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Notes -
Mitchel McConnell and the Collapse of Common Sense.
Before I start -
-Please don't feel personally attacked if you bought the FUD, you are not alone.
-It could totally turn out that the recent releases are doubling-down in which case whoops, and feel free to judge me later.
Anyway.
After weeks of speculation, Mitch McConnell appears to be alive (per CNN, Fox). This is good news (because death is bad, and also because he is one of the most competent people remaining in American government). It seems like he and his family wanted some privacy and that he was sick (probably held down by some pneumonia it seems?).
This was always the most likely outcome.
Despite that we've seen a crap-ton of conspiracy theories, and I think these are a microcosm of the decline in America and perhaps the modern world. On reddit and most of blue social media this was painted something that the evil Republicans were doing for evil Republican reasons (with a sidebar of his wife/handler immediately fleeing to China). The mainstream media bit into it as a tabloid chaser (...how far we've fallen) and as a cudgel to hit the Republicans with, and of course you can also blame the 24-hour news cycle.
Posters here and more moderate/right-leaning spaces did better but some still went in on conspiracy theories.
Lest we think it is online only I deliberately polled some people I know in real life.
This never really made sense though. The political hit from having been caught lying about this would be high (well for Republicans, anyway). The benefits on stalling are murky. The amount of family and other people you'd have to keep in the dark was high.
It was silly. Perhaps some people didn't mean it seriously, but that's the problem isn't it.
Too much of politics is low information, demanding people have an opinion, and that opinion is valueless and sometimes more of humor thing or as we talk about with woke a religious stance more than a policy position.
People being stupid and silly isn't a new invention but people are asked about or forced to state their opinions more often and can do so publicly and without later shame for saying something ridiculous. On the other hand the people we used to look to for information have fallen off the rails, and on the gripping hand people feel entirely comfortable completely throwing out experts because the experts have lost a step, not realizing random individuals or influencers really aren't doing any better.
And of course we have what we see anytime a Republican aligned figure is ill or dead - the grave dancing.
The whole thing has been tremendously gross but I can't help but think we'll get more of it.
I mean he was completely MIA and even Trump said he had no idea how he was doing. There have been a ton of health concerns and falls etc. Plus that video where he blankly stared into space during a speech. Makes sense to speculate wildly
Honestly I think I prefer this information environment to the ‘trust the experts’ soft censorship of 2019-2023. I’ve been pretty upset with the Israel conspiracy theories on Twitter, but I’m starting to again think that really inane stuff spreading makes people more cautious about what they believe. I even think the QAnon stuff could have gone away earlier if more people had been exposed to how crazy it all was.
The guy is old, health problems are to be expected, but the immediate rush to "he's dead and this is a cover-up" was silly. Why? What reason to cover it up? This, and the "Lindsey Graham was actually killed by a Russian strike in Ukraine" rumour-mongering is just everyone has gone crazy.
Isn't it based on the experience with Feinstein? Her staffers and family didn't cover up her death but did everything but to act as if she was still a functional bit of Senate machinery. This may have been her wish but it is also the last hurrah for the people on her coattails.
Between that and Biden it's not a shock that people don't trust the inner circles of these people to be forthright.
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