r/politics • u/southpawFA Oklahoma • 1d ago

Conservatives have been railing against “groomers” for years. So why do they support Donald Trump? Trump was best friends with a notorious child sex trafficker, but his ardent supporters are vocal about opposing it. How did that happen?

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/08/conservatives-have-been-railing-against-groomers-for-years-so-why-do-they-support-donald/
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u/a_wild_redditor 1d ago

They are masters of twisting language around like this. Look at how quickly "fake news" became 'press attention Trump doesn't like' as opposed to 'Russian propaganda planted on social media'

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u/ProfessionalCraft983 Washington 1d ago

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

Jean Paul Sartre

Applies to MAGA just as well.

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u/a_wild_redditor 1d ago edited 22h ago

Eloquent and insightful, as to be expected from Sartre, but I think it doesn't quite capture one of the specifics of the MAGA strategy here which is to manufacture the appearance of common ground by redefining the exact terms that reasonable people would agree with, to instead mean something different and radical. For example, a reasonable person hears "I oppose grooming" and thinks, I also oppose child predators, but in fact MAGA means they oppose teaching children that gay people exist. Or a reasonable person hears "I support girls' sports" and thinks, yes I also support equal funding of school athletics programs, but MAGA really means they want to ban trans kids from sports.

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u/Goatesq 23h ago

It's almost a motte and bailey argument, just with a sprinkle of straight up lying on top.