The idea that they’re “just doing journalism” by repeating false claims is tacitly asserting that fact checking is NOT part of a journalist’s job. Really that’s what a lot of the republican bullshit boils down to: “I am going to lie to your face, and you’ll believe because you want to be angry.”
I think it is not so much that people want to be angry as that they want someone to blame for everything that is going wrong in their life, someone who is not them, not someone powerful enough that they couldn’t do anything against them anyway (such as the people actually responsible for most of those issues) but someone they can hurt to make themselves feel better, even if that doesn’t solve their original issue.
The idea that they’re “just doing journalism” by repeating false claims is tacitly asserting that fact checking is NOT part of a journalist’s job. Really that’s what a lot of the republican bullshit boils down to: “I am going to lie to your face, and you’ll believe because you want to be angry.”
I think it is not so much that people want to be angry as that they want someone to blame for everything that is going wrong in their life, someone who is not them, not someone powerful enough that they couldn’t do anything against them anyway (such as the people actually responsible for most of those issues) but someone they can hurt to make themselves feel better, even if that doesn’t solve their original issue.