Apparently, Republicans Didn't Learn Anything from Pizzagate
Meanwhile, nobody seems to care about the truth
With all of the terrible news going on, I’ve been in a bit of a mood. I was just about to start a new book that I’ve been looking forward to but decided to check Twitter first (like a big ol’ dummy) and saw this headline: Swastikas Fly at Disney as Neo-Nazis Appear to Join Anti-Grooming Protests. That’s right, swastikas at the happiest place on earth. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of Disney theme parks, but this news made me decide to come back from my writing break to discuss how Republicans haven’t learned a damn thing in recent years.
And before anyone assumes I’m just taking issue with Republicans because I lean left, allow me to stop you there. With the awful news about Roe v Wade, I’ve been calling out people on the left for their misinformation, which has been spreading like wildfire. People on the left are taking advantage of the heightened emotions of people and making fake news go viral by stating all these other laws are being passed as well. While yes, there are many laws that will go into effect as soon as Roe is repealed, I’m specifically talking about the fake ones.
That’s how they sneak in, by the way. You sprinkle misinformation in between facts so nobody knows the difference.
What I’ve realized lately is that my loyalty to truth comes far before my loyalty to a party. I’ve actually been baffled lately by how little so many people care about the truth. One of the primary reasons this whole “groomer” narrative has gained so much traction on the right is because of the disgusting account Libs of TikTok.
WTF is Pizzagate?
Although Libs of TikTok and other despicable people have been spreading LGBTQ hate by calling them groomers, we need to go back in time to a batshit crazy story from recent years. This is a brief summary of an event known as Pizzagate.
Pizzagate was part of all of the QAnon nonsense (we should start calling it QAnonsense btw). QAnon conspiracy theorists started “deciphering” Democratic politician emails and claiming that certain words were code for child sex trafficking. For example, here are some of the “doublespeak keywords” they came up with:
“Hotdog” = boy
“Pizza” = girl
“Cheese” = little girl
“Pasta” = little boy
“Ice cream” = male prostitute
“Walnut” = person of color
“Map” = semen”
“Sauce” = orgy
These people were convinced that the Democrats were running a child sex trafficking ring out of the basement of a pizza place in Washington D.C. called Comet Ping Pong.
Well, in June of 2017, Edgar Welch drove all the way from North Carolina to Washington D.C. to rescue these poor children from the basement of Comet Ping Pong. These children’s lives were in danger, so he brought an AR-15 rifle with him. When he got there, he demanded for these children to be released and even fired a shot inside the pizza place.
Soon after, he surrendered to the police. Also, it’s probably important to note that Comet Ping Pong doesn’t even have a basement.
Welch pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years in prison.
Also, this is a very brief description of the events, but if you grab books on QAnon, there’s much more detail. I highly recommend The Storm Is Upon Us by Mike Rothschild and Pastels and Pedophiles by Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko. Mike and Sophia were also on the podcast if you want to check those episodes out.
The Power of Belief
I am constantly amazed by the power of belief. Beliefs are so powerful that it makes people do the craziest things. This guy’s belief that children were being sex trafficked motivated him to drive to another state with a rifle to rescue them. For a second, imagine believing something so strongly with no evidence and doing something like this. This man was willing to risk his life for these imaginary children.
I’m a Kevin Smith fan, and when I think of belief, I often think about Chris Rock’s line from the fantastic movie Dogma:
“I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier…”
I got sober in AA about 10 years ago, and there’s a line in the chapter titled We Agnostics that was absolutely true about me and my thoughts on religion:
“We looked upon this world of warring individuals, warring theological systems, and inexplicable calamity, with deep skepticism.”
I couldn’t understand all of the religious wars throughout history and how many people killed each other over this belief in something they had no evidence of. To this day, there are people killing each other and committing acts of terrorism based on these beliefs. Then, there’s everything in between from the Westboro Baptist Church spewing hateful things at funerals to everyday bigotry.
So, with the power of belief in mind and the Pizzagate shooter still being fresh in so many memories, what the hell is wrong with Republicans?
As soon as the whole “ok groomer” thing started gaining traction and we saw things like the “Don’t say gay” bill, I knew it was going to get bad. With no evidence, LGBTQ people are being accused of grooming children, and it’s working for the right. People are legitimately afraid that kids are being groomed by pedophiles. Not only is it disgusting, but we’re also probably t-minus from Pizzagate 2.0.
Today, when I saw that there are protests at Disneyworld with nazis joining in, it was a clear sign that we’re one step closer to legitimate violence.
I just honestly don’t know how these politicians and all of the other big voices can push this groomer narrative. I hope I’m wrong and this doesn’t escalate to violence or death, but if it does, blood is on their hands for fostering this bullshit belief.
If you don’t think it’ll get that far, I want you to think back to just over a year ago on January 6th.
With zero evidence, they convinced so many people that the election was stolen that people stormed the capital. To this day, there’s been zero accountability for the republicans who promoted this idea. I’m all about democracy, but I’m baffled that we don’t have some kind of safeguard for literal conspiracy theorists having so much power in Washington D.C.
Some people can’t get a job for smoking weed, even in states where it’s legal. Other jobs require a psychological evaluation. But for some reason that’s beyond me, you can promote and or believe conspiracy theories and get the most powerful positions in the country.
Accountability and Journalistic Integrity
I love the internet and often debate with those who say that it’s the worst thing ever created. But I also acknowledge its laundry list of problems. One of the bigger ones is the faux journalism that the internet allows. When I was canceled, I realized how big this problem is. People turn to social media accounts as their primary source of news and information, but these people aren’t held accountable to any type of journalistic standards. This is one of the major issues with Libs of TikTok.
Libs of TikTok is legitimately influencing politicians and isn’t expected to have any journalistic integrity. Yesterday Libs of TikTok posted this tweet about urinals being installed in female bathrooms at a middle school:
Right now, it has over 13.2k likes and almost 3,500 retweets. The second I saw it, I was instantly skeptical because not only does Libs of TikTok spread misinformation, but why would a school do this? Public schools are known for being massively underfunded, but they decide to spend their budget on urinals in female bathrooms when urinals aren’t necessary for males or females? If that were the case, I’d have a urinal in my house.
So, I did a little research and quickly discovered that there’s an extremely high chance that this is bogus. I even made a lengthy thread explaining why this was probably BS:
While most people who already disliked Libs of TikTok liked the tweet, I saw how many people who have been fooled by the groomer narrative legitimately don’t care about the truth. But that’s not all, I’ve noticed it everywhere. I’ve been pretty vocal about my problem with the narratives happening around the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trial. When I point out some of the misinformation going around, even the people following this trial about celebrities, they admit that they really don’t care about the truth.
What the Hell is Going on?
I’ve had so many experts on my podcast to discuss misinformation, conspiracy theories, and junk science. I always ask if they think the solutions come from the top down or from the bottom up. To this day, I firmly believe that this starts with us.
We need people to care about the truth. I think about this constantly. I fancy myself a pretty decent problem solver, but for the life of me, I can’t think of a way to make people care about the truth.
It feels like there are far too many benefits to not caring about the truth. On a group level, it’s advantageous to believe whatever your in-group believes. We call it irrational behavior to believe the lies and not challenge it, but if you think about how we evolved to prioritize being a part of the group, it’s totally rational. Thousands of years ago, would it be rational to tell your tribe that the gods don’t exist? Hell no. Some cultures would kill you or make you a sacrifice. Best case scenario, you just get kicked out of the tribe and have to go fend for yourself…which would probably lead to you dying anyway.
Then, on a personal level, it’s way better to lie to yourself. I don’t want to sound like a pretentious dick, but I regularly think about how much better my life might be if I didn’t educate myself. Do you know how dope it would be to believe in astrology? Or to just let your confirmation bias run wild so you don’t have to actually spend time fact-checking information? Ignorance truly is bliss.
So, how do we make people care about truth when it takes far more cognitive effort, it runs the risk of you getting kicked out of the tribe, and it doesn’t feel as good as finding whatever information agrees with you?
Like I said, I don’t know. I have a theory though, and it’s sitting within a book I started writing a while ago but haven’t touched the project in months.
I think that if we started framing misinformation and lies differently, it might work. We have to get people to realize that they’re being manipulated and treated like they’re stupid. That’s the only solution that I can think of. Our ego is powerful, which is why cognitive dissonance often doesn’t let us accept the truth. But you convince a person that someone that they trust is insulting their intelligence and playing them for a fool? It might shift their ego’s defenses in a better direction.
Now that I think about it, aside from my problem with finishing big projects, the other reason I stopped writing the book is because I just don’t think many people want to learn how they’re being manipulated. Maybe I’m wrong, but all of the successful books talk about how other people are manipulated. If you make the reader the target, that’s a different story.
But anyway, some of you may be smarter than me and can come up with better ideas to get people to care about the truth. Or you might just be more optimistic than me and think a book like that might do some good. If either is the case, let me know because on a daily basis, I feel like I’m going insane and become increasingly pessimistic as I see all of the manipulation of people who don’t care about truth.
And if you’re someone reading this who is calling people groomers, stop being a dick.
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