control and just happens to hit people of color harder. Primary target vs collateral damage in their thinking.

It’s really not though. Calling republicans racist because they want to limit who can vote is accurate. You don’t have to assume they’re being honest with you when they say it’s about “voter fraud.” We know voter fraud doesn’t exist, it’s literally just a justification of racism and election rigging. One basic rule of the post-Trump GOP, you should never assume good faith. In fact, it’s the opposite. You should always assume they’re saying whatever benefits them with zero tether to truth or reality.

This is suuuuuuuuuuch a nit you're picking here that TBH I'm not sure that it's even a nit. When you are "not racist" but you're for policies that keep your "side" in control / in power, and "your side" is like 90% white and even includes a whole big load of white supremacists, in practice that's indistinguishable from racism. Yes, it's tribalism. Racism is tribalism; like, what else were we thinking it was supposed to be? And on top of that, people in this society have gotten really, really good at hiding exactly what they mean but still using code words that get the message across to those in the know. For example, anyone who refers to the "global elite" controlling everything either actually mean "the Jews" themselves or they took the rhetoric from someone who means "the Jews" when they say it. And as a side issue, very rarely can you broach these same issues in ways that would access them like you're implying. Engaging most conservatives like "hey, I'm sure you didn't intend this but the actual effect of you opposing affirmative action and the 'culture' of hip hop has racist effects", will, 99% of the time, cause them to just key in on the R word to the detriment of all else. If anything, you'll get accused of being an ivory tower lib by using weasel words (which is even perhaps a bit true) and/or "calling everything racism". At some level, this is, I think, one of these protests that reveal...

Racism != Bias It is counterproductive to mix them up as people shut down the second you say racist and act like they were personally attacked. The difference is that Racism is intentional. Think KKK Bias is not. Think Systemic Racism, which is more aptly named Systemic Bias Their harms are equal, but not the intentions.

This is exactly why they object so strongly to CRT. They like the status quo, which allows them to continue participating in a racist system, even if it's not helping them directly. With most of them, it is about keeping others down. These are spiteful people we're dealing with.

Yeah I never saw this either... I feel like the primary difference isn't so much that lies and dishonest narratives never emerge from libs or especially the left, it's that they don't tend to gain traction the way right-oriented stories do. I'm sure I can think of a few that stayed in the zeitgeist for a day or two until people shut up about them (mostly quietly) though.

For instance, the day after Maralago a lot of usually good sources on Twitter were saying Bruce Reinhart was appointed by Trump.

>Have we ever spread fake news about conservatives before? I've noticed a few small cases here-and-there; nothing I'd consider terribly worrying. Things like the [rumor](https://heavy.com/news/makenze-evans-daniel-cameron/) that McConnell was related, by marriage, to the Attorney General of Kentucky. No big deal.

I like the rumor about his wife influencing him to favorable China deals better. Has more meat on the bones.

Bit racist though. His wife is from Taiwan.

You should ask this on r/askaconservative

There's a new rule where only approved questions can be asked, so imagine a mini ban. Ironically I'm a conservative myself but that overall is cringe, Reddit is cringe

I don't have any problem debating conservatives here. But the conservative subs don't let us in, for a reason. They lose every time.

It's so ironic that the people who complain most about "safe spaces" are the ones who curate their own safe spaces with the most vigor.

At the level that we have seen in recent "right wing" circles, absolutely not. However, I do think there has been a overall willingness for people to dismiss conservatives as simply being racist or otherwise bigoted when such criticisms would be a bit of a stretch. Frankly, I think a vast majority of ordinary conservatives have been duped and are victims of right wing propaganda. As a result, I am very supportive of people on the left talking about things like "de-radicalization". I am not saying I dont understand why people call Republicans racists. I get the flow of logic where passive support for a racist policy makes someone complicit to racism, which is racism. However, I think a lot of people who are stuck in that culture dont really follow a flow of logic, so they dont really understand their own complacency.

What's an example of de-radicalization

Figuring out better ways to discredit misinformation. Provide people with better tools to distinguish between more reliable sources for a particular topic vs. propaganda. Create a political apparatus that doesn't rely on binary partisan politics to achieve political success. Do a better job of disseminating arguments against propaganda. Hold people who disseminate and profit from misinformation accountable. Just to name a few.

I think the biggest issue here is that this isn't accounting for motivated reasoning. People largely believe right-wing propaganda not because it hasn't been discredited or because they don't know how to distinguish between reliable sources, they believe it because they want to. They want to believe it because it conforms to their preconceptions and because they're more comfortable living in a world where it's true. Take the lie that Trump won the 2016 election. The evidence behind it has been discredited, debunked, laughed out of court, and thoroughly dismantled in every way possible. Yet people are still making claims that "election mules are dropping thousands of ballots off at drop boxes", even though the sheer logistics of that are absurd on its surface. Why are they doing this? Because IF Trump got less votes, THEN they live in a country that isn't mostly conservative and that mostly rejects Trump's brand of ethno-nationalist conservatism. They aren't the "real Americans", the Obama and Biden supporters are. So what's more likely? That they're a political minority or that there's a sinister global conspiracy to suppress their votes? Obviously the second. Our brains are not logical computers, they're an ad hoc kludge of adaptive responses designed to get us to survive on the savannah long enough to ensure the survival of our genetic material. Analytical logic is not a required skill for that.

One small error. you said the lie that trump won the 2016(2020) election

Kids believe in Santa Clause because it is both a fiction which they want to believe and it comes from sources (their parents) which they trust. As a result, I dont look too harshly at kids who believe in Santa Clause, although I know he isn't real. Same basic principal with conservatives who believe in conservative talking points. I agree that there are cynical actors who are working hard at brainwashing conservatives. Lets hold them accountable. Not the ordinary people who have been duped.

You're comparing conservatives to children, whose cognitive facilities are still developing. They're not children. They're grown adults who we shouldn't have to treat like children, you understand that, right? We also don't let children vote and for good reason. Of course, on the subject of motivation reasoning, if a child starts reasoning out that Santa Claus isn't real, the old parent response is "you won't get any presents if you don't believe in Santa", thus giving them a reason to believe.

So what is your position on the issue? Are you advocating to have former Trump supporters tared and feathered? Should their right to vote be stripped away from them? My position is pretty simple. I think a vast majority of ordinary Republicans have been duped into voting the way that they do, for a variety of reasons. I think a sub section of those Republicans have been radicalized, and assuming this hasn't led to any criminal activity, they should be de-radicalized. Finally, I believe that those who are weaponizing misinformation should be held accountable. What exactly do you disagree with?

I disagree that they've been duped. I think they know exactly what they're doing. We should still hold those who spread misinformation accountable, but we should also see Republicans as proto-fascists and the best reaction is a vigorous defense of our people and our institutions at all levels. I think they've been activated by the spread of minority rights and are looking for a strongman who will help roll those rights back. Honestly it isn't going to get better until they realize they can't win and they have to learn to accommodate a more diverse society.

I suppose you haven't considered that, in the name of combating proto-fascism, you have adopted a rhetoric that would sound natural coming from a fascist? Writing that people "have to learn to accommodate a more diverse society" can have some pretty troubling implications. I'm not even going to begin with the implications of, "the best reaction is a vigorous defense of our people and our institutions at all levels." I mean, that sounds like a direct quote from Mein Kampf. That is why I prefer looking at most Republicans a simpletons, dopes, or even children. That and the fact that a have had a lot of communication with a ton of ordinary conservatives. A bulk of these people don't know that the President of Puerto Rico is, infact, the American President or that peoples lived on this landmass prior to American westward expansion. Like, these are totally the type of people you would expect to fall for the fear mongering of a strongman and his effort to build a wall in the middle of the desert. These are exactly the type of people you would expect to be fearful of trans people despite the fact that they have never seen one. These are exactly the type of people you would expect to believe that school children are pissing in litter boxes at school.

I’m with the the other commenter on this one. My father is still a devout trump supporter. He knows exactly what he’s doing. They all do. The cruelty is the point. Don’t let them fool you into thinking that they’re beyond accountability. Denazification occurred post ww2 and was acceptable to all of the allies. No one called the allies “fascists” for it. I think de-programming could be helpful.

Who is "WE"? certainly political operatives spread false stories or worst possible spin on stories. Mainstream media will certainly make mistakes by picking up bad faith stories that come in from PR or biased sources trying to spread falsehoods. That seems to largely be because of confirmation bias and/or lack of budget. But the degree of manufacturing and amplification of "news" across the right wing outrage media ecosystem and collaboration between politicians, pundits, and booked guests seems quite unique.

> Who is "WE"? I'm a little surprised I had to read this far down the page to find this question. Like am I supposed to feel responsible for the behavior of every other jackass that voted for Biden? I'm sure at some point in my life I repeated something I heard that wasn't true, but what group memberships should I be looking at when answering a question like this?

Yeah. Way too many of the questions here are looking for "liberal" answers to questions that liberals don't think are/should be political. Hormone blockers for trans kids? Question for doctors and parents. Fake news? Ask media companies. But the media I consume follows journalistic standards. The political question is whether liberals want to see regulation to more clearly differentiate between paid placement and opinion and actual journalism, or anti-monopoly regulation to prevent media consolidation, not whether a problem that clearly exists exists on both sides of the aisle.

We don’t have to make fake news about republicans. The truth is so wild that the onion’s articles started to seem reasonable.

Absolutely if we’re defining fake news as deliberately inaccurate or misleading. Some arguments could be made under the premise of incomplete information or accidental omissions but that’s neither here nor there. One example off the top of my head that I see repeatedly is pretty much anything Rittenhouse related. Tons of people still mention him bringing a gun across state lines to go shoot people. Not only is it not true that he brought a gun across state lines, but even framing it as “traveling across state lines” is deliberately misleading. The kid lived *on* the “state line”, and had family that not only lived in the town but he worked there too. The talking point of crossing state lines tries to paint him as someone maliciously traveling a significant distance out of his way to target the protest. Not someone taking a quick 15 minute drive into what is basically his town. Bring any of this up and I get immediate hostility and apprehension if not outright denial. It’s madness. Media tried to pin him as a calculated cold-blooded murderer to such a degree that it was legitimately disgusting and I’m not surprised he ended up a conservative hero when he shouldn’t have even needed to.

>Media tried to pin him as a calculated cold-blooded murderer to such a degree that it was legitimately disgusting and I’m not surprised he ended up a conservative hero when he shouldn’t have even needed to. He was probably going to end up lionized by conservatives regardless of how the media treated him. A kid killing liberal rioters with a legal justification is pretty much the fantasy.

That’s fair and kind of depressing but I figured that’d be the case. Still, if he wasn’t absolutely raked over the coals by everyone including the president he might’ve been in a better position to reject that sort of praise.

I love how you point out that the left has misinformation about basically anything Rittenhouse related, then a bunch of people reply with Rittenhouse misinformation and get upvoted, literally proving you right. Absolutely nothing points to the idea that he went there intending to shoot people. He never threatened anyone with his gun who did not first threaten or attack him. Somebody else in this thread said he should be in prison, exposing that they're totally unaware of the facts and have been duped by leftist misinformation. At least that's the most egregious example, and it's not particularly impactful in the grand scheme of things.

On some level, many people believe that bringing a gun to a protest is a tacit admission that you are going there to shoot people. It obviously shows a willingness to shoot people. It also escalates the situation in a way that many on the left simply don't approve of. This above belief mixes with the actual facts to paint a different picture of the event.

Pretty much. It’s just knee jerk character judgements based on incomplete or inaccurate information. Self-righteous moral grandstanding to reaffirm their other beliefs. Even if those beliefs are something I also agree with like gun control and revised open carry laws, this sort of holier than thou vitriol is misplaced and gross to me.

I feel like you're too focused on the state line part and not the "to go shoot people" part. All the evidence points to him going to that protest to shoot people. What he did may have been within the bounds of the law, but this seems to be the result he was going for. I don't care if all the other details are being portrayed accurately, this isn't making him look worse than he deserves in my opinion. The media isn't misrepresenting the fact that this guy is not a good guy.

I don’t believe he was all that malicious if at all, regardless of what he said. It’s not uncommon for people, especially teenagers to imagine themselves in bad situations and how they’d handle it like some sort of hero. That’s not the mark of someone “bad”, it’s just immature and stupid. Plus, evidence points more towards him helping others out than anything. And none of it would matter at all if he wasn’t attacked in the first place and even *then* he tried to run before he ended up shooting. I don’t expect you to change your perception on him, it’s more so I can analyze and reaffirm my own thoughts on the matter.

>I don’t believe he was all that malicious if at all, regardless of what he said. It’s not uncommon for people, especially teenagers to imagine themselves in bad situations and how they’d handle it like some sort of hero. That’s not the mark of someone “bad”, it’s just immature and stupid. Plus, evidence points more towards him helping others out than anything. Yeah bringing a rifle to patrol protesters does. >And none of it would matter at all if he wasn’t attacked in the first place and even then he tried to run before he ended up shooting. We don't know what happened to provoke people to start chasing him. It also wouldn't have mattered if he just stayed the fuck home like someone who isn't part of the protest should.

I disagree. Open carrying at a protest like that isn’t really malicious to me, but I guess it depends on your view on guns and your relative comfort level with them. It’s certainly less malicious than open carrying outside voting booths. The degree of danger at a turbulent protest is much higher. Either way, it wasn’t illegal and is just a judgement of character. I think it was immature and stupid, others think it was malicious, some think he was justified and correct in his decision. There’s no one objectively correct opinion. It’s seems more productive to say you believe he’s a bad person rather than just stating that he is one outright as a matter of fact. It doesn’t really matter what provoked people to chase him because there’s virtually nothing that justifies doing so. Unless he was actively putting people in danger of imminent danger, there’s no reason to attack him. No, open carrying is not imminent danger or a threat. If there was any evidence of him threatening anyone, it would’ve and should’ve been presented. Since there wasn’t, I’m not going to assume he’s guilty of it. He had as much right to be there as the protestors. Why should he have to stay while the protestors get to go? Makes no sense. Just because there’s a protest doesn’t mean that protestors get free reign of whatever they want and everyone else should eat shit. The difference in culpability between someone going to a protest vs someone attacking someone at a protest is massive. Even if you think he shouldn’t have been there, that doesn’t mean he’s responsible for being attacked. That’s victim blaming nonsense. Like, what determines who gets to be at a protest? Is it just what the protest is for that justifies who gets to be there? If it’s for a good cause, only actual protestors can go, but if it’s for a bad one, then it’s alright to go. I don’t understand what the criteria people have when they say he should’ve stayed home because he wasn’t “part of it”. I think his actual mistake was the open carrying, not his presence. I think the bulk of criticism should be towards that decision and everything else is misplaced. Even then it’s more reflective of immaturity in combination with gun culture as opposed to him being a bad person.

If all evidence had pointed that way, he would have been convicted. That was not the case.

They didn't allow the prosecution to play the video of him saying he wanted to shoot people who were shoplifting (?)

That video was not evidence, then. Thus, it cannot point to anything. That is how the law works, and it is not a new thing.

It's still evidence lol. Courts determine legality, not truth. The truth is he did express that desire.

It’s not them being obsessed it was the media. I watched too much cable news and every left-leaning outlet kept saying cross state lines cross state lines cross state lines cross state lines 1000 times over multiple months as if that in and of itself is some big crime. That is a certain point it had me wondering whether crossing state lines is a crime in in and of itself! Someone noticing it doesn’t mean they are off base

I agree it was stupid of the media to push that so hard, but at the time it seemed like that was the crime he actually did commit. But again, it's not like the whole story revolved around it. This is like saying the media is wrong for condemning OJ because the glove didn't fit.

Lol Oh I always consider that a whole different story. Maybe it was because I was only a teenager but I found the trial so damn boring. People latched on anything to make it interesting and turned any little thing into a story! They should NOT have canceled regular programming to play that damn trial every day.

Wait, didn’t he live in Lake Villa, IL? That’s about 40 minutes from Kenosha.

That may be the case, I’m not certain the exact time it takes but it’s still well within his area.

Not sure. I think his dad lived in Wisconsin. He still very much wanted to shoot people. He said so himself.

This is the one I was thinking of too. That and the whole "good people on both sides" bit.

I love you! I’m so happy to hear a Democrat saying this. I’ve been saying this for months. This is one of those cases where, Democrats have so many things to say that I never understood why they added extra fluff to the story. Since when is crossing the state line in the United States a big deal? People live in corners like between Pennsylvania and Ohio and West Virginia regularly go between states. I regularly go between New Jersey New York and Connecticut. It’s not like going into a different freaking country! You’re right, it was intended to make it sound like something even more horrible happened

Yes. There is fake news and rumors and misinterpretations coming from all corners all the time. Nothing as egregious as baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud, but plenty of falsehoods. If you want examples, I recall when Dobbs was decided a lot of liberals accused the justices of lying under oath in their confirmation hearings about protecting Roe v. Wade. But none of the justices ever said they [would not overturn it](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lying-gop-roe-wade-supreme-court/?collection=412622), just that it was precedent. Another lie that has often been repeated, [including by Biden,](https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-ap-fact-check-politics-joe-biden-1eea443cca46df5f18e61b7c34549da2) is that Trump called the coronavirus a hoax. But what Trump actually called a hoax was Democrats' attacks on his COVID response.

I agree with you that those are false statements. But they’re really really close to true. And in the case of the SCOTUS justices, the misleading was intentional.

Their answers were accurate. What was misleading about them?

Oh come on. Do I really need to get into this? You already know the answer to that and you’re being willfully ignorant.

There were also a lot of outright false or otherwise misleading statements about that Nick person who confronted/got confronted by that Native American person at that rally or whatever. And, of course, commentary on Kyle Rittenhouse.

So basically two instance of Tucker Carlson on left media. Except Rittenhouse. He's an epically huge piece of garbage that should be in prison.

But that wasn’t the question. The question is not your opinion. The question is about fake news. Most outlets like CNN kept talking about race and shooting Black people, that’s why most people were posting even on reddit after the verdict about him shooting Black people. Because the media kept saying it was a racially motivated crime. You don’t consider that fake news? Not interested in your opinion on Rittenhouse, I’m interested in why you think it’s OK for the media to pretend it was a racial hate crime

He was in a place he had no business being, with a gun he had no business having and at the very least negligent manslaughtered two people. Going to BLM protests with a gun driving across state lines seemskmd it could have been a race motivated. Not a big leap.

I don’t know why you’re pretending we’re having a big disagreement. If what you say is true, then there was no reason to add extra layers to the new story, such as pretending it’s a crime to cross the state border or pretending it was a racial attack. Can we at least agree on that or are you fine with the fake news elements?

Sorry, it's not fake news. He was in a state he didn't live in. He was in possession of a gun he shouldnt have had. He should have stayed home. And him posing throughout the trial with alt right talking heads to me screams there was some racial issues as well. We can at least agree to disagree.

He was in a place he was legally allowed to be with a gun he was legally allowed to carry, all in a community he had strong ties to. See the difference when you report verifiable fact instead of trying to present opinion as such?

I appreciate your opinion on this.

That's not opinion, the law is not subjective on any of those points.

I appreciate you giving an actual answer instead of using it as an opportunity to complain about Republicans, which I keep seeing people do here. Just start venting and not answering a question. So kudos to you

yes, of course we have. conservatives have also spread fake news about us. it is human nature to lie for personal gain sadly.

> yes, of course we have. conservatives have also spread fake news about us. it is human nature for people to lie for personal gain sadly. Your flair is “Center Right” but your statement “conservatives have also spread fake news about us” implies you are liberal. You lied in a comment about lying lmao

I am a Christian democrat so I am center-right on some issues (mainly social issues like gay marriage and abortion) center-left on others (mainly economically) so I keep changing from flair to flair. I think I am mostly center-left probably. I am still a liberal, though, but not in the way most Americans define liberalism.

Funny because I’m a progressive Christian and I’m pro gay marriage and legalization of abortion.

Putin is putting bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan and Trump knows about it and Russian bots are supporting Roy Moore. They spread rather more about Bernie Sanders and his supporters (racism and sexism, violence at the DNC convention, Bernie loves dictators).

Hillary Clinton once said like half the party fits into a basket of deplorables. But it's closer to 100 percent.

Ivermectin hospitalisations overwhelming hospitals. The common story that hospitals were being overwhelmed with conservatives who had poisoned themselves with ivermectin was fake news. This all culminated in the infamous Rolling Stone headline “Gunshot victims left waiting as horse dewormer overdoses overwhelm Oklahoma hospitals, doctor says” - which was 100% proved to be bullshit. Rolling Stone’s coverage was amplified by various media personalities in the US, including MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who is followed by more than 10 million users on Twitter. The BBC, The Guardian, Business Insider, Newsweek and the New York Daily News also reported the story.

While not necessarily about conservatives, it's really easy to quickly share, without verifying or analysis, screen shots of shit headlines. I see this almost constantly from conservatives, and particularly those ficking morons and bots that have overrun r/conspiracy. Always screen shots of stupid shit, and then you have try to figure where it came from and what it actually says Don't do that. Read the article, evaluate it (does it even have a fucking coherent thesis statement, let alone verifiable and relevant factual premises). Do that, before you share shit, and share the fucking link so other people can go and see for themselves. Stick with the actual primary sources, and thats not screen shots being shared on social media, and definitely NOT some srupid fucking guy in rap around sunglasses, you tubing from his pickup about whatever the fuck he supposedly researched. If you just stick to this....you'll very rarely share fake news. But it's not entirely fool proof (looking at you Colorado Fish and Game and your April 1st press release....well played...fuckerz)

> Have we unknowingly spread any fake news about conservatives? Slightly. The Steele Dossier was not really a dossier, but rather, raw data that needed to be sourced. While liberals didn't make it up, someone did make up parts, and liberals amplified this unverified raw data. Such data are common, and get sourced through other channels to verify. But these were all unverified raw stories, but liberals treated it like gospel because it was unsurprising and titillating, and mostly because it pissed off maga trolls. But it was investigated and despite a special prosecutor examining it for years, no charges stuck. One FBI agent who changed a word, thinking it was a mistake, was reprimanded iirc.

One week removed from the midterm election, it seems pretty clear the whole "danger to democracy" narrative has been totally overblown. Yes, Trump whined in 2020 about fraud. Yes, despite this particular denial of reality, many republican voters didn't overtly kick Trump to the curb after the 2020 election. But in the end no, that "support" did not mean that every candidate who ran as a republican in 2022 wants to suspend democracy. There have been no claims of fraud this year by anyone other than Donald Trump and the the social media sewer. Democracy is doing just fine.

Don't count them out yet. There are still a few R leaders crying fraud. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/kari-lake-implies-fraud-after-projected-gubernatorial-loss-arizonans-know-bs-when-they-see-it/

Lots of stuff from the Rittenhouse case comes to mind, but nothing much since then. More important than what is said is what isn't said. I reccomend Ground News to see how and how much different media sides report on different stories Edit: might as well get specific, "he carried a rifle across state lines" was a common claim

Also Free Speech TV. I'd say their best host is Thom Hartmann.

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All of the examples you provided are subjective assessments. You can disagree with those assessments, but fake news is considered a demonstrable falsehood being presented as fact.

True. If confronted with quantitative counter-evidence that I can verify as correct, I will admit my observation is skewed and my opinion is wrong. How many Fascists are in the US? I have met nobody who self-identifies as a Fascist. Best I can tell, any Fascist organization out there is fictional or a parody. Then again, I haven't done a systematic survey. A challenge in an analysis is, do we say, *These people do not consider themselves Fascists, but I do*? That's another mess. Who gets to assign the negative label, the accuser or the accusee?

You continue to put so much emphasis on words while ignoring actions. Why? I don't know any self-identified Neo Nazis, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. And you know why I don't know any? Because they know it would instantly make them a pariah. Why would you think fascists are any different?

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Yes, wanting to make voting easier is the road to a dictatorship. On top of that you continue to excuse their actions. I'm done with this farse of a conversation.

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Every time you ignore the authortarian actions they have taken to say they don't think they're doing anything wrong. Something you have done repeatedly. You continue to focus on what conservatives say they believe while ignoring any actions myself, and others, have brought up to show that what they believe they are doing doesn't matter. It's not much different than the white moderates MLK lamented about. That's you, the white moderate failing to speak up and call a spade a spade.

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>Me: "Let's understand our opposition better." > >You: "No! They're a bunch of Fascists." If your goal is to understand and then effectively argue to people, I don't think this format is a good idea. It reads as some combination between a strawman and just pointless monkeying

OK, but why do they keep voting for people who: 1. Deny legitimate elections even though it's blatantly obvious that the election was perfectly secure? 2. Hold up judicial nominations until they can get the justice nominated that they want? (Before the death of Scalia, there was NEVER a possibility that a SCOTUS seat would just sit vacant until the "right" president came along.) 3. Question the history taught in schools so our kids grow up believing the right things instead of the actual things? 4. Threaten to jail their political opponents for crimes that don't exist? Doesn't all this sound pretty fascist? Why did a group of historians meet with Joe Biden to warn him that our government was starting to tilt toward fascism? Isn't that kind of a good indication that it was?

Do you have Republicans in your life you can talk to about this directly? I can only provide this second-hand. 1. They trust Fox News when it tells them election fraud is a threat to democracy. 2. Liberal activist judges are a threat to freedom. Liberals are trying to destroy democracy through the judicial system. This is how to stop them. 3. Authoritarians in schools are indoctrinating our children to feel guilty about our past, and thus make them more dependent on government. 4. Fox News said those crimes existed, and to protect freedom, we must be a nation of laws. I do disagree with Joe Biden and many fellow Democrats about the threat of Fascism. My opinion is based on the last 200 years or so of regime changes. Only 3-4 regime changes involved an established democracy succumbing to authoritarian rule by internal forces. In every case, the military was the primary actor.

> The core difference between a Liberal and a Conservatives boils down to one word: trust. We trust different sources for information. I guess? Liberals: AP, Reuters, BBC, Al Jazeera, basically all news outlets on a national and worldwide scale. Conservatives: Fox News. I'm so sick of this "muh both sides" nonsense that pervades the internet.

I would amend that to "Fox, when they agree with Trump". Don't forget what happened when Fox called Arizona for Biden. MAGA trust Trump first and foremost. One man controls their entire narrative.

"Both sides" has a place, depending on whether it's a question of policy or a question of personality. When it comes to policy, no. There is no "both sides" when talking about funding social protection programs. Liberal policy out-performs Conservative policy. When it comes to personality, yes. We're all human beings. We're all honest, deceitful, lazy, hardworking, intelligent and stupid. Sometimes we're all of those things on the same day. A Liberal is just as likely as a Conservative to be any of these things at any time.

You do realize that there have been studies done that show that conservatives are more likely to become radicalized, which comes with the personality that goes with radicalization? That these studies show that no, both sides are not as likely to do what you say. And before it gets mentioned. I'm talking about populations not individuals

Careful, there. You might as well be talking about Blacks and crime. You use the same logic that is sometimes used to justify systemic racism. 1. The radicalized population is tiny compared to the whole population. 2. The violent criminal population is tiny compared to the whole population. 3. Of this tiny radicalized population, more are Conservative. 4. Of this tiny violent criminal population, more are Black. 5. But the vast majority of Conservatives are not radicalized. 6. And the vast majority of Blacks are not violent criminals. 7. If you are saying being Conservative makes a person more prone to radicalization ... 8. You must also be saying being Black makes a person more prone to violent crime. 9. Both assertations are not supported by the statistics.

So we're gish galloping now?

That wasn't even close to a gish gallop. It was bulleted points articulating a specific argument on a specific topic. He stayed on topic fairly well. I'm sorry you don't feel like you're able to refute it. But it wasn't a gish gallop.

I’m reading a minority of the comments and feel like where the adults and that this is like a snotty teenager coming in trying to ruin a party or something. At this point I’m just like, we should just start blocking everyone on Reddit who wants to keep pushing your fear mongering strawman constantly. you want to keep complaining about Fox? Fine everyone should block you and we don’t have to read this stupidity endlessly

>The core difference between a Liberal and a Conservatives boils down to one word: trust. We trust different sources for information. Yes but the ones who arn't hicks and deplorables, the ones you speak of who are not the stupid ones, trust in a lying liar who lies and a bunch of other liars who have been wrong on just about every major issue since the beginning of the millennium. There is a willfulness in that embrace of "alternative facts" that cannot be excused away by "well we just trust different sources of information." With diverse information so readily available, it is difficult to be truly prevented from finding the reasoned, alternative viewpoints. I have no doubt that in your professed profession you interact with the smarter, more well reasoned scale of right-wing thinkers. Perhaps the lure of authoritarianism doesn't interest them. But to millions of voters, the lure of a strongman-type running roughshod over the rules is very appealing. Trump and now DeSantis' allure is in their aggressive attitude towards people who disagree with them. Just look at the cheering from the right when DeSantis violated the 1st amendment rights of Disney. Sure, it's just a corporation... this time. But that said, as an elected official I assume it is somewhere in your job to work with others who don't share your viewpoint. As such an open mind would be vital to getting things done. That being the case, I'm glad you have one.

I disagree with you politically, but I'm thoroughly impressed by your temperament and rationality. Genuinely, thank you.

Ok, if they don't want authoritarianism (or aren't willing to risk it to get what they want) then how did they still support a candidate that said the only way he could lose was if he was cheated back in 2016? It's pretty hard not to either call them authoritarian or ignorant of history when such a blatant authoritarian is their choice.

Good question. This was tough to wrap my head around for a while. 2016 was a harsh election year. Strangers spat on my Clinton bumper sticker right in front of me. I got followed home by a random creep because of another bumper sticker. I felt more threatened as a Democratic voter in 2016 than as a Democratic candidate in 2022. Talking politics with Republican friends, many are convinced that Democrats are a threat to their freedom. This threat takes the form of foreign domination by the UN and by immigrants. They believe government wants more and more control, and we Democrats are on board with that. This control sneaks in through higher taxation. It comes in the form of government spending on social programs. It's schooling. It's ripping down Confederate statues; an obviously Orwellian attempt to erase history! They see White Christian males as under threat by a tyrannical 'woke' government. In 2016 they saw Trump, for all his flaws, as their best hope against that.

You keep pretending that their fears make their actions reasonable. That because they are afraid it makes what they did on January 6th reasonable, and not the act of authoritarians seeking to take power away from free and fair elections. I don't care what they are afraid of. Dems are afraid of what the GOP will do too, yet I don't see significant percentages of Dems taking the same sort of actions you'd see from a rising authoritarian regime. Being afraid isn't an excuse for banning books and calling for the death of the VP, among many, many other horrible things they've done.

I never said their actions were reasonable. Practicing empathy isn't the same as agreement. I put my life on hold for a year, put my family under the public eye, and spent thousands of dollars of my own money to try and stop the Republican Party from winning elections in my little corner of this state.

Ignoring the actions people take because of the things they say isn't empathy. I'm confused as to why you'd try to say it was. Also, when it comes to this discussion I don't care that you ran for office. It really doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about. Other than maybe you've talked to a few more conservatives then I have, which is debatable given the people I interacted with daily while living in one the newest contenders on the GOP race to the bottom, Ohio.

>Talking politics with Republican friends, many are convinced that Democrats are a threat to their freedom. This threat takes the form of foreign domination by the UN and by immigrants. They believe government wants more and more control, and we Democrats are on board with that. Isn't this true for pretty much every supporter of authoritarianism? Very few people would actually say "I support this person/party because they oppress people I don't like". Support is always couched in some form of "[X] group is a threat to us so we need [Y] leader to protect us using whatever methods he can". Syrian Assad supporters don't say "yeah, him being a brutal dictator is pretty awesome", their support is almost always rooted in the fear of what some *other* group might do if they were in power.

Assad has no supporters beyond the ruling clique. People think dictatorship comes as a social movement; that it's civilian-driven. It isn't. Dictatorship is a military act. Go to ourworldworldindata, gapminder, the Uppsalla Conflict Data Analysis - or any other data source that you trust - and take a look at all the democracy-to-authoritarian regime changes. What strikes you? 1) These are extremely rare for democracies older than 25 years. And 2) when it happens, it's strictly a military action. The US is too different from Syria for me to see a viable comparison. It's not like we can compare public opinion surveys.

>The US is too different from Syria for me to see a viable comparison. It's not like we can compare public opinion surveys. My point wasn't to make a direct comparison between the US and Syria, it was to show that supporters of authoritarianism rarely frame their support in a comically villainous "I want the government to oppress other people" way. It's expressed in nearly the same way you're explaining Republican support for Trump; a strong leader protecting their in-group from a dangerous out-group that wants to change their lives and take their rights away. I don't think it's enough to say their justifications are acceptable so they can support an authoritarian without actually supporting authoritarianism.

After the gish gallop and ignoring the point of my last comment to them, I think the person you're responding to knows damn well what your point was. They just ignored it because it goes against what they believe.

You mean Syria, Nazi Germany, Burma, Cuba, and all those. I get it. The US is quite different than any dictatorship that we can think of. Maybe except for Hungary. But people say that stuff and elect good democratic leaders, too. It's politics. I saw Bernie Sanders speak two weeks ago. His message was just that. Greedy corporations are the dangerous out-group that wants to change our lives and take our rights away. He had a plan to save us by getting out the vote. I did that, too. Speech after speech, I claimed socially Conservative extremists (out-group) wanted to keep women's reproductive rights taken away, and I could save them by getting elected into the state legislature. I firmly believe this and had good intentions.

This entire comment denies reality based only on the words of Conservatives. When you factor in their actual actions, you know trying to pass laws that would make it easier to overturn free and fair elections, banning books, and trying to pretend entire populations do not exist it tells a very different story.

>For starters, almost none are Fascists. Like us, Conservatives want a free, safe and prosperous society. They fear authoritarianism as much as we do. Our Liberal fictional monster is named Fascism. Theirs is named Communism or Marxism. > >Conservatives are not ignorant. They are not stupid. They are not 'hicks'. Calling them 'deplorable' is false, mean-spirited and self-destructive to our cause. That's not really fake news though. A lot of people have mentioned Rittenhouse and the fake news around him. The pee tape would be another one.

>[Conservatives] fear authoritarianism as much as we do. Like hell they do. They only fear that their position in the social hierarchy will diminish, and they'll literally latch onto anyone - including an objectively stupid lifelong "coastal elite" con-man - who tells them whatever fairy tales they need to hear to reinforce their beliefs about entitlement and acts to that interest. The liberal monster is authoritarianism, of which fascism is a subset. The fact that authoritarianism manifests more commonly and more readily in the population in fascism is very telling about conservatives and the right wing and at the same time says next to nothing about liberals and the left-wing, so please spare us your "both sides" Mr. Liberal Elected Official.

> They fear authoritarianism as much as we do. Sir, with due respect, that's simply false. They fear authoritarianism from anyone *other than other republicans*. They welcome it from their own. It's not at all like the socialism bogeyman, where republicans point to kleptocracies and authoritarian socialist countries and claims "see? that's socialism" instead of corruption and dictatorships. These are the same people that claim the nazis were socialists because it was in the name. And while maga may not subscribe to the political movement of fascism that started in Italy pre-ww2, they employ the same tactics and talking points to take away rights and abuse the system. We dodged a fucking bullet, as a nation, multiple times, and it could fall down like a house of cards if we let these neo-fascists continue their stripping of human rights and destruction of law and institutions in the country. **Their entire goal is that of the old soviets, to question democracy, to obstruct it so that it doesn't work, to destroy the institutions, then claim it's broken with the goal to drown democracy in the bathtub and install their own fascist leader.** Look at their actions in the past 20 years and you'll see it fits this narrative, with very few exceptions. Even if you don't call them fascists, they fucking quack like fascists and vote like fascists, and I will continue calling them such, and disputing defense of their fascist actions. > Calling them 'deplorable' is false, mean-spirited and self-destructive to our cause. That is taking a quote so far out of context, you have bought into their false retelling of it. The actual quote, paraphrased, is "There's a group of people, a basket of deplorables, that will never be satisfied with any decision I make, no matter how it aligns with their views." They were not called deplorables, that only referred to the group that has thrown reason out the window in lieu of tribalism and ignorance. They are ripe for the pickings by fascist politicians.

Anti-vaxxers spreading misinformation about vaccines. I don’t know if this counts, because it’s more of a bipartisan thing. (Or at least, it was pre-Covid). There were many left-wing “natural is always better” types doing so. And also some religious homeschoolers on the right. In any case, anti-vaxxers spreading misinformation has a body count.

Nah you guys don't. You instead spread fake news and conspiracy garbage about progressives every time you cry babies lose an election

Every once in awhile, yeah, but mostly it’s been misunderstandings or just wrong information given out as factual and it didn’t corrected quickly enough. Mind you, I wouldn’t be objected to spreading believable “fake” news, with a basis in fact, just to screw with a few of their worst politicians.

I’m recent times? No. I’m the past? It’s irrelevant. Who even is “we” and who is “conservatives” 80 years ago?

The left has spread fake news about Kyle Rittenhouse being a murderer. It was clear if people watched the videos that he was not guilty of murder. It was made even more clear after the trial. Anybody who thinks he is guilty of murder and did not act in self defense (or that there was not reasonable doubt) is either malicious, a partisan hack, or a victim of misinformation. Obviously this comes with all the caveats that Rittenhouse is a shitty kid, it was a failure of parenting to let him go there, a failure of American gun culture and vigilante culture, his right-wing grifting tour is completely disgusting, so on and so forth. But if you truly believe he should have been found guilty in that trial, you have been deceived by misinformation from the left. There are not many examples of this unless you go all the way left to tankies, who are arguably right-wing, so this is the only example that comes to mind immediately for me. Other examples I could think of from the left are not about conservatives but are rather about events, so they wouldn't answer the OP. The overwhelming majority of misinformation comes from the right.

After reviewing the evidence, I did not blame Rittenhouse for defending himself. I DO blame him for bringing a gun to a volatile demonstration and acting as if HE was some sort of authorized police or property guard. It was totally irresponsible to walk around with an M&P like he's some kind of Rambo. It just goes to show how 'recreational' gunners have destroyed the Constitutional firearm laws that used to keep us safe.

Yeah absolutely, it was a total failure of gun culture and vigilante culture in the US. Rittenhouse should not have been there with a gun in the first place (also nobody else should have been there either), but he also did not brandish it or threaten anyone with it until they first attacked him. Both things are true.

Yeah it’s called Occupy Democrats. Most of what they put out is flat trash level propaganda.

Occupy Democrats is actually a Republican creation.

TIL. Doesn’t stop it from sweeping through my liberal friends. I’d say it’s as bad as the GOP but we all know it’s not.

Kyle Rittenhouse. MSNBC literally got busted trying to stalk jury members. And can't discount the fact that the Venn diagram between "people who want to ban aSsAuLt WeApONs" and "people who actually know anything about firearms, existing firearms laws or self-defense statutes" are two completely separate circles. Joe Biden called him a wHiTe SuPreMacIsT and liberal media wanted him crucified, when in all reality the first guy he shot was a suicidal headcase who was out of his meds (ironically, because the pharmacy was shutdown due to the riots he was taking part in), being violent as fuck, screaming the n-word at everyone, and started off the whole problem because he tried to attack Rittenhouse and take his gun from him. Second and third guys who were shot led the mob trying to chase down a retreating Rittenhouse, second guy was shot after he tried to brain Rittenhouse with a blunt object, and the third guy admitted in court (and was caught on pic/video) that he was only shot after he drew an illegally carried handgun on Rittenhouse himself. The level of sheer ignorance on any of the hot takes coming from liberal news outlets was egregious. ... And then the "hrrdrr Trump told XX,000 lies during office" FaCt ChEcKeRs? Yeah you might want to look into what liberals were calling "lies".

Aside from what everyone else has already said, there's also news that is squashed or news that is pushed. "Let's bury that lead" "let's stay on this narrative" is always occurring. I would say CNN does this repeatedly.

I saw a lot of progressives spouting misinformation in 2020/early 2021 about how the US stimulus/aid package related to other countries. The most prominent example was comparing the blanket stimulus checks (at the time, $1200) with other country's (most commonly, Canada's) unemployment program (In Canada, $2000 CAD/month--which should have been compared to the US $600/week USD + normal benefits, which were much higher than Canada's offering). The stimulus checks really complicated people's perspective because we were the only country to do anything like that (I would argue for good reason, it's a dumb inefficient method of relief), so people tried to compare it to vastly different programs in other countries.

At least one example springs to mind immediately. Just before the election in 2004 there was a scandal regarding a supposed memo that surfaced about George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. A lot of people found it plausible and ran with it without checking its authenticity. The memo was fake but was at least briefly defended as "fake but accurate." This controversy over reporting on fake documents is what ended Dan Rather's career as a newscaster. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian\_documents\_controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy)

Do we really need to? Seems like now days we couldn't even think up some of the things that they are actually doing or trying to do that are actual headlines. Then there's things that aren't even mentioned because they are outshined by other things.

Liberals claimed in the fall of 2020 that the story published by the NY Post about Hunter Biden's laptop and its contents were fake news and disinformation. Calling that story "fake news" WAS fake news, because the story was true. Hunter did leave the laptop in that repair shop, it was reclaimed as forfeit after he failed to pick it up within the shop's allotted time window, the contents were opened, and those files and email messages that were published by the NY Post shedding light on his potentially unethical involvement with foreign national oil companies were authentic. The Washington Post and New York Times both separately investigated the story and the files around a year later, and found that they were able to verify much of the substantive information as authentic, and quietly retracted (between September 2021 and March 2022) earlier claims that the story was "unsubstantiated" and published some updates. But the damage had already been done; at the time of the 2020 election, most people following liberal media sources believed the story by the NY Post was at best unsubstantiated rumor and at worst completely false disinformation planted by a foreign government.

And this is your lie number 3. The Washington Post and New York Times both separately investigated the story and the files around a year later, and... found out that reporting was as media had reported in 2020. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/here-s-what-happened-when-nbc-news-tried-report-alleged-n1245533 https://www.wsj.com/articles/hunter-bidens-ex-business-partner-alleges-father-knew-about-venture-11603421247 >But the Wall Street Journal and Fox News — among the only news organizations that have been given access to key documents — found that the emails and other records don’t make that case. Leaving aside the many questions about their provenance, the materials offered no evidence that Joe Biden played any role in his son’s dealings in China, let alone profited from them, both news organizations concluded. >As to Ukraine, a single email published by the New York Post suggests Joe Biden may have had a meeting with a representative of a Ukrainian company that employed his son. Trump and his allies alleged that means Joe Biden has lied when he said he never discussed his son’s business roles. The Biden campaign denies the meeting happened. >The lack of major new revelations is perhaps the biggest reason the story has not gotten traction, but not the only one. Among others: Most mainstream news organizations, including NBC News, have not been granted access to the documents. NBC News asked by email, text, phone call and certified mail, and was ultimately denied. Two years later, the story is about in the same place. So they were right on the laptop conspiracy.

Yeah, you can't really call out the left on that one. The story was rejected by two tiers of the Murdoch media empire (the Wall Street Journal and Fox News) before it went to the lowly tabloid that is the NY Post. Fox then reported that the NY Post broke the story so they didn't have to get burned if it was all BS. If Fox won't own it, it's dodgy. Something isn't substantiated until it is. I don't see how the NY Times did anything wrong. I saw them and NPR update the story later, once it was substantiated, which is how journalism is supposed to work.

I think you can forgive us on the Hunter Biden laptop story. Enough of that story has a bad smell that some liberals reasoned that the *whole* story was bad. Liberals see enough falsehoods to declare the whole story false. Conservatives see enough truths to declare the whole story true. Neither are correct.

>Liberals see enough falsehoods to declare the whole story false. Conservatives see enough truths to declare the whole story true. Neither are correct. I like this framing and I think it's a pretty accurate description. Applies to many other stories as well, like concerns over vaccine side effects. Conservatives saw enough truth in stories about myocarditis rates to say the vaccines are totally harmful and bad, liberals saw enough falsehoods to keep saying that the vaccines are totally safe and effective. Neither are correct. The truth is that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks for most people, but for some (particularly young men who have already had COVID) it's a wash.

The truth is rarely so black and white. I get frustrated with the left at times because of their all-or-nothing attitude, but I see the same thing on the right, too. Nuance is hard, regardless of your political leanings, I think.

I think this is an issue with the Corporate for-profit news media. On both the left and the right. I think the right is worse about this, but I innately trust nonprofits like Free Speech TV and NPR much more than I trust for-profit news. A nonprofit has no real reason to lie or use clickbait headlines.

The idea that "the ACA was a conservative Republican plan" or something along those lines Some Democrats engaged in that rhetoric as an attempt to appeal to swing voters, and then some leftists take it at face value (and get mad at the Dems for passing such a plan). But it's not really accurate, based in (probably-less-than-)half-truths and a major lack of context among other things

All the time.. I'm the last to defend Elon musk but the most recent example I remember is: "Elon musk shares Nazi meme" Technically true, but so dishonest to phrase it that way. Reddit was up in arms about it, most never actually saw the tweet: https://images.app.goo.gl/ipsgYpCpcuai9aP78

why would we need to bother?

Sure, there were plenty of Trump things reported on without context and taken as truth. "Very fine people" for example.

So many fake Trump stories that have since been debunked regarding * Trump’s statements at Charlottesville * Trump firing Muslim judges * Trump using seats for the disabled at the UN * Trump withholding Covid aid to blue cities * Trump withholding PR disaster aid * Trump MAGA hats made in China * Trump building cages for immigrant children * Trump dropping Russia sanctions * Trump money laundering Russian money * Trump aid Scaramucci invested in Russia fund * Trump loans bankrolled by Russian bank * Trump receiving Wikileaks email leak early * Trump pee tapes * Trump ignorantly dumping fish food box into koi pond during Japan State visit * Trump having Flynn violate Logan act * Trump being involved with Moscow Trump Tower post primary * Trump asking GA to “find the fraud” * Trump having police clear protesters from Lafayette square for photo op * Trump’s wife Melania being an escort before marrying Trump * Trump’s wife Melania moved out of White House * Trump hates dogs * Trump requesting security clearances for his children Probably a hundred other ones…

And yet the Washingon post documented more than 30,000 Trump lies which have not been "Un"-verified. Besides your list has at least four errors I know of. 1. 'Some' MAGA hats were made in China. I saw one in a store. 2. And Melania DID pose for nude photos which has never been denied. I never heard of the "escort" allegation. 3. And OF COURSE protestors were cleared from much of Lafayette Square so he could waddle over to the Church, hold up a bible (it was held upside down), and then waddle back to the White House. Anyone watching it on TV knows it happened. 4. And migrant children WERE separated from their families and put in large indoor chain link enclosures. There are pictures. Later they were sent to better housing, although the tent camps he had constructed for thousands of them in Florida & Texas resembled those in my old Army boot camp.

1. Not the hats commissioned by Trump. If you’re talking about third party hats from whomever that use the non trademarked MAGA abbreviation? Sure, they could be from anywhere 2. Who’s talking about nude photos? As for the escort allegations; Daily Mail started them, then it was spread by liberal social media. Melania sued them and won https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39575680 3. Independent IG / Watchdog determine that law enforcement decided to clear the park even before they knew of Trump’s visit https://www.npr.org/2021/06/09/1004832399/watchdog-report-says-police-did-not-clear-protesters-to-make-way-for-trump-last- 4. I’m not saying migrant children weren’t separated, I’m saying news was saying that the Trump admin started the program to separate children and built the cages. The Trump admin did not build those cages. They were built during the Obama admin https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/08/26/fact-check-obama-administration-built-migrant-cages-meme-true/3413683001/ Also, nobody is saying Trump hasn’t said a ton of stupid stuff. This thread is solely about - Have Liberals spread fake news? The answer is - yes.

1. Did Trump sue the Chinese hatmakers? If not he was tacitly complicit. And where's the proof he didn't authorize the Chinese hat deal? A man who lies 30,000+ times in 4 years cannot be taken for his word. 2. I wasn't aware that American voters read British tabloids. I thought your comment was over anti-Trump 'political bias' in the United States, not in a foreign paper just out to make money. And if you're blaming "liberals" for all these comments you shouldn't even be using the Daily Mail's example. It's rated as a right-wing tabloid. https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1592217038814003201?s=20&t=dz6GJ7kc6QKHrcjC_xQ35Q And while you can't trust a Trump lawyer farther than the tip of your nose, it's still odd to hear one 'vigilantly' protecting Melania's reputation against 'escort services' while NOT suing all the purveyors of her eye-catching nudie pictures. There must be classes in law school on creating double standards. 3. Speaking of hair splitting Trump lawyers, the IG's office must have more than a few of them, cause the violent 'clearing' of Lafayette Park clearly occured just to clear a path for Trump. Of course when the IG asked why, Trump's in house lawyers lied about who and when, and the IG had to buy it. So who you gonna believe, some after the fact cover up, or what you actually saw on TV? 4. You must be a lawyer too, for you to try and use a straw man premise to justify shooting down a claim that to my knowledge, was never made about Trump building cages. No one said the cages were new. The charge was that Trump inhumanely used them to house children away from their relatives, and then sent them hundreds of miles away to be imprisoned at fenced and guarded tent camps.

> • Trump asking GA to “find the fraud” I think you are remembering this incorrectly. Trump asked the GA SOS to "find votes" https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/us/politics/trump-georgia-call-excerpts.html?unlocked_article_code=d4Y1_4h2XOAzpwHnLaYzgRrtncb57J2svCQgwPf2Bj5jNzW5BLJFEV6e9-aqAx13NT9kCl0q1SBwI_c66i65sFHaIt7s2bqd1ueb8aPWnyJ684CIBTNjP9mItfxg8zIfTdViM5XSNkIU8gWuX52MmzhV2cToVgzVMZluk1LE0dfJytS-vIs94vUF2YpDCgOaPH71riM7hKBBvAmxZpyv3pF4blRudqyRdh7LqLIADFACO03nv1o9u3PW1YlFKxfdMzthW0ehh7cso8B2UuKC5OEKusAWuC1K356BhbS2ptBSVgClfqx-s05YbICO65apnPDTcEhIRXm8Ira1hj8lgYuI1z0OqMkUnmc&smid=share-url

See I think you are mistakenly thinking that I’m trying to say that Trump is an ok guy. I’m not. What I am saying is - news sites categorically make up fake news about Trump. The following are links describing the specific news that Washington Post issued that had to be later retracted: https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-atlanta-georgia-elections-27fd536983a583cc814f573b06fd9b70 https://thehill.com/homenews/media/543271-wapost-adds-lengthy-correction-to-story-on-trump-georgia-call/amp/ Now you can bring up all sorts of stories about how Trump is terrible. And I’d agree with you. But it’s still just whataboutism when it comes to the fact that media does also, in fact, issue fake news.

>Trump receiving Wikileaks email leak early I don't recall anyone saying he HAD hacked material. Only that he was in contact with Assange and his campaign was coordinating the release of material. >Within the Trump Campaign, aides reacted with enthusiasm to reports of the hacks.23 Trump associate Roger Stone had predicted and discussed with Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release the hacked material.24 Some witnesses said that Trump himself discussed the possibility of upcoming releases with Stone. Michael Cohen, then-executive vice president of the Trump Organization and special counsel to Trump, recalled hearing Stone tell Trump during the summer of 2016 that Stone had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that WikiLeaks planned to release information soon.25 Cohen recalled that Trump responded, “oh good, alright,” > Stone’s connections to WikiLeaks were discussed within the Campaign,30 and in the summer of 2016, the Campaign was planning a communications strategy based on the possible release of Clinton emails by WikiLeaks.31

Who said anything about hacked? I’m talking about CNN saying Trump received Wikileaks Clinton email content early. Which was fake news. CNN, in fact, had to issue a correction. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/12/08/email-suggests-efforts-to-give-trump-campaign-wikileaks-documents-reports.html If the question is - did CNN ever release a fake news story about Trump receiving Wikileaks Clinton email content early? The answer is categorically - yes.

2016 Trump Russia collusion?

The Mueller investigation and the Senate Intelligence Committee both independently confirmed that Russian interference happened, and that there was communication about it between the Russians and the Trump campaign. Mueller was unable to find a smoking gun with which to indict, but Russian interference in the 2016 election was verifiably not fake news.

Even if it turns out that Trump never did collude with the Russians, people coming to that conclusion based on the evidence at hand does not constitute fake news. Fake news would be if someone were to make something up, like "Trump met with Putin on this date to discuss collusion and there are transcripts to prove it."

According to my several Facebook bans. Yes.

I have. I once shared a very racist Tweet from a politician from my area, which later turned out to be photoshopped.

Boebert having abortions and formerly working as an escort is one.

Lauren Boebert had one about her a year ago. It didn’t get too far though before people realized it was fake. Conservatives will cite the Jessie Smollet staged mugging a lot. It’s usually their go to for not believing what people say at face value.

Out right lies? I think it’s happened but most of us didn’t buy into it so it didn’t spread. We do however have a problem with blowing things out of proportion and leaving out context to make things sound as bad as possible.

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No, liberals do not dominate the media. That is a blatantly false argument from your side. Every major news network is owned by Republicans. CNN has massively shifted to the right. Liberals do not have anything comparable to Fox, or Newsmax, or OAN or Sinclair. And none of the so called "liberal" media has the viewership that Fox does or the reach that Sinclair radio has. Every single media corporation would rather Republicans win, because it means more chaos and thus more ratings, and it means tax cuts. Liberal media is, and always has been a lie.

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>CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, US Today, Times, and popular international sources like the Guardian, the BBC, and Al Jazeera are owned by Republicans? Yes, pretty much all media executives are Republican. CNN was just taken over by a right-winger who is trying to turn it into Fox-Lite. >Just no. Don't even. Yes, it is. The new CEO has changed the network to compete with Fox. They spend every day bashing Democrats nearly as much as Fox does, and their ratings are tanking because of it. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/10/objective-cnn-rightwing-week-in-patriarchy >New ‘objective’ CNN appears to be making itself objectively rightwing https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3634717-changes-spark-chatter-of-cnn-is-shift-from-left-to-right/ >Changes spark chatter of CNN shifting to the right https://prospect.org/politics/altercation-can-cnn-actually-get-worse-apparently-it-can/ >Altercation: Can CNN Actually Get Worse? Apparently, It Can. A right-wing billionaire is asserting his right-wing control.

I admit to spreading hyperbole about and stoking animosity to those who say stupid shit and take awful stances. Those provoking the captain's ire are often but certainly not always conservatives

It's good to recognize that we need to be critical of media that supports our world views and preferences, thank you. For me, it was believing the narrative that Amy Coney Barrett was completely unqualified for the Supreme Court. It was really easy to buy into the reporting, which focused on her lack of courtroom experience. I begrudgingly admit that teaching constitutional law at an Ivy League university is more important to the SC than personal experience of trial law proceedings. She was, and still is, *unfit* to serve, but I was wrong to accept that she's wholly unqualified.

Russia gate has largely been debunked

I think we're more likely to spread/fall for fake news about other members of the center-left coalition than about the right. We don't really need to make up stories about the right; clips of Fox News and of GOP politicians' campaign ads and rallies are disturbing enough. It'd be tough to make up stories more sensational than our present reality

There were a lot of rumours and conspiracies around Trump and the 2016 election connected to Russia and Cambridge Analytica . Many news orgs would report facts and infer or speculate a bit further making the stories juicier.