[mdswtchr]

I remember when Liberals rightly criticized Fox for reporting "Now, I'm not saying this is what happened, but consider <salacious unconfirmed attack on the integrity of [Democrat politician]>.

The Steele dossier was junk to anyone who bothered to think about it as evidenced that Buzzfeed published after every other media institution passed on it.

The honest way for those media that passed over the dossier to report the Steele dossier was: "The Steele dossier, which we passed over because we think it is junk, claims that Trump [...]"

This was not an honest mistake. I know many people who loathed Trump in '16, crying when he won, who voted for him in '20 because of this.

[michaelmrose]

I don't understand why the Steele dossier being at best worthless would convince anyone who disliked Trump's policies or persona in 2016 to vote differently in 2020. Even if you conclude media bad it in no way follows Trump good. Did they somehow initially believe it and then the scales fell from their eyes and they realized he did get 100s of thousands of Americans killed but at least nobody pees on him so he became in their eyes ok?

That just doesn't seem very likely.

[retox]

I imagine it has something to do with the Dossier coverage bolstering Trumps claims that the media is untrustworthy. It's easy from there to think "well, if they lied about this, what else did they lie about?". So you look more into many of the stories in the media, come to the conclusion that they regularly lie or embellish and your disdain snowballs from there.

[djsbs]

This person didn't vote for Trump but, although she voted for Sanders in the primary, she didn't vote for HRC either. So she wasn’t a cultist on either side.

She has good memory and in ‘16 listen/read all the “liberal” sources. When the narrative started to fall apart (and if you have good memory you saw it fall apart) she started giving an ear to “alternative” media.

She eventually reached the conclusion that the alternative media was more honest.

Take from this anecdote what you will, but these people are out there (they’re referred to, obnoxiously, as being “red pilled”) and when elections are won on the margins, they matter.