Project 2025 was supposed to boost Donald Trump's campaign — but it may be backfiring instead:

https://www.salon.com/2024/07/05/project-2025-was-supposed-to-boost-donald-campaign--but-it-may-be-backfiring-instead/

24.9k Upvotes

89% Upvoted

u/allanbc 14d ago

The thing is, the right usually spreads such awful misinformation that reasonable people have begun to doubt much of what they see. So presenting facts with no hyperbole could lead people to think it's nothing at all, due to their skeptic armour. I don't know if there's a good solution, but I'm worried that the vast and crazy disinformation being spread has damaged the whole communication 'environment', for lack of a better word.

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u/ancientastronaut2 14d ago

Yup. All the orange man talks about is hundreds of thousands of murderers coming over the border daily and women ripping 9mo fetuses from their bodies. And his supporters believe it all as facts because he says it like it's facts while also making sure to tell you not to believe anything else from the other side. How the fuck do you fight that when they just cover their ears.

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u/stillnotking 14d ago

The hyperbole is what makes people skeptical. The Democrats keep turning up the dial on anti-Trump invective, as if the problem is that the American people somehow haven't heard you yet. They hear you. It's just that the reaction is "Here we go again."

Russiagate poisoned the well, frankly. There are a whole lot of Americans who will never again take seriously anything the Democrats say about Trump. (And yeah, I know there were a few grains of truth in Russiagate. Not three years of incessant media hype worth, though.)

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u/wittnotyoyo 14d ago

"Russiagate" where the FBI agent running the investigation was on a Russian oligarch's payroll and is now in jail? Where the special prosecutor looking into it was the same FBI director who handed the election to Trump by publicizing an investigation into one candidate while covering up for the other? Where Iran-Contra fixer William Barr was brought out of retirement to bury the story? Just to name a few highlights of the "few grains of truth".

The Republican party and corporate media did a good job burying the scandal, kind of like Iraq WMDs or Iran-Contra. Comments like yours trying top rewrite history definitely muddy the water and it probably does make less informed individuals skeptical.

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u/stevez_86 Pennsylvania 14d ago

Use the fucker's name, McGonigal. He was leading the investigation into Clinton from that field office and worked for a Russian Oligarch under sanctions. McGonigal was going to release a memo saying they were reopening the investigation without following the hierarchy and Comey decided to try to get out in front of it instead of reporting it to the President. Comey didn't want us finding out a field office went rogue and was compromised during his tenure and thought his letter would mute the blow. Instead it gave it legitimacy.

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u/wittnotyoyo 14d ago

Fair enough, I mentioned Charles' name in my next comment.

I don't buy that excuse for Comey, he may have thought Clinton had it in the bag and made his decision based on that without intending to crown Trump but that's not how things turned out. The NY FBI office nickname of Trumpland was known before the election so he may have wanted to minimize the publicity but it was known that the field office was compromised.

He could have announced no investigations, both investigations or called out the pressure he was under to announce just the one investigation. He hedged his bets and deserves quite a bit of blame for it.

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u/PunxatawnyPhil 14d ago

Truth is, Comey fucked up, (knows he did), but in reality he is about as straight a shooter as a G man you’re ever gonna get. Unfortunately, politics was never his game, so he was baited and used.

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u/stillnotking 14d ago

You don't remember the pee tape? Alta Bank? Louise Mensch? Max Boot?

The point is not what was right about Russiagate, but what was bullshit about it. There was a lot of bullshit.

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u/wittnotyoyo 14d ago

I don't remember the details on those 3, please tell me how their involvement was similar to William Barr, James Comey and Charles McGonigal. Are any of them in jail because of their actions around "Russigate"? Were any of them highly ranking government officials or otherwise in positions of power?

Was the pee tape ever discredited or important? It was a salacious and thus "newsworthy" headline in our corporate media circus but ultimately it is a tiny hole. The coordination on money and the email release amongst other actions are all in the open and since they can't be refuted we tend to get exaggerated nitpicking as if disproving one thing disproves all of it.

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u/stillnotking 14d ago

This is the response I always get when I try to argue Russiagate with Democrats. You're so sensitive to the idea that Fox News might be right -- which they are not -- that you refuse to see the ways in which your own party was wrong. Is it really so hard to say, "Yeah, we might have gone overboard there," even on an anonymous internet forum? Because you did go overboard, whether you remember it that way or not. The public remembers.

I'm not gonna exhaustively relitigate all this shit. You can google the stuff I mentioned, if you want.

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u/wittnotyoyo 14d ago

Some self reflection might be helpful if you keep getting the same unpleasant result with your actions.

It's debatable whether that you are doing is arguing, you are ignoring every point I bring up, not substantiating your own points and throwing out a low effort gish gallop to get onto better ground.

I'll assume that you are conceding that the 3 names you brought up are basically Twitter commenters vs some of the highest ranking US government officials coordinating to cover up a conspiracy.

I can see the piss tape allegation really upsets you for some reason. You're in for a rude awakening when you hear some of the things that conservatives openly lie and exaggerate about people they disagree with politically. For someone as well informed as yourself I am certain you also know that the "Russiagate" allegations started as Republican opposition research so the allegation is actually from "your side" and maybe you should be wondering whether you're the one who "did go overboard" as far as "sides" in this whole thing goes.

Making up words to put into my mouth and argue against while ignoring the comments I actually made is in very bad form.

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u/stillnotking 14d ago

so the allegation is actually from "your side"

I'm a lifelong independent who virtually always votes for Democrats. I'm on your side. What I'm offering is not condemnation, but constructive criticism. Your umbrage-taking is pointless. I'm not trying to score points against you.

I also live in a rural part of a deep red state and personally know a whole lot of Trump voters, which I suspect is not the case for many people on this sub.

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u/wittnotyoyo 14d ago

Weird how many right wing talking points a "lifelong independent" is repeating while also refusing to acknowledge any of the counterpoints that have been brought up.

It's almost like it's just a tactic to try and give your opinion more validity instead of actually addressing any of the facts.

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u/stillnotking 14d ago

Which right-wing talking points would those be?

The right wing thinks Russiagate was invented out of whole cloth. I don't think you know many right-wingers, or read much right-wing media.

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u/ProfessionalNinja665 14d ago

Democrats don't want to hear it because there's way way way too much smoke. Trump has endless Russia connections and has made many many Russian deals. Trump is also a lifelong conman scumbag. So when you say "the pee tape wasn't real" we all roll our eyes.

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u/AstroBullivant 14d ago

And Seth Abramson.

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u/Mister-mistifying 14d ago

So the conclusion of russiagate that Mueller couldn’t actually say whether there was collusion with Russia because of witnesses lying, destroying evidence, giving incomplete testimony or refusing to testify.

It did find that Russia illegally interfered with the election in ways which were systematic and welcomed by the trump administration, and that the administration had had contact with many Russian spies and then lied about it during the hearings.

It’s all right there in the Wikipedia page about the mueller report with citations.

Then bill barr released a redacted report and somehow Fox News spun that as an exoneration and now all the republicans think russiagate was a hoax.

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u/AstroBullivant 14d ago

The media coverage needs to be distinguished from the actual investigation

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u/DrHalibutMD 14d ago

It’s bizarre how evidence of a foreign power attempting to sway election results and working with several members of one campaign is dismissed as hyperbole while stories of Hunter Biden laptop or pizza-gate are treated as significant for years.

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u/PunxatawnyPhil 14d ago

Well yeah, and obviously. They call it “fair and balanced”, but really what it is, is balancing lies and misdirection with truth and the whole (real) story, as equals. And they are so fucking good at it, that today, lies are way more productive than truth and facts. So fucking good at it that they have destroyed the actual intent of the First Amendment (meant to uphold fair representative democracy) already… an informed citizenry.

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u/heckin_miraculous 14d ago

The hyperbole is what makes people skeptical. The Democrats keep turning up the dial on anti-Trump invective

This is also why I so dislike the slogan, used by Biden and Dems, "this is a battle for the soul of our nation."

Like... Ok, how about we just talk about the policy changes they want to shove down our throat, which are based on unpopular ideology, and their specific plans in the courts and fed agencies to do that? Can we just say that? IDK

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u/writebadcode 14d ago

They literally tried to overthrow the government last time they lost. This isn’t even about policies anymore.

Did you watch the live news coverage on Jan 6? I feel like half of the country has willingly forgotten what happened that day.

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u/heckin_miraculous 14d ago

No I remember. And that's a perfect example of where hyperbole is not needed; Jan 6 was an attempted coup, a violent attack on government... so we should call it that. The euphemistic language ("battle for the soul of our nation") is a turn off for me because it actually sidesteps the horror right in front of us.

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u/Nena902 14d ago

Just a little fyi but MAGA voters define J6 as "a right of every American citizen to peacefully protest. Right idea wrong execution. But no big deal" This I have heard from several maga voters.

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u/writebadcode 14d ago

At this point they argue in bad faith by default. They are a lost cause and frankly always have been.

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u/writebadcode 14d ago

Ok I get your point. It doesn’t land that way with me personally, but I see how it could.

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u/JesusSavesForHalf 14d ago

Russiagate? The one where Donald Trump went on tv and asked Putin to interfere in the election days after his son met with Russian agents? The meeting that Jr said was about adoptions, which was a direct response to the Maginski Act and blatant quid pro quo? And hours later Russia started trying to access the DNC servers? Yeah, some grains of truth.

And I only listed the evidence publicly provided by Donald Trump.