When doctored images are disproved, believers 'just don't care.'

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

To back his assertion that President Barack Obama had coddled the world’s top sponsor of terrorists, Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.), cited an unusual source: a clumsily altered image of a nonexistent handshake between Obama and the Iranian president. The doctored photo, once used in TV ads supporting Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, had been repeatedly debunked since it first surfaced on an Egyptian Islamist political website in 2013.

But when critics last week chided Gosar for showing hundreds of thousands of people a faked image of an imaginary event, the fifth-term congressman said they, the “dim witted” ones, were in the wrong. “No one said this wasn’t photoshopped,” he declared. “The point remains … The world is better without Obama as president."

For ginning up political resentment and accentuating your rivals’ flaws, nothing quite compares to a doctored image. It can help anyone turn a political opponent into a caricature — inventing gaffes, undercutting wins and erasing nuance — leaving only the emotion behind.

Sharing doctored images of an electoral rival is a timeworn strategy of modern politics: In campaign mailers and TV ads, shadowy lighting, sinister music and unflattering facial expressions are so expected as to be cliche. But those tactics are increasingly playing out on the Internet, the most powerful visual medium in history, where they don’t require a campaign’s backing or resources to get attention.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/doctored-images-have-become-a-fact-of-life-for-political-campaigns-when-theyre-disproved-believers-just-dont-care/ar-BBYWx0R?li=BBnb7Kz

Basically Gosar's a dumbass.

[gratuitous]

1. Boss Tweed understood it very well

"Stop them damn pictures," he was reputed to have said, referring to the editorial cartoons of Thomas Nast, which depicted Tweed in a less-than-flattering light. Tweed knew his functionally illiterate base didn't read newspapers and their carefully-reasoned editorials, but show them a drawing, and they'd absorb the message real fast. And it would stick.

Same goes for doctored photos. Gosar knows his audience.

[rsdsharp]

2. You CAN at least shut them up sometimes.

Some time ago, on a gun board I frequented, somebody posted an obviously doctored picture of Obama putting his left had over his heart. Others in the picture didn't have their hands over their hearts, but it was obvious the image had been flipped. I pointed it out and the indignant response was "It's an AP photo."

It may have stated out that way, but I pointed out now the men were buttoning their jackets right over left, and that flag pins and pocket squares were somehow on the right hand side. He may not have accepted it, but he ended the discussion, right there.

[maxsolomon]

3. Its a normal fall back position when you're proved wrong.

"Bah", and a wave-away motion.

I see it every time I start to get through to an elderly Conservative.