What I really wanted to comment on was this:
...secular humanism rules the airwaves...
YGTBFKM. In this fantasy land, where everyone-but-me is the perfect enemy, what is the color of the sky? Do these people actually believe shit like that (and various other bumbling) or do they know it's bullshit, and it's purely dogwhistle? I can't fucking pick it apart to figure it out, they've got me stumped. I know there's clearly some that go one way and others that go the other, but is there some kind of magical way to detect "grifter"? My grifterdar is unconfigured, and needs calibration.
~Nic
1 comment:
Well, in the past we used the Stupid/Evil ratio. Once Palin/Beck came on the scene, that's when we started using the term "grifter". We always termed them as just evil in the past, but then they became so blatant about the fact that they are playing their followers for suckers that another term was necessary. Personally, I just go on a grifter/sociopath ratio these days.
Watch the PR. You just have to look at what else they are doing. For example, Gingrich really only makes hints about running for office when he has a book to sell. He's a grifter. Palin is a total fame whore and wants to be in the spotlight no matter what, and hey, her daughter just so happens to have a book out! Grifter. Beck funnels all of his paranoia into gold-scams. Grifter. Andy Breitbart is making a killing in the media by screaming about black people and child prostitution, because that's what sells. Grifter.
But, on the flip side, take someone like Bachmann. She's a true believer, that's 'oddly' inspired by the whole anti-gay thing, for some strange reason (*cough* Marcus *cough*). So you'll see someone like Bachmann fuck up when screaming that lesbians in the bathroom are attacking her, hiding out behind bushes at gay-rights rallies, or signing anti-gay pledges that just so happen to claim that black babies were better under slavery - it looks horrible for her, but she still does it, because she's true to her cause.
Those are the easy ones. But you catch onto others. We know now that Eric Cantor stands to make a killing if the economy defaults, in the past he was passed off as just a sociopath. You just learn and pick up the patterns as you study these folks.
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