this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 53 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

It's just how propaganda works.

At any given time, there are a few different anecdotal-type "talking points" that are the new thing everyone's talking about. You're going to be hearing about Biden saying "an illegal" for a little while, even though as your transcript notes, it wasn't even him that chose the wording. People form their picture of the world through these little gestalt-facts, and if you can pick one that will shape the narrative you want to present, and arrange for people to hear it over and over from a variety of sources, and do that in a constant stream that all points to the same types of conclusions, it actually does a pretty good job at controlling how they'll perceive the totality of the situation.

It's almost exactly the same as how you will hear over and over that:

  • We broke a record for fossil fuel extraction in 2023
  • Biden's climate bill includes giving money to oil and gas companies

... and then all this weight of emotion behind how bad Biden is for the climate, how he's just the same, how it's such a shame that I as a good climate-change person can't support him... etc etc. Because the little factoids are in fact accurate, and properly sized and shaped to stick in your brain, they count as "supporting evidence" for Biden being bad on the climate.

The reality is, the way to analyze Biden's performance on the climate is to ask what's the total content of the climate bill he got passed, and what impact it's expected to have. That's it. Just like the reality is that how he performs on immigration has nothing at all to do with whether he said "an illegal" in this specific context.

If you hear someone repeating one of these specific little factoids, or if you start to see one specific one that is commonly repeated, my advice is to become suspicious of the message on top of which it is being placed, like a little evidence-cherry.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I mean the effects of the climate bill in comparison to the scale of the problem are fairly modest. And the US continues to slow-walk real change at the international stage as well. It’s a fair criticism.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

That, what you said, is a completely fair statement. Let me expand on it. Here's a pretty solid summary of what was in the original bill. Here's what actually passed. They are both, sadly, fucking tragically, too little, and absolutely unforgivably late. But, blaming that aspect of it on Biden specifically, when he just got here and started immediately fighting to get something unprecedented in American climate action to start happening the instant he got in, seems unfair. As does shifting the conversation away from "how much is this gonna do" and towards "does this involve giving money to oil companies" or similar focus-grouped talking points, blaming him for not doing more, and saying he's just the same as the people who stopped him from doing it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Always be wary of the Concern Troll.