Disingenuous critiques of the President and his policies

[emulatorloo]

5. I've been considering a "Let It Sink" strategy

First I have to issue the disclaimer that fact based criticism of Obama, democratic policy is a very good thing.

But here we are talking about fact-free posts. We have a handful of posters who continually start threads which misrepresent or distort the issues and Democratic policies.

I've seen certain posts from admins that indicate to me they are aware of this. I think it would be nice if the admins put together a "DU Truth Team" that we could ask to fact check some of the more dubious claims made in the original posts of these threads. Wouldn't require a lot of work, a few minutes with google would probably do it. Our fact checks within these threads are pretty much ignored or claimed to be "talking points of the DLC." or something like that.

I have no clue as to the motivations of these posters, I am going to assume most of them believe strongly in what they post, whether or not it is true.

When I try to refute the arguments these posts, or point out that the facts don't support the claims, or that they are selectively quoting a policy statement in such a way that it is a total misrepresentation of the policy I am more likely than not accused of making a "personal attack."

Or I am told, "So what I selectively quoted. I just know Obama wants to do that."

So then we get the "Obama's Secret Plan" threads.

It is impossible to argue with people who are pretty much willing to say anything as long as it casts Democrats in a bad light.

Anyway, I started to wonder . . . what if I just stopped replying to these threads. What if everybody stopped replying to them, except for those who push the same kind of fact-free claims.

Conventional wisdom is that the viewpoint expressed in these kinds of posts is the majority viewpoint at DU.

However, I don't believe it is. I think we have a loud minority who have convinced themselves that their viewpoint is a minority.

"Let It Sink" would mean many of these threads die and fade pretty quickly.

As time goes on, I am seeing these post become more desperate and shrill. For example, it is becoming more and more difficult to push the "Republicans and Democrats are just the same meme" when we have the clear examples of what Republican rule looks ilke in the post-2010 All Red states.

"Romney and Obama" are the same is a hard sell as well, the more we learn about Romney and his record.

So these threads are becoming less and less plausible and more and more transparent.

Anyway sorry for rambling, just something I was thinking about.