Like most everyone else, when U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) made his wild claims about surveillance of the Trump administration, I was a bit confused about the purpose. He seemed to be acknowledging that they had been caught up in the monitoring of foreign adversaries via legally obtained FISA warrants. This indicates that members of Trump’s administration were talking to the bad guys we were monitoring. It certainly didn’t support Trump’s claim that Obama had him “wiretapped.” Today, he has come out to say there is no evidence of the wiretapping Trump claimed.
The most striking thing about the Fever Swamps™ is its ability manufacture and pass around stories that are the direct opposite of the reported facts.
I thought I would round up some Facebook posts from GOP officials and operatives who bought Nunes’ misleading claims hook line and sinker so you can see how the bubble works. First up, State Senator Ray Scott:
Raymond Garcia, who ran for Colorado’s State House District 1 showed his class by putting it this way:
El Paso County GOP Vice Chair Joshua Hosler says the thing that never happened is “worse then(sic) what Nixon did!”:
Colorado AM radio crank Jimmy Lakey claims Trump was “right (again)” (which makes me wonder what he was right about before):
Former Adams County GOP Vice Chair John Sampson thinks people need to go to jail!
There are more examples, but you get the picture.
Even information that seems to show the Trump administration was under investigation for possibly colluding with Russia is turned on its head. Suddenly the people charged with keeping us safe from foreign adversaries are the real enemy in the eyes of these ideologues. This is akin to wanting to jail police officers for investigating a robbery.
The confirmation bias bubble seems to do two things: keeps out information that doesn’t conform to the various conservative dogmas, and to spin information that is damaging to Republicans in a way that turns the facts and truth of a matter on its head. That’s how you get from Trump’s team turning up in surveillance of foreign adversaries to wanting to throw the agencies charged with keeping us safe from foreign attacks under the bus to protect Trump. That is the danger of the bubble. A large swath of the American electorate is kept in the dark regarding what is really going on, and therefore cannot make informed decisions about policy or candidates.
