As your information scout, I am constantly sifting through articles and evidence and data to try and determine what’s important and why. Sometimes the signal is in what is said. Sometimes it remains hidden in what is not said.
It’s when they no longer care to even pretend to hide the deceptions that we know something; the end approaches.
I’m not even sure what ‘the end’ is in this story. If I were a young woman trapped in Ted Bundy’s VW Beetle when he dropped his charming act, I’d have a sense of imminent danger. But this is more complex and nuanced. “They” are openly and quickly pushing for something to end and for a new thing to begin. They are anxious seeming, if not desperate.
Which combines into either sheer sloppiness or an exhaustion of care. So, they don’t even try to be subtle.
Given the choice between telling the truth, and lying, with all other things being equal in that equation, they will reflexively lie. Every time.
We saw this over and over again during Covid at the CDC, with the FDA, with Pfizer, J&J, and Moderna and the NIH. You have to really stretch to believe that they just accidentally made bad decisions every time it mattered and in the wrong direction.
And now we’re seeing it in the misrepresentation of campaign photos and crowds by using (obviously) AI-generated images. Why even bother?