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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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What do your examples have to do with whether or not TTV is lying? Your post is ambiguous so as best as I can tell (please correct me), you're not disputing that TTV was lying or that they've hoodwinked millions of people, but offering an explanation for why certain demographics would be susceptible to gullibility. Dissecting the reasons behind the gullibility is an interesting topic for sure, but it seems downstream to my argument about whether or not TTV was lying/grifting.

This is the first time I've heard of TTV that I can remember, so I mostly don't care about them. Grifters and liars exist out there. There are whole industries around "essential oils" and "crystal healing" that you could have written about and exposed. Why did you choose to write about TTV specifically? My guess would be because they touch on a wider and more important topic which is the sense of "fairness" people have about the 2020 election.

Since I neither know or care about TTV, I chose to instead just write about the topic that I think makes TTV important.

If I thought the topic was quite literally only about TTV I would have just yawned, minimized the thread, and moved on without commenting.

Truth the Vote is the group that provided the data and the allegations outlined in the Dinesh D'Souza 2000 Mules documentary, which is by virtually any measure the most popular and talked about expose into stolen election claims. The film was watched by millions of people and received widespread media coverage and promotion within conservative media, and also was extensively endorsed by Trump (for what it's worth) and continued to be regularly cited by politicians and other stolen election believers. This wasn't just some obscure fringe group.

The target audience for that group is downstream of TheMotte. I wouldn’t be surprised no one here has an opinion on them.

It’s like comparing a WW2 propaganda film to boost morale to kill some Japs and Germans versus the arguments the upper class has on an election. The goal of making those films is too boost the lower class to do what you need them to do.

This is a refreshingly honest response that is coherent. Assuming it's true, I would wonder what exactly were the lower classes supposed to do. And how effective would creating false-but-exciting documentaries be in the long run if it ends up poisoning the well when it's exposed as a fraud?

No punishment if you get the vibes right. As CJ noted there’s a ton of other stuff going on that looks like a conspiracy to keep Trump out of the White House. Once the average guy sees a lot of things that let’s call it “system fraud” they will just go with it. If the left boosted their credibility then they could perhaps undermine the grifters.

The issue is the grifter feel directional correct even if their specific stuff is false.