Subject: Re: Puffery and Lies
The MAGA that I know do believe his blatant BS. Lately, a few I know have been on a "US Energy
production was decimated by Biden" rant. They really believe it. Can point out that it's actually
at a historical high, but they will not accept it.

Sure. My point isn't that nothing Trump says isn't a lie or a false belief on his part. Rather, the reason none of this stuff lands as much as Democrats hope is that his critics don't do a good job separating out the stuff that is puffery. When you "fact check" a statement like Trump claiming that he had the bestest environmental numbers ever, or include it in your list of lies, you just make yourself look a little silly.

As far as energy stuff goes, that's a little more complicated. Because that's not necessarily MAGA followers believing a specific falsehood that Trump told. The generalized message that Biden is bad for energy production (which is different than denying that energy production is at an all time high) is all over conservative media, not necessarily coming from Trump himself. And it's enhanced by the fact that the Administration doesn't want people to be aware that energy production is at an all time high and wants to create the impression that they're restricting output of fossil fuels.

And part of it isn't necessarily believing a falsehood, but just generally having a negative opinion of the opposing candidate and then extending that to believing that everything they touch dies. For a flip side, go up to any Justice Democrat supporter and tell them that the economy during the Trump Administration right before COVID was really good, and better than the economy right now. They're not likely to believe you. Yet in Q4 2019, unemployment was lower, inflation rates were lower, interest rates were lower, GDP growth was higher, and prices for nearly every commodity was lower. Which is why efforts to get voters to reject Trump based on economic arguments aren't landing, either, BTW. But that false impression isn't due to Joe Biden going out there and claiming that current unemployment rates are lower than Q4 2019 unemployment rates - which would be a specific falsehood - but rather from general vibes that nothing about Trump could ever actually have been within normalcy.