
How the Cult of “Fact-Checking” Helped Trump Win - livestyle
https://medium.com/@mtracey/how-the-cult-of-fact-checking-helped-trump-win-bc51f7b69f49#.x4bb2uywu
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gozur88
I agree with the article, mostly, but this:

>If you overload people with preachy, preening nonsense on a daily basis, you
thus overload their cognitive faculties, and they are going to ignore you.

is overly dismissive. You haven't overloaded anybody's "cognitive faculties"
when you feed them them transparent nonsense. Their cognitive faculties are
working quite well, despite your efforts. They're not ignoring you because
they're confused; they're ignoring you because you don't have any credibility,
and credibility is the coin of any news organization.

There's a reason trust in the American media is at historic lows.

~~~
Freestyler_3
The article had some good things in it, but the message that Trump wouldn't
have been president-elect if it wasn't for these mistakes, just makes it look
sad and more of an emotional piece that you might find in drama magazines.
Stop over-Analysing (edit: without proof).

It is funny how everything is now: 'how this helped Trump win' etc. And before
the election it was supposed to make him lose.

When you win everything can be said to have helped you win. But what really
proves that something contributed to it, and why did everyone(big news at
least) miss the evidence?

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hga
A general way to dismiss a lot of this is with the comment "People who got
everything wrong about Trump prior to X now tell us...."

A good comment I recently came across is:

 _Rather, it is the views of those who have to maintain respectability in
order to maintain their position that have changed. It is no longer permitted
for them to even think the thoughts required to understand what just happened.
The Overton Window has become the Overton Bubble._

From [https://sydneytrads.com/2016/11/18/alistair-
hermann/](https://sydneytrads.com/2016/11/18/alistair-hermann/) which looks at
it from the Australian viewpoint (i.e. I can't follow a lot of it ^_^ and
haven't really tried to digest it yet).

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Freestyler_3
Yet it is good to change position, and to reflect on why they got it wrong.
This is just grasping at straws, there is no data they use to back their
conclusion. It seems merely a thought, a thought that is then published as a
fact. And I am seeing so many of these articles these days, I am sure the fly
landing on Hillary can be blamed for Trump winning.

It looks like an interesting read, thank you.

"But the reasons for Donald Trump’s rise exist outside the Overton Window, and
thus cannot be understood by anyone stuck within its confines. Yet for those
not so confined the reasons for Trump’s rise are obvious."

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hga
You're very welcome.

 _I am sure the fly landing on Hillary can be blamed for Trump winning._

Seriously, that was likely _a_ factor, especially when coupled with the Obama
fly incident. The whole "Spirit Cooking" occult stuff that came from Podesta's
emails, combined with the art he proudly displays in his office and home
giving that instant credibility, got a number of people who are more inclined
to thinking about the supernatural than the typical HN commentator to wonder
about things like demonic possession, which is, after all, straight out of the
New Testament.

(As for me, I'm definitely willing to entertain thoughts of the supernatural
when it comes to evil.)

