Politics is a great and confusing thing: it is the name of a flawed science of a fractious subject and also the name of that fractious subject.
An article has just come out from some political scientists, and I shall analyse it, because the noble Guardian has alluded to it in order to support the claim that there is a correlation between "misinformation" (bad) and the "far Right" (bad). Double bad, cognitive shock, absolute certainty, dummy gripped firmly between teeth, legs ready to kick out like a cricket, change my nappy please.
Petter Törnberg and Juliana Chueri, academics in Amsterdam, have just published an article entitled, ‘When Do Parties Lie? Misinformation and Radical-Right Populism Across 26 Countries’ in the International Journal of Press/Politics.
What I want to do is demonstrate that their piece is all but worthless.
I shall do this by selective quotation. They say:
Radical-right populism is the strongest determinant for the propensity to spread misinformation.
Hmm.
What is misinformation? They say:
…biased narratives, disinformation and conspiracy theories… false beliefs.
Yes, but isn’t this ubiquitous?
No, they suppose, it cannot be. They suck their pencils (or smartphones) and say: nay, there is false belief over there and [complacent laugh] fact, evidence, truth over here.
But we have to be suspicious. Our political scientists want to associate misinformation with ‘a particular type of politics’. Not every type of politics. Just the bad politics, you know, ‘radical Right’ politics.
They do not even slightly contemplate the possibility
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So they used the phrase “hostility to democratic institutions”. Did it occur to them to define what they meant by “democratic institutions”? After all, the Far Right (sic) say that they speak for the people, and the democratic institutions don’t.
“Institutions” I think I understand. But what does “democratic” mean?
To Establishment people, “democratic” means within the Overton window. In other words, it means having opinions that are regarded by the Establishment itself as within some kind of “acceptable” range.
And so their phrase “hostility to democratic institutions” simply means “hostility to institutions that share our opinions”.
If they persist in that definition, they will find that when the populists come to power, they start to define “democratic institutions” as the ones that agree with the populists, and academics like the ones who wrote that report are the ones hostile to democracy.
“Political Science” a bullshit made up name for a made up qualification.
Political science is an oxymoron it debases and devalues ‘science’.
If Right is the diametric opposite to Left on the political spectrum, it must be the opposite of Left ideology.
Left = elevating the power of the State over the individual, collectivism, no property rights, central economic planning and control, suppression of any who challenge the authority and ideology of the State and its ruling Party.
Now which political ideologies does that describe? Socialism/Communism, National Socialism, Fascism.
So Right must = sovereignty of the individual, property rights, free market capitalist economy, liberty and freedom of expression.
The usual characteristics of Conservatism and libertarianism.
So what is “Far Right”? By definition those who totally embrace the characteristics of the Right without compromise.
Where does that leave those in the “centre”, Centre-Left, Centre-Right = political hermaphrodites and eunuchs.
Politicians love to tell themselves (and others) that they deal in facts and truth, and ‘evidence-based policymaking’. But essentially politics has little to do with the truth and lots to do with how people feel. Starmer doesn’t seem to get this – it’s all very well saying everything is rubbish when you are in opposition, but when in power you have to stop that and come up with something positive instead – otherwise it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
‘Truth’ and ‘The Guardian’ – not noted bedfellows.
It is an article of faith with the left of all degrees that the right is wrong and the far right is wronger. It is however down to how disinformation is defined. For the left almost by definition anything from right of them must be wrong and hence classed as dis/mis-information.
It is an argument that can’t be won if you debate on their playing field let alone an level one.
Proof of the adage – do not debate with an idiot as they will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
That’s why I was disappointed with Nigel Farage yesterday on GBN saying how that Labour MP was close to “Incitement”…..Don’t play the game of the Left Nigel, isn’t that what Vance was warning about in his excellent speech, not that most on here could not make that argument of course.
A couple of classic legal sayings came to mind after reading that lot: “selective with the truth” (which is a normal political tactic), and “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”. Vulnerable to the state of memory of the odd witness, no doubt.
To see who is funding these people behind the scenes, listen to Mike Benz, Trump’s advisor in his first term, who is examining the USAID Papers, where you find their insidious corrupting destabilising activities straight out of the CIA playbook.
They corrupt journalists, media, unions, academia & the judiciary, plus organise rentamob events all over planet Earth, wherever the threat of “POPULISM” rears its “ugly” head.
This way they have hounded Pakistan’s hugely popular Prime Minister Imran Khan (also top cricketer) into a prison cell, because he did not want to send weapons to NATO Romania, for sending on to Ukraine.
They are also behind the corrupt judiciary in Romania that cancelled the recent elections won outright by “populists”, and are working constantly to undermine LePen in order to preserve dead-man-walking Macron in France.
It’s a long video, but I strip the audio off using “Audacity” and split it up into 45 minute MP3s, which can be listened to during chores etc. Just the fist 45 minutes will open people’s eyes WIDE:
https://youtu.be/JlfSEpYoq8o?si=vBWQxOxpAA_kAg1Q
We have political scientists, using the language and tonality of science [‘SCIENCE’] to talk complete rubbish.”
I hear that from the BBC Radio every time I jump into the car. DAB is another matter, but they still have a monopoly on the airwaves. Even their music channels still spout out their Leftist garbage in between the music (that doesn’t have mush variety anyway)
This is a definition of Social Science, but it’s almost a synonym for Political Science:
Mike Haseler, a poster, years ago, on http://www.bishop-hill.net:
“Social Science has only two problems: it isn’t science and it isn’t social.
Indeed it combines the worst aspects of both areas. It takes as a dogma the dispassionate “uncaring” attitude that science needs to be impartial, and throws away the impartial bit and replaces it with a sloppy agenda driven attitude toward data and methodology which is common in society.
Not totally off topic, good video explaining the rise in Turkish Barbers springing up everywhere, yet British stores like Woolworths a thing of the past.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHDeEL_1Ql0
One of the Russian Marxists’ great discoveries is that if you always label your actions as being motivated by a high moral purpose, and you make make sure you always call yourself “progressive”, then you can murder millions of people, run a vast system of slave camps, abolish free-speech and free elections, introduce judicial torture, and so on, and the Left will bend over backwards to see you as “one of them”.
This lesson is not lost on the contemporary Left. The difference now is that the Left is in alliance with the transnational corporate aristocracy (the TCA), and pushes the aims of that aristocracy: the dissolution of the nation-states of the West, the atomisation of Western society, the Great Replacement, the destruction of free-speech, anti-whitism. In other words, the Left has become the madleft.
What the madleft hopes to get out of its alliance with the TCA is the destruction of the native peoples of the West, and the importation of a subservient population which will serve the madleft.
Currently, the political hopes of the madleft are centred on the Islamisation of the West. As part of this, the madleft has decided to demonise white patriots and… Read more »
Excellent post.
Thanks.
The world has changed, but the old elite (and they are mostly old, personally) either don’t realise it or more likely don’t want it realised by others. So all the courtiers who danced before the old Elite for patronage dance more vigorously, more chaotically, to fend off the evil day when they lose their opportunities for a good life.
The old Elite have made their Unique Selling Point that all is well under their care – so they cannot acknowledge that a new world order is rising. Hence ginned up ‘research’ trying to push back change. Just courtiers doing their bit to keep the gravy train on the rails.
Many of the ‘old Elite’ are middle aged, like Rory and his wife, those in the last Tory Government.
My thesis: Right wing people just want to be left alone, and will only speak up when they *see* something wrong, or are led to believe by others that something is wrong. Left wing people just want to change *everything*, it is what gets them out of bed in the morning, they don’t care about accuracy of information, the ends justify the means.
Hence, more misinformation from the Left is a highly plausible hypothesis.
This is very much my experience too. I used to live in a very left wing area, pretty much everyone I knew was left wing and I suppose I thought I was centre-left too at the time. I didn’t massively care anyway as I don’t see someone’s political leanings as all important (unless they are very extreme or bang on about it unbearably), I just look at whether or not they are a nice/interesting person that I want to spend time with. But I did know one conservative family and quite honestly they were the most open and tolerant of the lot, they never bad-mouthed “The Left” despite being constantly bad-mouthed as right wing themselves. They would happily be friends with people on all political sides whereas a lot of the left wing people I knew simply couldn’t bear to associate with the right – intolerance at its finest.
And they are the ones who like to micro manage people through ‘collectivism’. No wonder they like the WEF so much. The old Left were suspicious of large conglomerates, once they got into power, most of these organisations are run by the Left.
Follow the money. Whether it is political bias, Net Zero, drug or vaccination dependence or denigrating Christian faith, there will be useful idiots like the Guardian to do the subversiveness to the apathetic citizens.
It highlights just how they don’t understand Science, let alone apply it to everyday situations: even such basic stuff, such as Newton’s Laws of Motion, re the Windmill Delusion.
“Left wing people just want to change *everything* …”
Like the French Revolution, and we know how well that ended up.
“Political Scientists” – Oxymorons by name, oxymorons by nature.
Political Science ain’t a patch on real politics or real science.
Doubleplusbad all round. Must try harder.
You see what you see, I see what I see.
Referred to in some quarters as cognitive bias.
The observer is part of the experiment.
That’s all there is to it.
I was just about to write much the same
For ‘political scientist’ see ‘paid agenda legitimiser & facilitator’.
Putting political in front of scientist is like putting witch in front of doctor.