The more extreme republicans in Congress have been trying to mangle the definition to fit any politics or laws they don’t agree with. Their thinking is something like “this action will hurt the country, therefore people who support it are committing treason!” Of course one problem is they can’t tell the difference between facts and their beliefs/predictions. The other is of course that’s not the definition of treason, which specifically means a betrayal by colluding with an outside party, or an insurrection (you know, like their leader tried). And to normal people it’s obviously so dangerous to start claiming that politics and policies you don’t agree with are “treason”.
They don’t actually believe it’s treason; They’re trying to water down the word, so when Trump gets charged they can go “but look at all the “treason” the Dems have committed! The Dems haven’t been punished for it, so why should Trump?”
It’s a pretty common conservative tactic. Any time a prominent party member is going to be charged with something or have some big scandal break, they start rabble rousing and accusing liberals of whatever that particular key word or phrase is. All to dilute the actual meaning, and be able to go “it really isn’t that bad because the Dems do it all the time.” It doesn’t matter whether or not the democrats actually did any of it; All that matters is that republicans say they did, and conservative voters don’t fact-check them.
Right, that’s true. One, they do things tit-for-tat because they’re childish. I was actually just commenting somewhere else about the behavior/tactic you describe. I think it’s also supposed to make their target audience think “well you’re just accusing us of that because we accused you of it” or “that’s projection”, because these people do think like that and act like it in their own lives.
It also makes no moral sense because if say, my neighbor robbed a store, would that make it okay for me to rob a store? Of course not.
The more extreme republicans in Congress have been trying to mangle the definition to fit any politics or laws they don’t agree with. Their thinking is something like “this action will hurt the country, therefore people who support it are committing treason!” Of course one problem is they can’t tell the difference between facts and their beliefs/predictions. The other is of course that’s not the definition of treason, which specifically means a betrayal by colluding with an outside party, or an insurrection (you know, like their leader tried). And to normal people it’s obviously so dangerous to start claiming that politics and policies you don’t agree with are “treason”.
They don’t actually believe it’s treason; They’re trying to water down the word, so when Trump gets charged they can go “but look at all the “treason” the Dems have committed! The Dems haven’t been punished for it, so why should Trump?”
It’s a pretty common conservative tactic. Any time a prominent party member is going to be charged with something or have some big scandal break, they start rabble rousing and accusing liberals of whatever that particular key word or phrase is. All to dilute the actual meaning, and be able to go “it really isn’t that bad because the Dems do it all the time.” It doesn’t matter whether or not the democrats actually did any of it; All that matters is that republicans say they did, and conservative voters don’t fact-check them.
Right, that’s true. One, they do things tit-for-tat because they’re childish. I was actually just commenting somewhere else about the behavior/tactic you describe. I think it’s also supposed to make their target audience think “well you’re just accusing us of that because we accused you of it” or “that’s projection”, because these people do think like that and act like it in their own lives.
It also makes no moral sense because if say, my neighbor robbed a store, would that make it okay for me to rob a store? Of course not.