[alabastervlog]

There are also various public talks and other published pieces by members of the admin, laying out exactly what they're planning to do (and now are doing) and why.

I dunno when they figured out they can just conduct conspiracies in public and nobody will call them on it, so there's little reason to bother with secrecy, but that's how they work now, and it's been weird to watch. I first noticed it with Bush II when prominent members of his administration published multiple pieces (before he was elected) calling for war with Iraq, and stating that the US should take essentially any half-decent excuse to go to war with Iraq even if that excuse itself is bad, then... did exactly that! And got away with it! Inexplicably, the media would interview them on the topic of going to war with Iraq and didn't make all the questions about that. It was barely a footnote to media coverage of the run-up to the war, which was so damn weird when anyone could just go read the text of these pieces themselves, with familiar names on them, telling us exactly how they were planning to fuck us. Didn't matter, they could just straight-up publish "here's how we're going to screw the public" and then screw the public exactly that way, and laugh all the way to the goddamn bank (literally, in many cases—they made so friggin' much money off the post-9/11 security apparatus and the wars)

[digitaltrees]

It is really frustrating how news organizations don’t remember previous news cycles and connect the threads. That’s why the trump strategy of flooding the system with outrage constantly is so effective. People can’t maintain the narrative over time and so things get buried.

[cindylmcindy]

The public WANTS to be lied to.

They were basically asking for it.

People in positions of power gave the public exactly what they want.