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Has Google, the worlds most popular search engine, changed the definition of the word fascism to protect liberal mobs using violence to silence those who disagree with them politically? The evidence suggest they have.

You see it on signs at every protest or riot liberals accuse President Donald Trump of being a fascist. The words association with Adolf Hitler and its use now is no accident, its meant to strike fear in peoples hearts of tyranny.

Merriam-Webster defines the word fascism as a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralizedautocraticgovernment headed by adictatorialleader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition. The secondary definition is a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control.

This definition reflects the fact that Nazis were, in fact, both fascists and of the political left. They were the National Socialist German Workers Party, which favored a heavy-handed government in business and the personal lives of its citizens.

The authoritarian government of Nazi Germany not only oppressed opposing political views and used violence to enforce it, they supported a powerful central government which heaped social benefits on its citizens. The second part of Nazismis the socialist part, which is very similar to what the modern American political left advocates. For all their bluster to the contrary, Hitler was a man of the extreme left, and so was fellow fascist and Axis Powers member Benito Mussolini.

But if you type the word into Google, the definition they provide is quite different.

The worlds largest search engine pins fascism on the political right, not the left.

Google defines fascism as, an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. (emphasis added)

The secondary definition is, (in general use) extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practice.

Thats a striking difference from how the word has been defined for decades.

Screen capture from Google

Political conservatives advocate for small, less intrusive government where power rests with the states and individuals, and the federal government lives within its Constitutional restraints. Progressive liberals advocate for just the opposite: a powerful central government with authority vested in a strong leader who has the ability to impose decrees from Washington on everything from health care to education.

Google curiously adds right-wing to its definition and omits the severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition part.

By the traditional Merriam-Webster definition of severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition, the violent mobs protesting and rioting over President Trumps actions are the ones engaging in fascistic tactics.

The exact reason Google has changed the definition of fascism to reflect on the political right rather than the left is unknown. However, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, one of the worlds richest men, has been a vocal critic of President Trump, an activist liberal, and has protested the Presidents executive order on immigration.

Many members of the mainstream media have unquestioningly adopted the new Google meaningwithout explaining why, leaving their audience with the impression that speech or advocacy contrary to liberal orthodoxy is fascistic when, by definition, it is not.

Follow this link:
Google Redefines The Word 'Fascism' To Smear Conservatives, Protect Liberal Rioters - Daily Caller

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Posted: Feb 04, 2017 12:01 AM

Last week on Townhall I did a column called Answering 20 Questions Liberals Wanted to Ask a Conservative. In it, I noted that I had promised to answer liberal questions to conservatives without sarcasm. Since there was a great reaction to the column, I decided to do a part 2. Id like to give a special thanks to Conor Friedersdorf and Glenn Greenwald for helping me get liberal questions. Now, here are the answers.

1) Kamran ?@KamRancisco y are u so afraid of Muslims? Before 9-11, we were token Aladdin/Apu. Laughably, we are now out to destroy USA?

As a matter of fact, on 9/11 I had a Turkish roommate. So, no, I dont find Muslims scary. The conservatives who do find Muslims scary feel that way because they have been regularly reading headlines that feature Muslims murdering, raping, enslaving and torturing people in the name of Islam for the last 15 years.

Now is the average Muslim responsible for that? No, but that doesnt change the fact that a significant minority of Muslims support Sharia, are anti-Semitic, are pro-terrorist, etc. Unfortunately, these people have had some success in recruiting moderate Muslims to their way of thinking.

If we had an effective way to screen the radicals out, then Muslims wouldnt be any different than any other religious group. Unfortunately, we dont. In other words, there are unique risks to bringing in Muslim immigrants or refugees that dont exist with any other religious group. That leads to a certain amount of tension between screening out the not insubstantial number of Muslims who want to murder us while we try to avoid antagonizing moderate Muslims.

2) Paola Thomas ?@realpaolathomas Why don't women deserve equal pay for equal work?

Conservatives would argue that if you compare apples to apples, women already do have equal pay for equal work. Christina Hoff Sommers does a good job of explaining the conservative approach to the subject.

The 23-cent gender pay gap is simply the difference between the average earnings of all men and women working full-time. It does not account for differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure, or hours worked per week. When all these relevant factors are taken into consideration, the wage gap narrows to about five cents. And no one knows if the five cents is a result of discrimination or some other subtle, hard-to-measure difference between male and female workers.

Much of the wage gap can be explained away by simply taking account of college majors. Early childhood educators and social workers can expect to earn around $36,000 and $39,000, respectively. By contrast, petroleum engineering and metallurgy degrees promise median earnings of $120,000 and $80,000. Not many aspiring early childhood educators would change course once they learn they can earn more in metallurgy or mining. The sexes, taken as a group, are somewhat different. Women, far more than men, appear to be drawn to jobs in the caring professions; and men are more likely to turn up in people-free zones. In the pursuit of happiness, men and women appear to take different paths.

3) John Q. Public ?@BusterWindle Why don't liberty loving conservatives ever utter the phrase "voting rights"?

This is a perspective difference between conservatives and liberals. Many conservatives believe that if anything, weve gone way overboard in an effort to maximize the number of people voting. Not asking for an ID seems nuts to conservatives. Think about it: you need a drivers license to get on a plane, buy alcohol, get a place to live, cash a check, rent a car, but having one to vote is too difficult? Its hard to take that seriously. There are also a number of states where illegal aliens are allowed to get drivers licenses which automatically qualify them to potentially vote. When were not even taking the most basic precautions to safeguard the integrity of the vote because someone, somewhere might potentially have a problem if theyre completely incompetent, weve gone too far in the wrong direction.

4) Deeply Troubled ?@derivativeburke finally it seems like conservatives have a hard time mixing smaller government with a desire for that gov. to be competent

That would only be true if you believe that more money leads to better government programs and thats often not the case.

Conservatives actually have a different view on that issue. We generally believe that the federal government doesnt do anything as quickly, cheaply and efficiently as the free market. Moreover, we think the biggest reason that the government is so incompetent is that its doing so many things it was never meant to do in the first place. The 10th Amendment to the Constitution reads, The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. If we actually stuck to that, the federal government would only be a fraction of its current size and the competence level of the government would probably dramatically escalate.

5) Paolo Bacigalupi ?@paolobacigalupi Are you at all concerned that Trump is undermining our national security? Kremlin links? Australia fight? NATO?

I think Trump could conceivably undermine our relations with other nations via careless words or tweets, but I dont know that will happen. For example, I think having a more positive relationship with Russia could turn out to be a good thing. The Obama Administration used to think so as well. Remember Hillary and her reset button? As to the Australia fight, Im not convinced that it happened. To me, an anonymous source dredged up by the Washington Post to a call that very, very few people would have had access to isnt very credible in the face of denials from Trump and Turnbull that it happened as it was reported. When it comes to NATO, I agree with Trump that changes need to be made. Essentially, the United States and Britain are supposed to do all the fighting while everyone else does almost nothing except complain about how things are going. Additionally, many of the nations in NATO have let their militaries degenerate to the point where they couldnt fight their way out of a wet paper bag. In other words, we should be taking a hard look at NATO and either making some changes or going in a different direction. Long story short, there could certainly be problems with how Trump handles our national security, but so far, so good.

6) Alex Chrisope ?@AlexChrisope Will GOP Congress or Trump admin consider a basic universal income, whether as a replacement or supplement to entitlements?

That seems very unlikely because there would be a great deal of concern on the Right that it would lead to large numbers of people refusing to work and just living off their universal income. If anything, we should want to bring a much greater share of the population into the work force, not encourage people to drop out of it.

7) James R. Hoffman ?@JRickHoffman Can we make grand compromises? Voter ID, but Early Voting/Nat. Holiday. Abortion restrictions but free birth control/welfare

The incentives in our political system make it difficult to cut any big deals. If youre in a safe state or district (and most Democrats and Republicans are), this is an extremely risky move for you because youre not going to lose to the other side in your race. Youre only going to lose in a primary and signing on to deals that help the other side get what it wants is how you get primaried.

For example, imagine what would happen to the politicians who signed on to the abortion restrictions in return for free birth control and a more generous welfare system deal. Any Democrats who voted for that would get skinned alive by Planned Parenthood, theyd have NARAL organizing protests on their doorsteps and every liberal blog would talk about them like the devil. On the other hand, groups like Heritage Action and FreedomWorks would hammer any Republicans who signed on, while Rush Limbaugh would call them RINOs, conservative blogs would roast them, etc.

In an environment where the partisanship level is off the charts on both sides, its very difficult to compromise.

8) Jess Remington ?@JessRems Do you believe Trump will significantly revive the manufacturing industry thru higher tariffs and alienating trade partners?

Manufacturing jobs went away because per capita income went up a lot, shipping containers and computers made overseas factories much more viable and because of automation. Tariffs might bring back a few jobs, but they would also raise costs. Barring an economic collapse that made it possible to hire American workers at a fraction of their current rates, low skill manufacturing jobs are unlikely to come back, no matter what Trump does.

9) Lina ?@linalinablina why doesn't character matter to you anymore?

Although I have been generally pleased with how Trump has governed so far, I didnt vote for him, in part because I did have concerns about his character. On the other hand, if character is your first concern, Hillary was probably even worse than Trump. So, its not as if either party put up a candidate who was beyond moral reproach. I think there were a lot of conservatives who didnt really feel comfortable with Trump, but who looked at the only viable alternative and felt he was the better moral choice. I can understand that reasoning.

10) Miles Palmer ?@palmerpolitics At what point will taxes be so low that you would cease advocating for them to be cut further?

This is a simple question that has a very complex answer.

To begin with, America already has the most progressive tax code in the Western World. Thats how you end up with some people paying north of 50% of their income in taxes (if you add in state, sales, gas, etc.) while roughly 40% of the population is paying no income taxes at all. So, given that we run a massive deficit every year, you could make the argument that the wealthy are simultaneously being overtaxed while the poor and lower middle class arent being taxed enough. Since thats political suicide, nobody will openly make that argument, but eventually politicians will sneak in a VAT or some other type of sneaky tax to try to get more money out of the poor and middle class.

I know that doesnt quite answer your question, but thats because the answer is dependent on the level of government spending. If we, lets say, cut the government spending in half, not only would it create a massive spike in economic growth, wed need a lot less tax money to pay for it. In an ideal world, the federal government would be a fraction the size that it is currently and therefore, wed only need a fraction of the taxes that are currently paid in to maintain it.

11) Anti-Fascist ?@jacobtaber why is the religious freedom of an anti-LGBT baker important to you, but not a Muslim soldier or physician?

All religions, including Christianity, tend to pay more attention to infringements that impact their faith. So, yes, conservative Christians probably care much more about a baker being harassed for not serving a gay marriage than they do about something that impacts people of another religion. However, that being said, per the 1st Amendment, the religious freedom of Muslim soldiers and physicians is important and it should be treated as such.

12) Jess Remington ?@JessRems Do you think Christian refugees are more deserving of American assistance than non-Christian refugees?

As a Christian, I do put a higher priority on helping Christians & Jews than I do on helping people from other religions. Christians dont look out for each other the way they should. Setting aside my religious beliefs, Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world right now. Given that, if we are going to bring refugees here, Christians would seem to be the natural choice. Also as an added bonus, Christianity is the largest religion in the United States; so theyd be more likely to fit right in with the existing culture.

13) America 1776 - 2016 ?@ExGOPer How do conservatives square 8 yrs of calling Obama a "tyrant" while supporting an actual tyrant?

I have absolutely nothing good to say about Obama, but I dont know that Id say he was a tyrant. I think he was habitually dishonest, incompetent, hyper-partisan and deserved to be impeached, but I dont think he was Kim Jong-Il. He didnt try to put conservatives in camps. He didnt try to seize power although he certainly didnt care much about the Constitution or the law

As to Trump, I can see how some people may worry that he has authoritarian tendencies. I can understand how liberals would strongly dislike the fact that hes aggressively moving to the right just as Obama tried to move things to the Left. I could even see criticisms with how some of his policies have been executed, but he hasnt done anything Id consider tyrannical. In fact, other than a few divergences on trade, hes essentially governed so far as a standard conservative (albeit a very active one).

You may disagree, but Im not really sure that the reaction to President Ted Cruz or President Marco Rubio would be radically different than the one weve seen to Trump. After hearing that Bush, McCain, and Romney were all Hitler, its hard to seriously consider that Trump is tyrannical, particularly when it doesnt fit with what hes actually done so far.

14) DanFostersEthos ?@DanFostersEthos Why do you think a lot of conservatives are so receptive to stern father types on cable news and talk radio?

I dont know that Id describe Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, etc. as stern father types. That being said, theres an analogy that has fallen out of favor that may help explain the differences in what liberals and conservatives like to hear from the media.

Heres Larry Sabato explaining it back in 2008,

The Democratic Party is the mommy party, and the Republican Party is the daddy party. Now, you and I both love both our mothers and fathers, right? But they play different roles in many families. The mother is loving and caring and takes us back in and provides the safety net. The father is the disciplinarian -- tough love. He makes us face up to hard realities, at least in many families. Well, the mommy party is the Democratic Party. The daddy party is the Republican Party. And I think if you look at the economy, you look at the housing, the mortgage crisis, a whole wide range of things, you'll find that the parties fulfill these images.

These are very different approaches, but they have a great deal of influence on the attitudes, ideas and policies of both sides.

15) Osaye ?@Osaye1 why do you hate helping people?

Ive never mentioned this publicly before, but for the last three years Ive reached out to churches, found families that are struggling at Christmas time and bought presents for their whole family. It was all done anonymously and none of them have ever known who helped them out. Over the years, Ive also bought at least a weeks worth of groceries for three different friends in need. Incidentally, this sort of thing isnt unusual at all. Most of the missionaries, people working soup lines and tithing 10% of their income are conservatives. We tend to judge helpfulness based on what you actually do for people personally, not on whether or not you support a government program paid for with other peoples money. Its a different way of looking at it.

Here is the original post:
Answering 15 Questions Liberals Wanted to Ask a Conservative Part 2 - Townhall

The CPC gathering at Baltimore's Inner Harbor is an annual event designed to rally Congress's most liberal bloc behind a strategy for pushing its policy agenda. But after November's elections put Republicans in charge of the White House and both chambers of Congress, liberals see themselves as the last line of defense against the GOP's promised attacks on President Obama's legislative achievements.

"In a year when many progressive issues hang in the balance, this will be a vital opportunity for progressive leaders on and off the Hill to come together, build power collectively, and strengthen the resistance against hatred, bigotry and discriminatory policies," reads an introduction to the retreat.

"American values of liberty and inclusivity are under threat."

She hasn't said what topics she'll broach, but the event arrives just a day after Trump signed an executive order rolling back parts of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which established many consumer protections championed by Warren.

Other speakers slated to address the CPC conference include House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); Rep. Ral Grijalva (D-Ariz.), a co-chairman of the CPC; Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters; Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of liberal Jewish group J Street; and Jeffrey Sachs, economics professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

The retreat arrives as one of the leaders of the Progressive Caucus, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), is in the midst of a fierce contest to take the helm of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Read this article:
Warren to address liberals at weekend retreat - The Hill

There is an enormous amount of crazy-sounding news right now.

President Donald Trump really did set off a diplomatic crisis with Australia, possibly out of personal exhaustion. The White House really did fail to mention Jews in their statement commemorating the Holocaustand then, bizarrely, refuse to even recognize the error in the following days. And the president somehow incited a feud with Arnold Schwarzenegger during the National Prayer Breakfast.

If progressives are looking to be shocked, terrified, or incensed, they have plenty of options. Yet in the past two weeks, many have turned to a different avenue: They have shared fake news, online stories that look like real journalism but are full of fables and falsehoods.

Its a funny reversal of the situation from November. In the weeks after the election, the press chastised conservative Facebook users for sharing stories that had nothing to do with reality. Hundreds of thousands of people shared stories asserting incorrectly that President Obama had banned the pledge of allegiance in public schools, that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump, and that Trump had dispatched his personal plane to save 200 starving marines.

The phenomenon seemed to confirm theorists worst fears about the internet. Given the choice, democratic citizens will not seek out news that challenges their beliefs; instead, they will opt for content that confirms their suspicions. A BuzzFeed News investigation found that more people shared these fake stories than shared real news in the three months before the election. A follow-up survey suggested that most Americans believed fake news after seeing it on Facebook. When held to the laissez faire editorial standards of Facebook, the market of ideas fails.

Now the left has its own panoply of wishful thinking. Twitter accounts purportedly operated by disgruntled government employees@AltNatParSer, @RogueNASA, and the extra dubious @RoguePOTUSStaffhave swelled in number to become a shadow bureaucracy. Conspiratorially minded Medium posts insist to anyone who will read them that the real story of the Trump administration is even more layered and nefarious than it seems. And satirical news of poor quality has gotten passed around as a weird story more than once. (Queen Elizabeth II didnt actually say she could kill Donald Trump with a sword.)

Or at least thats how it seems to me. Brooke Binkowski is the managing editor of Snopes, the English-speaking internets most important rumor-debunking site. It is her job to sit around and look at some of the most popular falsehoods on the web all day. Earlier this week, I asked her if she had seen a spike in the amount and popularity of fake news aimed at liberals.

She immediately replied: Of course yes!

Theres a lot of confusion, and people are profiting from the confusion on all sides of the continuum, she told me. She said she had seen a concerted spike in fake news aimed at liberals since the inauguration.

She emphasized that theres no equivalence between the falsehoods coming from the American left and the right in the past two weeks. Individual Democrats on Facebook may cling to pleasant stories and wishful thinking, but the Republican White House press secretary spouts off lies beneath the presidential seal. On Thursday, Kellyanne Conway, a senior advisor to the president, referenced a terrorist attack that never happened.

But a preponderance of fake information ultimately harms the political cause that absorbs it. Its also bad strategy: Michael Walzer writes that the lefts task at this moment in history is to help hold the center. A polluted information environment does little to preserve the consensus reality that permits democracy to work.

My conversation with Binkowski, edited for clarity and readability, follows below.

Meyer: First things first. Have you been seeing more fake news or hoaxes aimed at the left lately?

Binkowski: Yes, there has been more coming from the left. A lot of dubious news, a lot of wishful thinking-type stuff. Its not as filthy as the stuff I saw that was purportedly coming from the rightI dont think a lot of it was actually coming from the right, I think it was coming from outside sources, like Macedonian teenagers, for examplebut there has been more from the left.

Its more wish-fulfillment stuff. Trump About to be Arrested! Well, yeah, whens that gonna happen? And we know its coming from the left because I know its coming from known players. Bill Palmer used to run the Daily News Bin, and it was basically a pro-Hillary Clinton news site. It was out there to counter misinformation. Which, okay, fair enough. But then he started to reinvent it as a news site, more and more, and he changed the name to the Palmer Report. The stuff that he puts out there, its nominally true. When you click on it, its some innocuous story [with an outlandish headline]. That is very harmful, I think.

The right-wing stuff often has this element of racial fear, even if it is subtle. One of the best examples I can think of was from this otherwise innocuous hoax news website. They make themselves look like a legitimate local news site, although they dont specify where, of course, and then they steal mugshots from one of those sites that host mugshots, and then they write a story around them that has nothing to do with reality. I saw a steady drumbeat of that over the past year or so, preying on racial fears.

Meyer: You saw the number of stories like that go up over the past year?

Binkowski: Yeah. Big time. I saw that pick up a lot last year.

Meyer: Is there advice you have for readers about how to recognize fake news?

If it arouses an emotional response is youif you see the headline and go, I cant believe this, Im so angrythen its probably something you need to check against something else. News is going to be rage-inducing, its going to be terrifying, it will make you happy. But if you have that visceral a response to something, then it is written specifically to arouse that response so youll share it. Just say no.

But I really dont want to make this the responsibility of the person reading the news, when there are so many things that have been broken down and atomized and made into individual responsibility that should be a collective responsibility. [News] should be a public service, and that is how public services exist and maintain themselves. And it should be seen as such.

Meyer: Do you have a fairly dim view of human gullibility, because you sit around and look at this stuff all day?

Binkowski: You know, I actually dont. Sometimes my faith in humanity is severely challenged. I actually think that people in the aggregate, even now, are smart. I think humans are smart. I really do. I realize that were in a generally discouraging moment in history, but I dont think people are stupid, and I dont think people are necessarily gullible.

Have you ever read The Gift of Fear? The gist of it is, trust your instincts because normally theyre picking up on things that you arent consciously noticing. Its an interesting book, and its generally about crime and rape and violence.

Ive always wondered why we slow down for car accidents. And the author of the book, [Gavin de Becker,] says, We always slow down for car accidents out of an ancient impulse, which is that humans want to learn. Thats why we developed these enormous brains. People always want to learn.

And I thought, you know what, thats true. Even people who are sending around these stupid stories that are complete BS, they would latch onto actual news, not conspiracy theories, if there was more actual news out there. I think that people are going about the fake news issue the wrong way. Pinching off fake news isnt the answer. The answer is flooding it with actual news. And that way, people will continue looking for information, and they will find vetted, nuanced, contextual, in-depth information.

There will always be a subset of people who reject it. I think 10 percent of the population either way. But I really do believe that humanity, although we may destroy ourselvesI really do have a lot of faith in us as a species.

Meyer: That ties to another thread in the left wishful thinking, which is the fake Twitter account from the government insiders who are rebelling against Trump. The most-followed example is @RoguePOTUSStaff.

Binkowski: Isnt that a fun read? Its gotta be BS, but its such a fun read. Ive messaged them several times at this point, saying, I dont want to know who you are, but can you at least prove that what youre saying is true somehow? We can use the encryption tool of your choiceI dont care who you are, as long as you are who you say you are. Theyve never replied, but they havent blocked me like theyve blocked some of our writers.

Meyer: Is there any other kind of fake news that youre regularly seeing?

Binkowski: I think weve temporarily lost our ability to enjoy satire in the United States. Theres a few satire stories that have made their way to us. I mean, most people usually mistake satire for real stories, but now its really bad. I think the left has collectively completely lost its sense of humor for nowalthough, I mean, the left maybe never had one in the beginning.

I just edited a story an hour ago about how Trump allegedly replaced a portrait of George Washington with a picture of a character from Ghostbusters 2. People are like, Is this true? Is this actually true!? No, its not. Its supposed to be satire.

Meyer: It is funny to me that, just a few months after attributing the election result in part to conservative-leaning fake news, there has been a surge of it among the party thats newly out of power.

Binkowski: Its so disappointing. I know I keep saying that. But we have also always had this misinformation, weve always had propaganda, weve always had disinformation, and weve always had BS. This has been part of American media forever. Weekly World News, if people remember that. National Enquirer is still doing whatever it is theyre doing. I do think fake news is always going to be part of the media and information ecosystem. I just think it needs to be balanced out by actual news.

We have to bolster the immune system of journalism, because thats going to be the only way out of this possible authoritarianism and inundation with fake news. People are so fearful, and thats whats driving this. People are afraid. The world is changing. It has changed. Theres all kinds of people around with different looks and different names and they look different and they talk different and it doesnt help when you get this constant line of BS.

Here is the original post:
The Rise of Progressive 'Fake News' - The Atlantic

In an electoral season that has blurred the line between fact and fantasy, a team of UCLA researchers is offering new evidence to support a controversial proposition: that when it comes to telling the difference between truth and fiction, not all potential voters are created equal.

When alternative facts allege some kind of danger,people whose political beliefs are more conservative are more likely than those who lean liberal to embrace them,says the teams soon-to-be-published study.

Conservatives vulnerability to accepting untruthsdidnt apply equally to all false claims: When lies suggested dangerous or apocalyptic outcomes, more conservative participants were more likely to believe them than when the lie suggested a possible benefit.

Participants whose views fell further left could be plenty credulous. But they were no more likely to buy a scaryfalsehood than they were to buy one with a positiveoutcome.

In short, conservatives are more likely to drop their guard against lies when they perceive the possible consequences as being dark. Liberals, less so.

The new findings are especially timely, coming in the wake of apresidentialelection tainted by so-calledfake news and in which unfounded assertions by Donald Trump gained many adherents.

Slated for publication in the journal Psychological Science, the new study offers insight into why many Americans embraced fabricatedstories about Clinton that often made outlandish allegations of criminal behavior. And it may shed light on why so many believed a candidates assertions that were both grim anddemonstrably false.

Finally, the results offer an explanation for why these false claims were more readily embraced bypeople who endorse conservative political causes than bythose whose views are traditionally liberal.

There are a lot of citizens who are especially vigilant about potential threats but not especially motivated or prepared to process information in a critical, systematic manner, said John Jost, co-director of New York Universitys Center for Social and Political Behavior. For years, Jost said, those Americans have been presented with terrifying messages that are short on reason and openly contemptuous of scholarly and scientific standards of evidence.

Jost, who was not involved with the latest research, said the new findings suggest that when dark claims and apocalyptic visions swirl, many of these anxious voters willcast skepticism aside and selectively embrace fearful claims, regardless ofwhetherthey'retrue. The result maytilt electionstoward politicians who stoke those fears.

We may be witnessing a perfect storm, Jost said.

The preliminarystudy,led by UCLA anthropologist Daniel M.T. Fessler, is the first to explore credulity as a function of ideological belief. The pool of participants was not strictly representative of the U.S. electorate, and some of the findings were weakened when the researchers removed questions pertaining to terrorism.

Moreover, some argue that it is not ideological belief but feeling beaten that makes people more credulous. When parties are thrown out of power, or have been out of office for long periods, their adherents are naturally drawn to believe awful things of the other party, says Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami.

Until the new findings have been replicated under the changed circumstances of a Republican victory, said Uscinski, they should be greeted with caution.

But the new results are in line with a picture of partisan differences emerging from an upstart corner of the social sciences. In a wide range of studies, anthropologists, social psychologists and political scientists have found that self-avowed liberals and people who call themselves conservatives simplythink differently.

All people range across a spectrum ofpersonality traits and thinking styles. But when compared to liberals, conservatives show a lower tolerance for risk and have a greater need for closure and certainty, on average.

Wired up to monitors that measure physiological changes, people who aremore conservativerespond to threatening stimuli with more pronounced changes than do their peers on the other end of the political spectrum: On average, their hearts race more, their breathing becomes more shallow and their palms get clammier.

Fessler started with a much more universal finding from evolutionary anthropology: When confronted with danger, humans are more likely to pay attention to the experience and commit it to memory than when theyre presented with cues that are neutral or pleasant.

Called the negativity bias, this inclination to give special weight to negative experiences has been powerfully protective, scientists believe. After all, failing to give such hazards their due could result in death, and humans who took a laid-back approach to such dangers were more likely to be purged from the gene pool.

As a result, a tendency to pay more attention to negative experiencesand even to scary warnings from othersis seen pretty much across the board.

Even so, Fessler reasoned, some peoplemay weight incoming negative information more heavily than others. Given the growing body of evidence for ideological differences in thinking styles, he and his team wondered whether conservatives and liberals would be differently inclined to believe assertions, including false assertions, when they warned of potential hazards.

In two experiments conducted in September 2016, Fesslers team recruited 948 American adults on websites designed to query subjects for research studies. To place each participant on the American political spectrum, the researchers asked for his or her views on a list of policies that generally divide conservatives from liberals. Then the study authors asked subjectsto rate how strongly they believed or disbelieved 16 assertions.

Some but not all of those statements were true, the researchers told participants. In fact, 14 of the 16 were false.

While six of the assertions dealt with outcomes that were generally positive (People who own cats live longer than people who dont), 10 made claims about potential hazards. Some of these outcomes were pretty serious: One stated that terrorist incidents in the U.S. have increased since 9/11 (not true in September 2016). Others declared that an intoxicated passenger could open an aircraft door while in flight (not true), that kale typically contains high levels of toxic heavy metals (not true), and that thieves could read encoded personal information from hotel keycards (not true).

Plenty of peoplewere taken in by lies about both hazards and benefits.And across the political spectrum, participants were more likely to believe scary pronouncements and a little less likely to believe cheery ones.

But when a bogus claim raised a prospective danger, the more heavily a subject leaned toward policies linked to conservatism, the more likely his or her skepticism fell aside. Meanwhile, the more heavily a subject leaned toward positions associated with liberalism, the more evenly skeptical he or she was toward claims cheery and scary.

The differences were not stark. But statistically, credulity toward dark assertions tracked with asubjects position on the political spectrum.

Using a statistical measure that gauges how widely subjects were scattered across the political spectrum, the researchersreckoned that for each tick rightward, the average subject grew 2% less skeptical of statements when they warned of bad outcomes than when they promised good ones.

That effect is pretty subtle. But spread over an electorate of 231 million eligible voters,the inclination of some to more readily acceptscary lies could make the purveyors of frightening falsehoods a more powerful force.

Fessler said his teams findings may help explain a curious phenomenon reported by those who fabricated fake news for profit: that stories aimed at liberal audiences were less likely to go viral than stories designed to draw in conservatives.

He also said the resultsmight help explain why social conservativeswere so inclined to support Trump.

When his team subdivided conservatives into three groups, he found that the trend toward dark belief was greatest in those who defined their conservatism largely in social and cultural terms. Among those whose conservatism was largely rooted infiscal policy, the selective credulity toward scary assertions was not evident.

The upshot, Fessler said, is that Americans across the political spectrum need a steady diet of truth. Sinceapocalyptic claims will always geta little more credence,they had better be factual.

You might be able to change peoples minds about issues, but you cant change their stable ways of responding to the world, saidFessler, who will tryto replicate his findings with a Republican in the White House.

melissa.healy@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @LATMelissaHealy and "like" Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook.

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Why conservatives are more likely than liberals to believe false information about threats - Los Angeles Times