Radical republicans are moving forward with rewriting and whitewashing history

[Pancho 45,430]

Starting off in Florida:

 

 

 

 

Also just heard that Florida kids will now be taught that our “Founding Fathers” actually fought against slavery without mentioning they all owned slaves as well as it will not be taught that Florida was a slave state during the Civil War.

 

This is what I was worried about happening and it’s happening. I think Tennessee is in on this too…

[nbmishoid 976]

Brazen.  Shameless.  Fucked up.  Absolutely unsurprising.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33,917]

I mean, I don't get the objective. We all know what happened. The world knows what happened. The information is out there. It cannot be suppressed at this point. And to what end? It makes no sense.

[pyrohornIII 4,838]

I watched Buffalo Soldiers: A Quest for Freedom last night.  It was not just about the black men who served in the founding of the West, but covered all the way through Korea, when all the armed services branches were finally desegregated.   

The army asked for black troops to volunteer to fight amongst the other men during the Battle of the Bulge.  5000 volunteered, 1000 were chosen.  But since they would be reinforcements into white divisions, and not black ones, each soldier had to accept being busted down to private, since the Army couldn't have any black men with higher ranks than whites.   And even with this stipulation those men voluntarily gave up their rank.    Those ranks were never restored, even after the war.   Pitiful.  

This kind of thing is what they are hoping to erase from history, but never will be able to.  Only those who want to willfully ignore certain parts of history for their own comfort will accept any of these whitewashed versions being brandished today.

 

 

[conVINCEd 21,474]

4 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

I mean, I don't get the objective. We all know what happened. The world knows what happened. The information is out there. It cannot be suppressed at this point. And to what end? It makes no sense.

The objective is to appease the base.

[wildcat09 29,453]

5 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

I mean, I don't get the objective. We all know what happened. The world knows what happened. The information is out there. It cannot be suppressed at this point. And to what end? It makes no sense.

It's simple. It makes it easier for them to lie to and keep their kids politically aligned with them as they grow up.  

[Longhorn_Fan68 33,917]

2 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

It's simple. It makes it easier for them to lie to and keep their kids politically aligned with them as they grow up.  

that used to be true. not today. it's yet another tired tactic that will no longer work. sure, it'll work spottily here and there, but what they are trying to suppress cannot be. this a lost cause, just like everything else "conservative"

[nbmishoid 976]

For a lost cause, they are making a disturbing degree of headway.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33,917]

17 minutes ago, nbmishoid said:

For a lost cause, they are making a disturbing degree of headway.

please explain to me how this will work. I'm genuinely asking.

[nbmishoid 976]

LF

Look, I’m a retired engineer, not a nut case, so I, too have trouble seeing how this will “work”.  But the sheer amount of this book banning/whitewashing history, by government leaders, is unprecedented in my adult lifetime, I.e 50 years or so.  These fuckers seem to have their mojo working, surprising for a lost cause.   Not a supportive statement, more a sorrowful one.

[David Dennison 19,119]

7 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

please explain to me how this will work. I'm genuinely asking.

Indoctrination via curricula. 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33,917]

Just now, David Dennison said:

Indoctrination via curricula. 

defeated by a 5 second google search. 

[atomheartbevo 90,041]

1 hour ago, Pancho said:

Also just heard that Florida kids will now be taught that our “Founding Fathers” actually fought against slavery without mentioning they all owned slaves as well as it will not be taught that Florida was a slave state during the Civil War.

This is what I was worried about happening and it’s happening. I think Tennessee is in on this too…

Greg Abbott:

I fully expect Texas to get in on this, and I'm surprised it hasn't already.

Then again the whole "look at porn online, better show your Texas ID" thing crept in, so maybe it was snuck in and none of us realize it yet.

How long until this is removed from the state website?

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html

Quote

The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then a free, sovereign and independent nation, the annexation of the latter to the former as one of the co-equal States thereof,

The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.

Quote

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility [sic] and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings.

Quote

She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery--the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits--a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

 

[tx ind 7,014]

[David Dennison 19,119]

4 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

defeated by a 5 second google search. 

Welcome to the culture wars.

[atomheartbevo 90,041]

49 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

I mean, I don't get the objective. We all know what happened. The world knows what happened. The information is out there. It cannot be suppressed at this point. And to what end? It makes no sense.

44 minutes ago, conVINCEd said:

The objective is to appease the base.

2 minutes ago, nbmishoid said:

Look, I’m a retired engineer, not a nut case, so I, too have trouble seeing how this will “work”.  But the sheer amount of this book banning/whitewashing history, by government leaders, is unprecedented in my adult lifetime, I.e 50 years or so.  These fuckers seem to have their mojo working, surprising for a lost cause.   Not a supportive statement, more a sorrowful one.

Your moderate/saner (yes they exist) Republican will show up and pull the lever for whoever has an (R) next to their name when the general election is held.

Your nuttier GQP types show up in the primaries, and if you don't give them enough of what they want (whether it be racism or white nationalism election conspiracy theories or whatever), they'll vote for the other guy, and if they don't get a candidate they like in the general, they probably won't show up. 

Anecdotal, but plenty of us noticed that our relatives that turned out for Trump in 2020 didn't turn out for him in 2016 (and many didn't turn out at all in 2016).

This is why people like DeSantis and Abbott, that you think are well-educated (and they are) and should be rational, are instead appealing to a tiny minority of Republican nutcases.  They know most Republicans don't care who is on the ticket, don't pay attention to the rallies, campaigns, etc., they just show up in November and vote.  We saw it with Abbott in his primaries when he veered hard right, even though Mogwai Huffines presented no threat to him.

DeSantis isn't running for the governor's chair in Florida again, and he's got to juice that small minority of Republicans in Florida to get them out for him, so he gives no fucks, especially if he risks losing the Florida primary next year.

In both Abbott's and DeSantis's cases, even if these insane Republicans amount to only 10% of Republican voters, that's enough to matter these days.  Trump won Texas by around 600,000 votes, 5.5% of the votes.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33,917]

11 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Welcome to the culture wars.

so we already won. got it

[Js1 85,744]

11 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Welcome to the culture wars.

Yeah, it's just performing for the base.

Google search + all the media you can ever ask for at the kids' fingertips when they're in school.  They're stupid, but they'll quickly realize something ain't right about what they are being "taught" 

[lemonlime 5,503]

1 hour ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

I mean, I don't get the objective. We all know what happened. The world knows what happened. The information is out there. It cannot be suppressed at this point. And to what end? It makes no sense.

History's what they say it is.  Trump won the 2020 election.  Ukraine is run by Nazis.  Putin is a hero.  Kim Jong Un is a misunderstood, US ally.  There's a pedo ring out of a pizzeria in DC.  And the earth is flat.  Millions of Americans believe these things.

[wildcat09 29,453]

38 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

please explain to me how this will work. I'm genuinely asking.

The same way their lost cause bullshit "worked" for over 100 years.

[wildcat09 29,453]

29 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

defeated by a 5 second google search. 

If things worked the way you seem to think they do, do you think somewhere between 20 to 30% of Americans would believe QAnon shit?

[Gil Bang 26,099]

6 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

History's what they say it is.  Trump won the 2020 election.  Ukraine is run by Nazis.  Putin is a hero.  Kim Jong Un is a misunderstood, US ally.  There's a pedo ring out of the basement of a pizzeria in DC that has no basement.  And the earth is flat.  Millions of Americans believe these things.

polished it up a bit.

[henrygandorf 29,199]

17 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Yeah, it's just performing for the base.

Google search + all the media you can ever ask for at the kids' fingertips when they're in school.  They're stupid, but they'll quickly realize something ain't right about what they are being "taught" 

for the first time ever, we can say, "thank god for twitter and the internet".  if this shit was happening in the 1970's we'd be completely fucked.  information is everywhere.

['stache 21,900]

Thank goodness Ryan Walters in Oklahoma has no real power and can't enact his preferred curriculum that the Tulsa Race Massacre wasn't really about race. Desantis is a fucking governor of a large state and is running for president. How shit like this doesn't deprive him of every fucking vote is fucking astonishing. There is zero basis for American pride anymore, not a fucking ounce. 

[hpslugga 4,068]

1 hour ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

I mean, I don't get the objective. We all know what happened. The world knows what happened. The information is out there. It cannot be suppressed at this point. And to what end? It makes no sense.

It’s the constant, obsessive and psychotic need to stroke the ego. There’s no elaborate explanation; it just goes straight back to that. The founding fathers can’t be seen as slave owners…because that makes certain white people in Florida…feeeeeeeeeeeeeel bad.

[DaysOff 8,003]

History's what they say it is.  Trump won the 2020 election.  Ukraine is run by Nazis.  Putin is a hero.  Kim Jong Un is a misunderstood, US ally.  There's a pedo ring out of a pizzeria in DC.  And the earth is flat.  Millions of Americans believe these things.

Looking at social media comments sections, I forgot today was the anniversary of the fake moon landing.

[atomheartbevo 90,041]

1 minute ago, DaysOff said:

Looking at social media comments sections, I forgot today was the anniversary of the fake moon landing.

Yeah, has anybody asked Elon Musk when he's going to land the first people on the moon?

[RomaVicta 30,072]

2 hours ago, nbmishoid said:

Brazen.  Shameless.  Fucked up.  Absolutely unsurprising.

We're a fucking flag cult. Anything associated with the Stars and Stripes is righteous and good and benevolent because it's associated with that flag.

The dogma?

All of our wars are WW2 where we heroically liberate the downtrodden foreigners longing for freedom. We use that language to preface every fucking ill-begotten war since 1945. Iraq? Our boys will be showered with chocolates and flowers as secret billions of cash flow to the usual suspects. 

We are  chosen by God to be a shining city on a hill. The shine is the reflection of the sun off all the white skin and gold on top of the hill. The very tip top. Their shit and rough men flow down hill from there.

We are the envy of the world! Everybody wants to be us! I suppose the ability to ceaselessly pat yourself on the back offers some physical advantage desired by the world.

We're all these great things. We'll oppress, kill, stifle, exile any fucker wanting to pierce the delusion with truth. So, lie to the kids, lie to yourselves, persecute anyone who won't participate in the lie.

I've got rage of a Texas Tribune story about treatment of people crossing the Rio Grande.

Quote

The trooper said in the email that he was out on patrol around 10 p.m. June 25 when he and other troopers came across a group of about 120 people, including small children and nursing babies, who were “exhausted, hungry and tired” along a fence line on the U.S. side.

“We called the shift officer in command, and we were given orders to push the people back into the water to go to Mexico. We decided that this was not the correct thing to do. With the very real potential of exhausted people drowning. We made contact with command again and expressed our concerns and we were given the order to tell them to go to Mexico.”

The trooper wrote in the email that five days later, a 4-year-old girl who attempted to cross the razor wire “was pressed back by Texas Guard soldiers due to the orders given to them.” The temperature “was well over 100 degrees” and the girl passed out, the email said, adding that she had received medical treatment.

That same day, a man rescued his child who got stuck on a barrel in the water covered with razor wire, according to the trooper’s email. During the rescue, the man got a “significant” cut on his left leg, the trooper wrote. A 15-year-old boy also broke his leg trying to walk around the wire in the river and his father had to carry him across to the U.S. side, the trooper wrote.

Later that night, troopers found a 19-year-old woman stuck in the razor wire having a miscarriage, the trooper’s email said.

On the afternoon of July 1, Border Patrol reported that a mother and her two children were struggling to cross the river, the email said. A DPS boat team found the mother and one child, who later died at the hospital. The body of the second child “was never found,” the trooper wrote.

The trooper told the sergeant the razor wire is an “inhumane trap” that should be removed because it “forces people to cross in other areas that are deeper and not as safe for people carrying kids and bags.”

A pecan farm owner in Eagle Pass told the Chronicle that officials working for Abbott’s border security operation refused to take down razor wire on his property, despite his multiple requests. The farmer, Hugo Urbina, said many people, including a pregnant teenager,have been injured by the wire that the state installed against his wishes. DPS told the Chronicle that under a border-related disaster declaration the governor signed in 2021, the state can use private property without the owner’s permission.

...

Considine also attached some emails from DPS Director Steven McCraw to his chain of command. In an email sent on July 15, McCraw calls for an audit of DPS’ protocols “to determine if more can be done to minimize the risk to migrants.

“The smugglers care not if the migrants are injured, but we do, and we must take all necessary measures to mitigate the risk to them including injuries from trying cross over the concertina wire, drownings and dehydration,” McCraw wrote.

Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, didn’t address the claims made by the trooper, instead blaming President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.

“The absence of razor wire and other deterrence strategies encourages migrants to make unsafe and illegal crossings between ports of entry, while making the job of Texas National Guard soldiers and DPS troopers more dangerous and difficult,” Mahaleris said in a statement. “President Biden has unleashed a chaos on the border that’s unsustainable, and we have a constitutional duty to respond to this unprecedented crisis.”

I hate these fuckers. I hate being associated with brazen cruelty and cynical policy because I am a Texan.

I've said many times that I don't know the answer to what is called a problem with non-citizens in the US. I know that you don't dehumanize people risking everything to come here, take jobs nobody here wants to fill, work their asses off, live cheap, and send money to impoverished family back home. They're better people than I am.

Drown Abbbot in the Rio Grande wrapped in his razor wire and driven to the extremes of thirst. Fuck that puto rata.

[atomheartbevo 90,041]

15 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

All of our wars are WW2 where we heroically liberate the downtrodden foreigners longing for freedom.

I don't know where you get your information, but you should do your own research, we didn't liberate anybody that needed it in WW2, and in fact there was no Holocaust, and woke history textbooks try to make our kids think we fought Nazis when we all know that Nazis are nothing more than nationalists who love their nation, just like we do!

[conVINCEd 21,474]

9 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

We're a fucking flag cult. Anything associated with the Stars and Stripes is righteous and good and benevolent because it's associated with that flag.

The dogma?

All of our wars are WW2 where we heroically liberate the downtrodden foreigners longing for freedom. We use that language to preface every fucking ill-begotten war since 1945. Iraq? Our boys will be showered with chocolates and flowers as secret billions of cash flow to the usual suspects. 

We are  chosen by God to be a shining city on a hill. The shine is the reflection of the sun off all the white skin and gold on top of the hill. The very tip top. Their shit and rough men flow down hill from there.

We are the envy of the world! Everybody wants to be us! I suppose the ability to ceaselessly pat yourself on the back offers some physical advantage desired by the world.

We're all these great things. We'll oppress, kill, stifle, exile any fucker wanting to pierce the delusion with truth. So, lie to the kids, lie to yourselves, persecute anyone who won't participate in the lie.

I've got rage of a Texas Tribune story about treatment of people crossing the Rio Grande.

I hate these fuckers. I hate being associated with brazen cruelty and cynical policy because I am a Texan.

I've said many times that I don't know the answer to what is called a problem with non-citizens in the US. I know that you don't dehumanize people risking everything to come here, take jobs nobody here wants to fill, work their asses off, live cheap, and send money to impoverished family back home. They're better people than I am.

Drown Abbbot in the Rio Grande wrapped in his razor wire and driven to the extremes of thirst. Fuck that puto rata.

I’ve lived in Texas for close to 50 years, and for 40+ of those years I peacefully coexisted with illegal immigrants.  Our economy would struggle mightily without them.  I still peacefully coexist with these folk, but this wasn’t an issue until a New Yorker decided to run for President.

[RomaVicta 30,072]

13 minutes ago, conVINCEd said:

I’ve lived in Texas for close to 50 years, and for 40+ of those years I peacefully coexisted with illegal immigrants.  Our economy would struggle mightily without them.  I still peacefully coexist with these folk, but this wasn’t an issue until a New Yorker decided to run for President.

That's the Texas I sorely miss. We were a mind your own business state through much of my life time.

 

[Sawbonz 27,777]

1 hour ago, lemonlime said:

History's what they say it is.  Trump won the 2020 election.  Ukraine is run by Nazis.  Putin is a hero.  Kim Jong Un is a misunderstood, US ally.  There's a pedo ring out of a pizzeria in DC.  And the earth is flat.  Millions of Americans believe these things.

As a percentage of all people they are a minority, and shrinking. My kids have a ton of friends with right wing parents. Their children laugh at them behind their backs if they are otherwise good and kind people (yes they exist). They mock and ridicule them to their faces if they are assholes

[atomheartbevo 90,041]

47 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

That's the Texas I sorely miss. We were a mind your own business state through much of my life time.

[Degenerate Gardner 4,104]

Counting on Google search and Twitter to be the guardrails for democracy strikes me as laughably naive. This is a multi pronged evil effort, after all.

Dumbing of the populace must be ahead of schedule based on anecdotal reports. It’s enhanced by making valid info (truth) tougher to obtain and handicapping the development of critical thinking when ambiguity is encountered (see school board & college curriculum efforts). Combine that with politicization of all aspects of the public sphere, a purposeful demonization of trusted news sources, a dash of confirmation bias, and you have generations starting not to trust what they read or personally observe. Sure the truth is still out there on the inter webs somewhere. People know how to find it. The issue, I suspect, is that they won’t want to find it, and Republicans are doing all they can to facilitate that ignorance.

Or just fucking re-read 1984.

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13,596]

Al Qaeda assisted America in honing their emergency management skills and security measures. 

[Degenerate Gardner 4,104]

1 hour ago, RomaVicta said:

That's the Texas I sorely miss. We were a mind your own business state through much of my life time.

 

I am old enough to remember when Texas ostensibly prided itself on being known for friendliness and a live and let live ethos. That Texas is dead. 

[Smax 3,800]

4 hours ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

that used to be true. not today. it's yet another tired tactic that will no longer work. sure, it'll work spottily here and there, but what they are trying to suppress cannot be. this a lost cause, just like everything else "conservative"

Are you hitting the pipe with your avatar?

Try talking to maga now about recent events and they deny the facts that we all witnessed with our own eyes, now add 20-30 years of indoctrination, books supporting and whaalaa slavery was a business opportunity for the poor African folks. They should be greatful that we brought them over here to the greatest county in the history of the world, murica!

[Hmbre97 6,333]

3 hours ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

defeated by a 5 second google search. 

There is a difference when the noise is coming from crazy people on Facebook and the weird conspiracy theory relatives. It's another story if the noise is being taught in school. 

Hell, I grew up in and attended K-12 in Vidor and we still learned about slavery and the damage it caused.

[Nivek 17,036]

Thank goodness Ryan Walters in Oklahoma has no real power and can't enact his preferred curriculum that the Tulsa Race Massacre wasn't really about race. Desantis is a fucking governor of a large state and is running for president. How shit like this doesn't deprive him of every fucking vote is fucking astonishing. There is zero basis for American pride anymore, not a fucking ounce. 

Republicans are for republicans, they don’t give a flying fuck about the country.

[gmr548 16,635]

That's the Texas I sorely miss. We were a mind your own business state through much of my life time.
 

I am old enough to remember when Texas ostensibly prided itself on being known for friendliness and a live and let live ethos. That Texas is dead. 

Well said x2. And I’m only 31.

As to what’s going on in Florida, and I’m sure the entire SEC footprint within a year or two, well… they’ve been pretty open about their intentions. I’m certainly not surprised. It’s shameful, embarrassing, and frankly just sad; but not at all a surprise.

[Pato del Muerto 52,863]

How can one be taught things that have “personal” benefit when one does not have the legal status of personhood?

what exactly were these skills that were taught and how could they be used by the slaves to improve their lives?

[Pods 7,594]

4 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

History's what they say it is.  Trump won the 2020 election.  Ukraine is run by Nazis.  Putin is a hero.  Kim Jong Un is a misunderstood, US ally.  There's a pedo ring out of a pizzeria in DC.  And the earth is flat.  Millions of Americans believe these things.

Yep. It's a cult and cult members aren't known for reaching out to get information that proves the cult is full of shit. The leaders are just trying to get enough plausible deniability to keep people from seeking the truth. 

[Bullneck 19,315]

11 hours ago, lemonlime said:

History's what they say it is.  Trump won the 2020 election.  Ukraine is run by Nazis.  Putin is a hero.  Kim Jong Un is a misunderstood, US ally.  There's a pedo ring out of a pizzeria in DC.  And the earth is flat.  Millions of Americans believe these things.

 

8 hours ago, Degenerate Gardner said:

I am old enough to remember when Texas ostensibly prided itself on being known for friendliness and a live and let live ethos. That Texas is dead. 

Same here. 

Edited July 21, 2023 by Bullneck

[Fudge Nuggets 19,276]

13 hours ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

defeated by a 5 second google search. 

Lots of middle and high schoolers are frantically searching google for historical accounts of slavery, racism, etc and not wasting time on the TickToks and Instagram.  Totally legit.

[Neonmoon 38,130]

13 hours ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

defeated by a 5 second google search. 

Every single stupid thought in Republican brains is defeated by a 5 second google search. If you control the message, you can continue producing the Rush Limbaugh, MTG, and Charlie Kirks. Yes, the smart kids will learn it’s all bullshit. But the people that don’t want to believe that won’t. There are still people who wholly believe the Civil War is about State’s Rights. And will defend that belief until they die. 

[WhatTheBuck 28,827]

You ain’t gonna learn what you don’t want to know. 

[Chad Fuck 17,839]

The idea that somehow if one just had the interest, all would be revealed by an internet search, is incredibly naive. 

The right has shown us what they want.  They are limiting information availability bit by bit.  Just look at the insanity of book bannings across the nation. That's just a start.  Soon, as atom heart states, it will be byte by byte.

If the Republicans had their way, it wouldn't be that you couldn't teach the realities of slavery, it would be that you had no access to the ability to research it yourself.  They talk trash about the Chinese, but they'd love to have their authoritarian information control systems.  

They're just modern day Brown Shirts who want to control what you see, hear, read and think.  Every accusation is a confession example eleventy billion.

[wildcat09 29,453]

What's really funny about the idea that Google being available will defeat any GOP attempt to indoctrinate children is that, just over the past year or two, Google's search has gotten much shitter. Give all the AI hucksters a few years to pollute the internet with fake AI-produced nonsense and Google may well be pretty much completely useless within five years.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33,917]

man, you folks are some defeated pantywaists. No wonder these dumb fucks keep pulling shit over on us. these people are not smart enough to erase history. it's literally impossible. but keep dreaming up boogeymen to fear instead of, i dunno, living your life.

[nbmishoid 976]

17 hours ago, Degenerate Gardner said:

Counting on Google search and Twitter to be the guardrails for democracy strikes me as laughably naive. This is a multi pronged evil effort, after all.

Dumbing of the populace must be ahead of schedule based on anecdotal reports. It’s enhanced by making valid info (truth) tougher to obtain and handicapping the development of critical thinking when ambiguity is encountered (see school board & college curriculum efforts). Combine that with politicization of all aspects of the public sphere, a purposeful demonization of trusted news sources, a dash of confirmation bias, and you have generations starting not to trust what they read or personally observe. Sure the truth is still out there on the inter webs somewhere. People know how to find it. The issue, I suspect, is that they won’t want to find it, and Republicans are doing all they can to facilitate that ignorance.

Or just fucking re-read 1984.

My mom had a saying, one of the many tough truths she whupped into my brain, via my backside,  “Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see”.   At the time I thought this saying was, if not nuts, then a typically vast overstatement.  
She was way ahead of her time.  On the other hand, we have now a large segment of the society that believes nothing of what they may see or hear, only what they are “told” I.e instructed.  The aim Is to extend this model to us all.