How gullible are wingnuts?

You Won’t Believe What Had to be Fact-Checked

by Allen Clifton

 

I get that wingnuts hate President Obama.  Heck, I live in Texas — he’s despised by nearly every wingnut I encounter here.  It’s caused me to avoid political discussions in public.  You’d think that doing what I do for a living I’d talk politics all the time, but that’s not the case in my private life.  Whenever a wingnut I meet finds out what I do, I usually avoid discussing politics if possible.  I’ve been down that road before and it’s just not worth the headache.
The asinine “facts” I’ve seen these people spew are often so ridiculous I can’t even properly respond to them because I’m trying not to laugh.  “Did you know Obamacare requires microchips in every American?”  Who honestly would believe such nonsense?
Well, while checking out Politifact, I ran across what might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen them fact-check.  Now I’m not exactly sure what their process is for investigating something, but I’m guessing it requires quite a few inquiries about a particular situation before they take the time to investigate the claim and write their article displaying their results.
So when I saw that they fact-checked a claim that “Obamacare” coding would lead to executions by beheading in the United States – I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Not that some idiots believed this (when you’ve seen as many ridiculous “facts” uttered by wingnuts about “Obamacare” over the years, nothing surprises you anymore) but the fact that it was believed by so many people that Politifact took the time to fact-check it was the laughable part.
For the record, it was deemed a “Pants on Fire” lie — their harshest rating for factually inaccurate information.
Granted, I’ve seen wingnut friends and family post some really crazy things on Facebook that they believed to be true, but I can’t even wrap my mind around the idea that there were enough people who believed “Obamacare” allowed for execution by beheadings in the United States.  I’ll admit that shocked the hell out of me.
As a liberal, if I read something with a headline that radical (even if it supports my side of the argument), red flags instantly go off inside my head.  The first thing I do is Google the headline and see if any credible sources have reported anything about it.  Then I go to the article itself to see what source they used.   Then, if there’s even a source, I see where the source got their information — which more often than not isn’t cited or sourced at all.  It’s just some blog filled with all sorts of lunatic fringe radical articles with no factual basis whatsoever.
It just goes to show how blind many wingnuts are when it comes to the Affordable Care Act.  They’ve been programmed to hate the health care law to such an extent that most of them will believe just about any nonsense that flies across their TV screen, computer or smart phone.  But seriously, beheadings?  Absurd doesn’t even begin to properly describe that level of insanity.