re: #74 Targetpractice

Indeed, I find it a bit unbelievable that someone would be so incurious about current events that they would be totally isolated about Trump’s inane babbling but simultaneously so skeptical that they would feel compelled to immediately research the context of anything attributed to him. Even more so that such people compromise a significant portion of the voting population, whether at the state or national level.

1. Doesn’t need a significant portion of the voting population to affect the outcome: a change of fewer than 80,000 votes in 2016 would have led to a Clinton Presidency and a change of about 40,000 votes in 2020 would have led to re-election of Trump.
2. The issue isn’t that someone would research Trump’s statements — it’s that they would be subjected to Trump ads disputing those remarks or articles directly “refuting” the statements and the result would be like me with the current state’s attorney race in Illinois: dueling ads that attack the other candidate and I ignore both sides.
3. However, I do have to say that if the ad directly shows the video of the candidate saying something, it has more weight, even if the quote is taken out of context.