Yeah, this is the norm now, scientific truths are lies and conspiracy theories are the ultimate truth. All populist politicians are doing this and their followers love it.
Well a lot of this is due to how this has been presented to by the media beforehand.
e.g. There is a scare story at least once a week that is plastered over newspapers/news sites such as "Having a bacon sandwich could lead to bum cancer!!!!", when the headline is clearly salacious. The actual research probably had a sensible conclusion of "Those who have had consistently more red meat, have an increased chance of cancer". If you hear see the same story hundreds of times, you are likely to ignore it or even despise it.
The same happens with the populist politicians. Take someone that isn't as controversial as Bolsonaro such as Nigel Farage in my home country.
A fair description of his political stance is a Patriotic Thatcherite that is anti-mass-immigration. When he was first becoming well known (back in the mid-2000s) he was constantly branded a racist and a fascist (there was no evidence of this) in an attempt to conflate his position with the likes of actual fascists of old like Oswald Mosley.
Now Whether or not you agree with his politics isn't important. In these attempts to constantly smear him he has become one of the most effective UK politicians in recent memory. To many he can simply do no wrong because they will dismiss any criticism of immediately, disregarding its validity.
The same newpapers that declare "Having a bacon sandwich could lead to bum cancer!!!!" Are also the ones most enamoured with Farage. So the readership is supposed to be disenfranchised over how they're lied to over the cancer scare stories but then believe the stories about how wonderful Farage is?
That said, I don't think I disagree with your greater point.
Nigel Farage himself puts a lot of his success down to Facebook and Youtube and not the UK papers. Some of his speeches/rants (depends how you view it) against the EU in the Parliament went viral in the late 2000s.
There is a sizable intersection between the set of populists and the set of racists. Often the naming of people close or in this intersection is a judgment call.
Also, how can you brand somebody as "patriotic" when his party is a US-based corporation with links to the Russian government and tax havens?
Sad to see this rubbish on HN. Farage plays to the same racist tendencies as Trump and Bolsonaro do, with constant dog-whistling. He's absolutely controversial and hardly effective: he still has no MP in the UK Parliament after 15 years of trying, and has accomplished absolutely nothing over two mandates in the EU Parliament beyond annoying even his own allies.
It's not the "smearing" that build his success, but a situation of sustained economic weakness of the white working classes that fosters a climate of anger against migrants (who are seen as cheaper competition). That BNP fella was similarly successful for a while. Also, Farage's support is built on social networks, where his messages are spread without a debate, let alone "smears".
Unfortunately I should have guessed I would have someone miss the entire point I was trying to make (How the media constantly mis-represent things to the point that the public doesn't trust even if they accurately present the truth) because I was trying to be objective and politically neutral about a successful politician.
You just did the very thing I was complaining about!
They are claiming that how an image was cropped and where text was placed somehow indicates racism. You are concentrating on nonsense and not actually making an argument against any of his policies or any of the assumption of the advert.
As for my descriptions of Farage. They come from other Journalists such as Brendan O'Neill (runs Spiked!). As for the rest of my description they are fairly objective.
> Sad to see this rubbish on HN. Farage plays to the same racist tendencies as Trump and Bolsonaro do, with constant dog-whistling.
When someone says "Dog whistling" that is the same as when someone runs out of arguments and says "Well you know it true and you aren't admitting it". It isn't an argument of any sort.
You just did the very thing I was complaining about, and I don't think you even knew you were doing it.
> "Well you know it true and you aren't admitting it". It isn't an argument of any sort.
Most unfortunately, it's becomes impossible to make what we previously conceived of as an "argument" when one or more of the parties involved refuses to acknowledge the validity of objective reality (more commonly referred to as "facts").
> I was trying to be objective and politically neutral about a successful politician.
No, you were not -- you were (and still are) trying to pass your biases (Farage "patriotic" and unfairly portraited while being "uncontroversial") as objective, by attacking straw men in how public debate arrives at objective conclusions about him. I pointed you at one of many examples of why that is not the case, and you doubled-down on it while completely ignoring the bits of my post that are inconvenient to your biases.
> not actually making an argument
Because there is no argument to make: Farage's "policies" are just a hodgepodge of badly-thought-out slogans designed to appeal to the worst instincts of the electorate. Like on Brexit, which he campaigned for but for which (like all "hard brexiteers") he has no practical or coherent plan.
The main problem with populists is precisely that their policies are unassailable, because they are completely devoid of details. They sell emotions, typically negative ones.
> When someone says "Dog whistling" that is the same as when someone runs out of arguments
As sad as it might make you, dog-whistling is a widely understood term in political debate, and there is little doubt that it is precisely what the likes of Trump and Farage do. (Well, to be fair, Trump has gone beyond that in recent days, turning to out-and-out discriminatory language.)
> No, you were not -- you were (and still are) trying to pass your biases (Farage "patriotic" and unfairly portraited while being "uncontroversial") as objective, by attacking straw men in how public debate arrives at objective conclusions about him. I pointed you at one of many examples of why that is not the case, and you doubled-down on it while completely ignoring the bits of my post that are inconvenient to your biases.
In my original post I said something along the lines of "He was less controversial than Bolsonaro" not that he was uncontroversial.
You didn't point me at anything objective. The best you linked me to a guardian article about an ad-campaign that claimed it was racist because one white person was removed from the photo. I think that sort of logic is ridiculous.
As for me ignoring parts of your post, yes I ignored parts of your post because I thought they were irrelevant to the point I was originally trying to convey.
> Because there is no argument to make: Farage's "policies" are just a hodgepodge of badly-thought-out slogans designed to appeal to the worst instincts of the electorate. Like on Brexit, which he campaigned for but for which (like all "hard brexiteers") he has no practical or coherent plan.
Well UKIP's manifesto of 2015 is a 76 page document according to the BBC:
I chose this because this is the last time I believe they fought a general election with Farage as Leader. So this would be indicative of his policies (as he would have had a fair amount of input in the process).
From the BBC summary it seems quite comprehensive. It seems to cover a similar number of areas as Labour's manifesto of 2015.
> As sad as it might make you, dog-whistling is a widely understood term in political debate, and there is little doubt that it is precisely what the likes of Trump and Farage do. (Well, to be fair, Trump has gone beyond that in recent days, turning to out-and-out discriminatory language.)
I know what the term means. However many of those that use the term do so as an accusation. They don't mention who they are whistling at and what terms they are using to do that.
I mean can you blame them when all you need to do to make a problem go away is say FAKE NEWS and people eat it up? It's much easier then presenting evidence yourself, especially when your motives go against facts, because then you need to find a way to create fake facts like the oil companies do with denying global warming.
I once watched, jaw somewhat agape as an attorney on twitter (or someone whose bio said she was an attorney) sparred with other netizens over a claim she had made about an event someone (a third-party) said was taking place in her community relating to a local business.
Respondents began to reply asking for additional information, how the claim could be verified, many simply asked for a source-others expressed concern for accuracy of information because they were potentially affected. Maybe one out of every few were “trollish” by popular definition. I read many of them. Very few seemed to be politically charged or even aggressive towards this attorney, they simply asked for more information.
Her responses were aggressive and antagonistic, calling respondents “trolls” and “enablers”. Even people asking in a considerate and mild mannered way because they were trying to inform themselves on the affair.
No facts ever came out. From the attorney or the local entity she claimed to have information on. She encouraged others to take the lack of information as proof that her friend’s claims were truth. Many did.
It was something to behold. An attorney was sharing what was effectively hearsay on twitter about a local business and actively combatting people asking for more information.
Then again, we all know that a lawyer's function is essentially to synthesize plausibility. But as with any job, there are of course people who are bad at it.
Well the difference is that people used to condemn the author when it got caught lying which doesn't seem to be the case anymore. People no longer pay politically when they lie. It all transformed into a world-wide propaganda machine where people think in war/dictatorship terms(we against them).
Most people accept that politicians lie. Saying that a politician lies is like saying "The Pope is Catholic" or "Water is wet".
What people care about is whether the politicians will instigate policies that are beneficial to them.
Bolsonaro ran with one of his main issues being law and order. In Brazil the crime rates are quite shocking (IIRC the murder rate is huge like 100s a day). It doesn't matter if he lies about the Rainforest if people see if cleaning up the streets.
Lying is now blatant, endemic and unapologetic. It's really more propaganda than just lying. Let's hope the sane people will tax these politicians otherwise we risk new Nazi systems.