This is mostly right but strikes me as it needing said that I don't think the left or the intelligentsia have the slightest idea how low institutional trust in anything coming from a left mouthpiece is now. Except in-network, the best heuristic is "the opposite of what they said" https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1345973764366848003

If you look at the situation from a predictive models perspective instead of the more rigorous and appropriate (under normal circumstances) "prove your case or gtfo" perspective, trusting the opposite of whatever the left side says has an AMAZING track record, as we know it.

Literally, the best heuristic most people have right now, in terms of how often it gets things right versus *completely* wrong, is "whatever CNN, the NYT, public health officials, and the Democrats said... yeah, the opposite." That is, they're wrong WAY outside of statistics.

They're also not just wrong. They're *completely* wrong, backwards, often transparently covering something up that they don't want known or refuse to believe. This isn't just a legitimation crisis because there's a heuristic: whatever the official left narrative is, is wrong.

There are a few reasons why such a heuristic would be more predictive than not. One of those is conspiracy, and another is mass hysteria with ideological capture. We know at least one of those is happening and have rather strong evidence both are. That makes conspiracy reasonable

Here's an example: Cuomo in NY, in reality, has the worst track record on Covid of nearly anyone. So they give him an award. But which award? An Emmy, for TV acting. Then they try to expand his powers to literally potential Nazi levels over a virus that's not bad enough.

It's virtually impossible to look at that and conclude that the people involved are honest brokers. They're either insane or evil, or both. Probably both, frankly, though not in the simplistic way many believe. Most are probably just crazy. The conspirator types are using them.

In such a state, it makes more sense to believe two conspiracies against Trump than one but not the other, especially when they share the same goal ostensibly for the same reasons and to the benefits of the same people. "If any then both/all" is a lower-burden conclusion here.

Under normal circumstances, and under the operation of law in the free world, evidence of each should be required to believe each. In a situation like what we find ourselves in now, it's a far higher cognitive load to believe there's no coordination between these oddities.

So, in some sense, I misspoke. Institutional trust in left mouthpieces isn't *low* now; it's *negative*, and for cracking good reasons. Those reasons are mainly that those mouthpieces are consistently completely wrong in a *nonrandom* way. Purposeful wrongness is credible.

This apparently purposed, or at least directional (if not directed) wrongness makes a trustworthy heuristic out of "the opposite of what they say is probably true," and it's genuinely easier to believe this is directed than coincidental, even though it's both.

Regarding election fraud suspicion directly, as I've been saying, Trump isn't acting like someone who has evidence, but the left as a whole aren't acting like they're innocent. In light of this heuristic, this might be the best circumstantial evidence of election fraud.

I mean that: better than all the affidavits, the vote count stopping, the weird turnout numbers, etc etc etc (there's a MOUNTAIN of decent circumstantial evidence here) is that the left mouthpieces are utterly denying it, with the same slippery lies as every other case of lies.

Add in more weird behavior from left mouthpieces: an "office of the president-elect"? (Not a thing, wtf.) The media declaring the election repeatedly. The media washing away and literally censoring any discussion of the mountain of circumstantial evidence? It looks bad, folks.

Now try to interpret that data in light of the torrent of nonrandom lies and their proper resolutions we've heard from left mouthpieces all year, and before, and suddenly, "stolen election" in addition to the obvious media conspiracy against Trump looks more plausible, not less.

I'm not saying that analysis is right, even though I rather strongly favor it myself. I'm saying it's neither ridiculous nor naive. It's actually way less crazy than trying to follow the shifting but overwhelmingly forceful narrative from left mouthpieces.

Everything the left is doing right now is utterly redolent of pseudo-reality, which is a distortion of reality that's either crazy or purposed (or both—mostly crazy and driven by relatively few purposed individuals). This has generated negative trust in left mouthpieces, rightly.

And, as one last point, if you don't want people to think your narrative is connected to a conspiracy, maybe don't name your presidential agenda after a big coordinated UN program (Build Back Better) that people already don't trust. Hmm?