The Flynn case: ask a liberal friend
I’ve been thinking about talking to some of my liberal friends about the Flynn case revelations. I’m wondering if they’re even familiar with them, since their news source is the usual MSM. And if they are aware of the latest disclosures, I wonder what they think of them. Do they dismiss them as lies? Do they shrug them off as unimportant? Do they approve of them as justified? Or are they disturbed by the excesses and violations that occurred?
If I do get around to finding someone willing to talk about it in a relatively calm manner, I’m also going to try to explain how the MSM has been deceptive in its coverage in order to protect the Obama administration. And then I plan to ask the following question: During Watergate, what would you have thought if the press had been part of the coverup?
If any of you decide to do something similar, I’d be curious what responses you get.
https://www.exopolitics.org/will-general-flynn-exoneration-impact-ufo-ssp-disclosure/
It is being widely reported that more than two thousand former officials at the FBI and the DOJ are calling on AG Barr to resign over his conduct in the case of Flynn; how many of these highly partisan swamp-creatures, one wonders, would be in favor of a full investigation into Obamagate, the worst political scandal in this nation in many a decade?
The challenge is that the media is all COVID all the time, and people who don’t dig into things here and at CTH, Ace, etc. just don’t think any of this is real.
“National Omertà Radio” repeated the Democrat talking points on the Flynn case last week, and hasn’t mentioned it since. They covered the act of the release of the the House Intel Committee transcripts last Thursday, but have gone literally radio-silent on it since.
The MSM is sucking the oxygen out of the room with COVID. If I talked to anyone about Flynn or the released House testimonies, I would be telling them things that would sound preposterous to them, because they wouldn’t believe the voices they trust would try such a blatant coverup. That’s why Goebbels said don’t tell small lies, go with whoppers!
Personally, I have an aversion to butting my head against a sanctimonious wall of willful ignorance.
Ray: I think your assessment is accurate. And Neo: I think that given the way the media “covered” Russiagate when it the airwaves had more room for it, much of the detail of this story never reached the consciousness of our friends on the left. They may have heard snippets of “FISA” or “Ohr” or “Mifsud/Halper”, but with no interest in knowing anything other than the prevailing narrative, they never chose to think about what those things meant. I think the problem is that if anyone on the left decided to look into whether there was another side to this story, they would give up on trying. The research project needed to catch up with 3 years of skulduggery would be too daunting.
You have your fact, we have our truth. When one begins their analysis based on which team they root for, they will find plenty of justification for their side’s excesses, and plenty of but, but, but, for anything that makes the other side look bad. In other words, Flynn was guilty as sin for (insert rationalization here), and the FBI/deep state, etc. was fully justified in any efforts to derail him and that hitleresque Rump character. You will simply be “butting [your] head against a sanctimonious wall of willful ignorance.
For a case in point, read Patterico
So assume that they think that there is malfeasance in the administration.
Before starting out, you might try casually asking them if it would make any difference to them if specific instances of assumed corruption were demonstrated to be false.
My bet is that you would get a highly hedged answer to that, at best.
On a few occasions where someone has repeated some falsehood they have ingested, and expressed outrage, I’ve tried the hypothetical agreement apprpach, ” Yeah, I heard that too and it would be an outrage …. But you will be as glad as I was to learn that that story has proven false ”
It has had some small measure of success with those who are non ideological. At least during the period of the conversation. Those who are highly partisan, and could not care less about specific instances of disconfirmation, but who are just oportunistically venting their spleens at an ideological enemy by using the latest reported outrage, merely look at me with a kind of malevolent annoyance, as if I have dropped a branch in their path which they must now trouble themselves to publicly step over. A type of “What kind of transparent trick are you trying to pull on me with this “fact” stuff?” reaction.
Sort of like being a defense lawyer in a kangaroo court, and daring to mention discarded procedural assumptions or inconvenient facts.
Looks as though while I was busy typing a convoluted response, “Ron Cody” cut to the chase with his first sentence.
That one phrase pretty much encapsulates the entire dynamic.
Sadly, I have given up on trying to bridge the divide with my collectivist friends and relatives. The divide is too wide. You and we your readers live in a bubble. The MSM, the blue state elites and their educated but uninformed followers live in another bubble. My greatest disappointment is that most of them have so little clue about the facts, and are unwilling to exercise independent judgment or do the tiniest amount of research. Trying to press a point in the face of their reluctance usually ends up with an ad hominem attack in return, based on the fact that there is something wrong with someone who advances such arguments when the brilliant “experts” and MSM talking heads are obviously more informed and intelligent than you.
“It is being widely reported that more than two thousand former officials at the FBI and the DOJ are calling on AG Barr to resign”
That number may or may not be correct. There was a link being passed around which you could use to add your name. I know that many signed on to the petition using joke names. There was no obvious checking for valid names.
For that matter, you could easily sign up using a legit DoJ employee’s name who is not you.
The form asked for name, hometown, which Admin you worked for, how many years at DoJ, highest job title and your LinkedIn entry (OK to enter “none”). Perhaps checking was done subsequently, but nothing during data entry. Also, no pop-up message saying “there will be email sent to you to confirm that you participated” (of course, since you provided the email, that could be invalid data).
For anyone who wishes, as a current or former DoJ official, to express their disapproval of Trump, here’s a link.
I believe that I. P. Freely and Seymour Butz are names that have not been taken yet….
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1GWvIIGvv3AE-z6AHQ4CzifeJOdajF0y2gviWov3f36Q/viewform?ts=5eb5b025&edit_requested=true&fbzx=779502555114713
When it comes to most educated liberals my strong suspicion continues to be that even if it was shown in completely irrefutable terms that Obama absolutely conducted an illegal and unjustifiable investigation into the Trump campaign, they still wouldn’t care and wouldn’t want Obama and his people held accoutable. They hate Trump and what he represents so much that they just want him gone, they don’t care how its done, they don’t care about legality of it all, they don’t even care about any notion of rule of law, people recieving equal treatment under the law.
They.
Don’t.
Care.
It’s fully a tribal thing.
Of course some of them may have to struggle with certain cognitive dissonances and hyporcrisies within their own heads I guess. It’ll be much harder to make arguments in the future about any wrong doings perpetrated by Republicans if they’re seen to have taken some indefinsible stance about letting criminals on their side go scott free.
To be clear, I could be wrong about all this. And I hope I’m wrong about this. But tribalism and emotionality are extremely powerful things. They’re difficult to overcome. It requires critical thinking and a willingness to be wrong and to admit when you’ve been wrong to yourself and others.
Ron Cody:
I would choose the people to whom I spoke very very carefully. I’ve been doing this for years. Most people will not listen and are not of the “willing to talk about it in a relatively calm manner” type. So I wouldn’t even try talking to most of my liberal friends. But there are some who are more able to have such conversations, and I would concentrate on them.
Neo,
I agree. There are tons of people on my friend list (I have more lib friends than conservative) that I simply cannot even ask a simple question that might imply that the left is anything but lily white and the right, onyx black. I made the mistake of mentioning to one relative that the article was very partisan based on the working, and his reply was that I undermined my argument by being partisan. So I know how bad it can be. I despair of any chance at problem solving. Good luck with those you CAN talk to. Maybe enough of them will convert and drag a few others with them.
As many have been saying for a few years, if words and conversations cannot bridge this divide, then at some point it will have to done by other means. It’s a very scary thought; more so than some damn virus. I’m afraid the fuse is already lit, it remains to be seen if it can be snuffed out before it reaches the powder keg.
“I’ve been thinking about talking to some of my liberal friends about the Flynn case revelations.”
Let me give you a head’s up; you will have better luck explaining to them that Hitler was best pals with the chief rabbi of Berlin in 1939 and that the Holocaust never happened.
I have a couple of relationships hanging by a thread during the last couple of months. By giving voice to even a hint of concern for those who are harmed by the shutdown, I’ve been greeted by near hysterics. While the Flynn case seems like a good opportunity to make some headway, I don’t fool myself into thinking it would be successful, especially because the legal stuff can be tough to wade through for those who haven’t been paying attention. It’s frankly depressing. The only semi-hopeful approach I’ve found is that by skirting the issue of whether or not I support Trump and declaring myself “libertarian leaning” I’ve been able to point out the hypocrisy of people who make rules/laws that they refuse or have no need to live by themselves….and there are oh so many great examples out there right now. Sometimes I pose these as rhetorical questions that are important to consider and explicitly say that I’m not looking for a verbal response. It takes the pressure off. I even had one very irate friend respond with “I can respect that those questions should be answered.” Sadly my goals these days are more along the lines of….if it makes one person think critically for a minute.
When the Iron Curtain fell, my husband was so happy and exclaimed Communisms final end. Having escaped a communist country, I knew that was not the case. I knew it wouldn’t matter if yet another country with leftists beliefs would go under. There would still be communists. This is a religion for leftists and they will never give it up. Doesn’t matter what proof-they don’t care (how much proof does a rational being need? It’s been over 100 years…); doesn’t matter the failure in their ideology-they don’t care; they believe what they want to believe even in the face of failed system/ideology/administration. Except for the rare few, they will always be leftists/socialists/progressives/communists.
Leftists are not going to care about the Flynn case, either because they don’t care or because they will not want to believe their lying eyes. Amounts to the same thing.
I am a conservative/libertarian in a progressive state surrounded by progressive friends. None of them care.
“There are tons of people on my friend list (I have more lib friends than conservative) that I simply cannot even ask a simple question that might imply that the left is anything but lily white and the right, onyx black.”
and
“Sometimes I pose these as rhetorical questions that are important to consider and explicitly say that I’m not looking for a verbal response. It takes the pressure off. ”
Why bother? Really. Why bother at all. These people are rapidly devolving or already have devolved into “Good Germans.”
During the Kavanaugh hearing it was impossible to believe the allegations against him. The accuser told so many lies it was difficult to keep an accurate running count. She couldn’t even establish that they had ever met.
It was impossible for a lawyer to believe her story. Every liberal lawyer I know swore they believed her. Their hatred has completely overwhelmed them. Hatred made them so crazy that their brains no longer function rationally. Their hearts have turned to stone. Their moral compasses aren’t just broken, they’re shattered.
I know this sounds harsh. But I sincerely believe it. I KNOW they hate with a passion. They hate deeply. And hatred poisons.
It will be the same with Flynn and all the rest of Obamagate. They don’t care about the IRS scandal, the massive campaign of lies that were used to pass the stimulus and then Obamacare. They don’t care about the lies that were so vital to the Iran deals. They don’t care about Obama’s detention of kids at the border, yet are certain that Trump’s continuation of the same policy is evidence that Trump is evil.
They gave up on morality and rationality a long, long time ago.
Perhaps all that will work is to rub their noses in their own crap.
I’m not actively acquainted with any liberal lawyers right now. What I’ve noticed about the left in that affair is they kept dancing around the checkerboard. When it was apparent you couldn’t take Christine Blasey Fraud seriously, then the complaint was about his ‘temperament’. Or maybe it was that he ‘lied’ about his drinking habits. Or the teen slang in his circle of friends. Oh, and he didn’t stop to talk to some man from Broward County, Fl that he’d never met before. Or whatever. There wasn’t any integrity in it. There never is anymore.
Stan: I’m not sure I can attribute all the responses to hatred. During the Kavanaugh hearings I was visiting a friend and his wife on Martha’s Vineyard. His wife is the sweetest person and never took a hard line on conservatives. Of course she thinks I’m still a lefty so she just assumes we all agree on politics. That’s fine. Anyway, during the hearings she was so adamant that Kavanaugh was guilty, was a snake, was an entitled frat boy, that I was shocked. The disconnect between what I was seeing and what she was saying was wider than the Grand Canyon. I avoided a conflict but had to reset my understanding of how powerful the media brainwashing is. There are a lot of people who (in my opinion) are not evil and not stupid but are totally blinded by their desire to be the “good” SJW.
One would hope that the cases of biological males being allowed in girls locker rooms and sports team would cause some to question their fellow leftist. I still think a good offense would be a very vocal push on the right for the rights of women in public restrooms, showers and teams. Maybe it would open the eyes of a tiny fraction…..I have mentioned this before, but the day the media , including Fox, went along with calling Bruce Jenner a “she” was a watershed event…now push back emphasizing the “rights of women” and see the contrast for those willing to see.
Couple of points:
Some seriously fanatical folks I correspond with on FB. The collusion/obstruction thing as gonna get him, by golly. Now it turns out that it’s going to run as Fox has been running it for three plus years, only worse.
Then that disappeared.
The no-quid–no-quo thing would take him down, by golly. So we got an in depth look at the Biden family business.
Hydroxychloroquine was not even spoken of in polite society. Now that it’s working….what was that again?
Now we have Trump being blame as if he’s been running the response as Cuomo has done it.
The other issue is that Trump is accused of….some vile and frequently obscene insult…like an adjective. Or a noun of absolutely no restraint. Both of those are applied as if they are objectively and specifically true. But there’s no percentage in trying to address it.
Kavanagh is a good example. Nobody ever heard of him until he was nominated to the Supremes. Instantly, he was hated–sincerely by the easily manipulated and dishonestly by the partisan–based on absolutely nothing. I have no doubt that if CBF hadn’t shown up, something else would have been applied and equally believed and been obviously a matter of manipulated hate.
There is no percentage in talking to liberals on the Flynn matter–“HE’S A TRAITOR!!!”—or any other. I’ve struggled, frequently on this blog, to understand the mental process. I have no idea. We’re H. Sap. Believing the strongly counterproductive and unsupported by obvious facts is not a survival aid. Should have been de selected by natural selection.
Perhaps in the developed world, there are enough cushions on the world’s rough edges that there is no immediate penalty for indulging in …whatever it is. And when the gods of the copybook headings with terror and slaughter return, there’s always somebody else to blame.
But…there is no percentage in talking to liberals. It only causes tachycardia.
I predict that the overwhelming response will be, “Well, we know he lied because he confessed to it and pled guilty.”
They will refuse to scratch further below the surface, and the reason for that is that they don’t want to know any more. They have a niggling suspicion already, but they don’t want to confront it. Because they know that if they open that door, they won’t like what is behind it.
So, for now, they are going shut you out on this subject.
I remember when the allegations started against Bill Cosby. I really didn’t want to believe them. I kept saying that these were just some women trying to get an easy settlement. Eventually, of course, the numbers of the allegations and the consistancy of the stories forced me to change my mind. In a way, I felt that Bill Cosby had betrayed me too.
So, it is going to require an overwhelming avalanche of evidence before the “honest” anti-Trumper starts their journey to accepting that they have been lied to since the beginning. But, once they do, most will vent their fury on the Democrats in November.
Look…I’ve got good friends who still think Trump told people to drink household cleaners and no amount of persuading will change their minds.
I try my best to be respectful…but I value their friendships so I don’t do more than suggest they try another non-MSM (or Fox) source for their info.
I’ve recommended the Boss’ place here…we’ll see.
I’m very skeptical of the opinions of those on the left, or even the “liberal” folks out there. Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t be saying this. But something is very different now. The liberals / lefties have for many years had a monopoly on the dissemination of thought and ideas to the public through news, entertainment and culture. Digitalization of communication through cable, internet, etc. has given voice to the center and the right, and a certain portion of the public has listened. Those on the left have noticed this, long ago. With developments like Trump and Brexit, the left has gone extreme to an extent well beyond the right. There are always exceptions, but in general, they are less likely to want to listen, to have an open mind, and to respect the diversity of other points of view. They want their political opponents out, and for good. For example, the drive for lax borders to obtain the eventual votes of the undocumented and the move to ban speech they don’t like. An excellent example is the former NYT writer who helped create Politico and the Hill who freely admits he doesn’t care if Joe Biden molested that woman; all he cares about is getting Trump out. He probably thinks like a lot of what I used to consider reasonable liberals. The point is, taking to your “liberal” friends is likely to be a waste of time.
Most people will not listen and are not of the “willing to talk about it in a relatively calm manner” type.
I know of a few people that would fit that bill here as well.
The Leftist alliance is like a mafia or mob, controlled by fear and a hierarchy. Conservatives are not much better, it is just that the control mechanisms are specially designed for conservatives, which are different in many ways from Leftists or even fake/real liberals.
Everyone is in the Matrix. The Slave System of Humanity.
Once you accept one unsupported “truth,” you are more vulnerable to additional and increasingly outrageous lies. No one wants to admit they’ve been used, that they’re just a little cog in a big phony machine, that they’re a foolish tool of an oppressive machine, that they’re an enormous hypocrite, etc.
The herd protects itself.
This can be a way to penetrate the thick candy shell. Attack the messenger, the media. The profiteering corporate entities, who apparently spend a lot of their time sexually harassing anything that moves, who sold these poor deplorable yokels with a puppet show.
“I made the mistake of mentioning to one relative that the article was very partisan based on the wording, and his reply was that I undermined my argument by being partisan.”–But he doesn’t think the article’s author undermined his own argument by being partisan. Classic.
If pressed into a corner and made to discuss this with friends whom I’d rather not offend, I’d probably say that I might share their opinion if I shared their confidence in their sources.
I thought DNW’s original long comment was bang on point.
One other thing: the total black-out on news about how Flynn came to plead guilty–the threat to his son, the written evidence that this “handshake” part of the plea deal was withheld from the court, the inevitable conclusion that the prosecution knew that the threat to his son was illegitimate–all argues to me that these are deadly facts. The desperation to hide them is all the more reason it might be helpful to get out there and publicize them. Just to judge by myself, the guilty plea always has been the most concerning part of the Flynn debacle. People need to understand why the guilty plea might not mean what they assume it means. A few will listen.
“What I’ve noticed about the left in that affair is they kept dancing around the checkerboard.“
THIS was the key thing about Kavanaugh. I used to read a blogger who would kinda, sorta, almost admit the charges against Kavanaugh were bunk but still insisted he couldn’t be on the Supreme Court because of all the “lies” he told during his confirmation. Which was just as much bunk but was a justification he felt more comfortable with and, more importantly, could talk about with the folks on his social media feed.
This same blogger also once casually remarked how it was a shame the people he talks with on Facebook, old friends of a more conservative bent, aren’t as “evolved” as the folks on his Twitter feed, largely media figures the blogger has probably never met in person.
Mike
Many of my friends in the US hate Trump, but it wasn’t really worth arguing about it.
I do wish more folks tried different “trial balloon” lines on some of their liberal friends. And let others know some trial attempts and responses. Tho it’s certain to be mostly hostile responses, as Roy mentioned: “Bill Cosby had betrayed me too.”
The Dems have betrayed their voters, too.
But it ain’t gonna be shown so much in Nov. 2020, unless there are multiple indictments.
Here are some trial balloon conversation starters:
1) Have you heard of Trump Derangement Syndrome? When some Democrat hates Trump so much they start acting irrationally and believing lies. What do you think about that, is that for real? … [it’s Dem hatred against all pro-life Reps]
[lies about Russian collusion; about Flynn; by Ford about Kavanaugh – hypocritical with Tara Reade.]
2) Don’t you hate the hate the media lying? Like when somebody says a .. b .. c and the news reports it as a-c?
3) Some people still believe CNN and the Dem media — how many times does the media have to lie before normal folk stop believing them? 5? 10? 50 times?
—
The polarization has come about because Reps have accepted being discriminated against in colleges, so that most colleges refuse to hire pro-life Republicans as professors, or administrators. That $1.5 trillion “student debt” mostly goes to the anti-Rep college indoctrination system.
The polarization in society won’t be going down as long as it’s allowed and encouraged in colleges who are
educatingindoctrinating the future elite.Tom Grey
I see those conversation starters but I don’t see a result. Your friends, or whoever you speak to, believe. Asking how they feel about being lied to requires them to think they’ve been lied to.
No way.
Liberals do not really have friends..
in case you havent noticed
with priorities not in order, friends only seem like friends until they grow
and with revolution in their hearts, the Chatechism of the revolutionary point shows this to be true, as they will abandon ‘friends’ and family, and invent all manner of methods of having the same in some other pseudo form to replace them, just as long as their utopian ideal lines up…
at least till they get what they want, then they become the counter revolution
but their postion is well guarded and they are prepared for that conversion
for in the prior state they could protest, and in the new one, they get shot at or disappeared…
you cant change a pickle into a cucumber..
[on the issue of indoctrination, thank the feminists for it… just as predicted we would follow the women as that is what we have always done… and they HAD to indoctrinate to make the lies of their movement have legs… they had to stultify the posterity, for then, their reformation of reality would not be challenged… if not for them, we would not be so dumb, disorganized, mentally ill from lack of parents, and much more cohesive… sadly, they were played and do not know that they are doing this for an end they would reverse once they get it (if they are not so deluded to realize it)]
I hope to be forgiven. I think.
One reason I hope for a crushing defeat of dems in the coming election, and catastrophe wished upon the Swamp is to preserve the republic.
Another is the vile, vicious accusations of every kind of crime by the dems of republicans and particularly Trump supporters for years. i want the dems yelling at the moon.
The first will provide the second. I hope I don’t gloat publicly.
It is not worthy but……I’ve had enough.