About a month ago, as I was browsing twitter, I stumbled upon the following article by Cathy Young:
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-making-of-the-maga-hoax-about
At the time, talk about pet-eating Haitian immigrants was all over twitter. Donald Trump had just referenced it in the latest presidential debate, and his his running mate, J.D. Vance had tweeted about it. It was fascinating how the story played out. Every day, I would see a new story that supposedly validated the claim. Also every day, I would find that an earlier story had been debunked. Either it wasn’t about a Hatian, wasn’t about an immigrant, wasn’t in Springfield, or wasn’t about a pet getting eaten. The article seemed like it would be an interesting read.
Early on in the article, I came across the following paragraph:
It started with an X hatefest I happened to catch at the outset. On Sept. 7, a full three days before the debate, I saw left-wing-crank-turned-right-wing-loon Naomi Wolf share a post from misinformation superspreader End Wokeness (an account that may be run by far-right troll and Pizzagater Jack Posobiec), containing what seemed like an obviously made-up story: “ducks and pets” in Springfield, Ohio being gobbled up by Haitian migrants. The evidence: an anonymized Facebook post about a “neighbor’s friend’s daughter” who had seen her lost cat being carved up by the Haitians next door. I decided to post a sarcastic comment, unaware that I was wading into a dumpster fire.
Nothing about this paragraph is factually incorrect as far as I know, but something in there caught my eye: “Misinformation superspreader End Wokeness”
I am familiar with the End Wokeness twitter account. They’re pretty prominent on twitter, and they are not exactly what I would call trustworthy. I can understand why they might be described as an misinformation superspreader. That characterization isn’t entirely wrong, but even so, it put me on alert.
I think what I’m sensitive to is the way this pattern judges a thing at the same time it’s introduced. It wants me to make up my mind about who End Wokeness is before I’ve had the chance to evaluate them and come to my own conclusion.
When I see that pattern, it always puts me on alert. I’m so sensitive to it, that it sticks out like a sore thumb even in articles that I’m predisposed to agree with (like this one). “Misinformation superspreader” isn’t the only example of it here; “hatefest” “left-wing-crank-turned-right-wing-loon” and “far-right troll” are all examples of this pattern.
Furthermore, it’s trying to persuade me of something without being an actual argument. It’s like when a movie plays sinister music just to let me know that a character supposed to be bad. If I didn’t already know who End Wokeness was, I shouldn’t just take Cathy’s word for it that they’re a misinformation superspreader. Any writer can introduce someone with whatever label they want to, regardless of whether or not it’s accurate.
It also indicates bias. It makes Cathy seem predisposed to be against them. With an introduction like that, it seem unlikely that she would give them a fair shake. It may be that they don’t deserve a fair shake, but I still need to get my bearings as a reader. I can’t always be expected to already know who they are, and I need a way to validate their trustworthiness for myself.
Right-wing publications do this too. I think that Cathy herself would be sensitive to it in these cases. Take this passage for instance:
Just when you think the barrel-bottom standards at Politico cannot get any more bottomer or barreler, the disgraced outlet publishes talking points from a man who is not only facing murder charges, but who is alleged to have tried to commit one of the worst crimes imaginable: assassinating an individual who represents the will, hope, and future of tens of millions of Americans — and I would say the same about Kamala Harris had she been a target.
Does that seem like a reliable narrator to you? Do you think they’ll accurately present what the Politico really said? I know I wouldn’t trust them after reading the above paragraph. You can read the full article here.
I’m sure this sort priming is persuasive to some people. That’s probably why It’s so common. Still, it makes me feel skeptical, and I think for good reason. When I get skeptical like this, I’ll occasionally have the patience to go thorough the article, validating and double-checking the whole way through. Most of the time, however, I’m not that motivated, and I will probably decide the article isn’t worth engaging with.
This is a phenomenon I’ve been meaning to write about for some time. I don’t have anything against Cathy young, but when I read the article, the pattern really just jumped out at me, and it seemed like a good anchor point for this article. It’s an even more interesting case due to the fact that it’s an article that I essentially agree with, which means my aversion to it was pure sensitivity to the pattern, and not bias against the content itself.
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Notes -
I think this is an underappreciated point, and I suspect it even reflects a psychological difference between the right and left wing's approach to empiricism.
I'll even 'steelman' Pizzagate, for that matter.
We've seen plenty of credible reports and even some actual convictions showing that Politicians do in fact get up to all kinds of sexual deviancy, up to and including in the halls of congress.
And now we're seeing the various dominoes falling with Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell (remember they found her hanging out in New Hampshire surrounded by armed guards?), Diddy, and Jay-Z, and we can be all but certain there's celebs and politicians caught up in all this. The biggest hit song of the summer was by Kendrick Lamar accusing one of the most popular musical artists alive right now of being a pedophile.
Pizzagate gets the specifics wrong (there's probably no child dungeon underneath a pizza restaurant) but is still getting at the 'shape' of the truth. And if they kept fumbling around in a very misguided attempt to uncover these truths, they'd probably grab hold of the actual conspiracies eventually, and bring some heinous stuff to light.
Whereas the lefty impulse seems to be to reject the existence of a given conspiracy simply because some aspect of it is debunked or proven false. "Haha silly Qanon thinks there's a Pedo ring operating out of a Pizza shop, how stupid to believe that politicians would be hiding an organized child sex operation." And thus they don't have to follow that thought any further and can return to blissful ignorance, which would allow whatever hidden activities are occurring to continue along.
This was especially blatant with the Hunter Biden laptop stuff. Its utterly obvious the Biden family is covering up some serious stuff, and the more recent pardons are almost tacit admissions of such, but the liberals have their head jammed so deep in the sand that they denied Biden's senility, let alone his potential corruption, for so long it may have just cost them control of government.
Likewise, maybe there are at best isolated incidents of Haitian immigrants taking animals they find outdoors and cooking them up in Ohio. But the larger point that they're causing, e.g. increased traffic accidents and increased burden on social services and possibly crowding out the locals for employment is likely more true than not.
it seems obvious that Haitians really do eat dogs and cats in Haiti (Those links are SFL, but there ARE videos out there if you wish to be convinced further), so the larger point the righties are making is getting at the shape of the truth.
The lefties, of course, will use the debunking of individual incidents to claim that Haitian immigrants are causing no issues whatsoever and we should be inviting more of them in.
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