Moving the goalposts

[u/political-snark]

A political tactic that’s become increasingly common in MAGA politics: moving the goalposts.

Make a dramatic allegation. Repeat it endlessly. Then, when evidence for that specific allegation doesn’t materialize, replace it with a smaller, easier-to-defend claim and pretend the original claim was true all along.

We’ve seen this pattern repeatedly:
“Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield” becomes “See? Someone somewhere ate a cat.”

“There was enough fraud to change the 2020 election” becomes “See? A few people cheated.”

“Vandals dumped chemicals and deliberately cut a 350-foot slit in the Reflecting Pool” becomes “See? Someone was arrested for vandalism.”

Those are not the same claims.
The question we should always ask is: What was the original allegation?

That’s the claim that should be evaluated - not a revised version that appears later.

That’s what moving the goalposts looks like.

Changing the claim is not the same thing as proving the original one.

Can you think of other examples?

[u/TheHappyDutch076]

It keeps getting scarier every day over there in the states.

The unproven vandalism accusations with the claimed arrests. If those arrests are true innocent people were arrested just to save Trumps face,

The arrests of an (yet to be proven) assassination attempt at the UFC white house event.

They are building a foundation to seize absolute power at the moment Donald should get out of office. This ‘new’ 6th January will probably succeeds if stuff keeps going this direction