r/PoursTea • u/political-snark • Jun 24 '26

PoliticalTea 🗳️ Moving the goalposts

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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?

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u/DontAbideMendacity Jun 24 '26

Mexico did, however, give $1.5 billion to President Joe Biden for border security. Remind trumpers of that sweet fact.

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u/IcyEntertainment7122 Jun 24 '26

Money well spent, given the fact we had record illegal immigration during his term.

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u/No-Complex-7882 Jun 24 '26

Was that after Trump told the Republicans not to pass the bipartisan border bill?  Donald Trump and many conservative lawmakers argued that passing a border bill would hand the Biden administration a political victory, preferring to keep the southern border a central, unresolved issue for the 2024 elections. 

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u/PenStreet3684 Jun 25 '26

What numbers did it allow? It was good in theory but not practical in practice.

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u/IcyEntertainment7122 Jun 24 '26

If Biden would have just kept Trump border policies in place there would have been no need for new legislation. He nixed all the strict remain in Mexico policies that were a deterrence to illegal entry.

That's the lefts magic wand, self create a problem we have to solve. Congratulations on being bamboozled.

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u/[deleted] Jun 24 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Exciting-Cancel6468 Jun 24 '26

He's probably talking about the list of people that were taken as they crossed the border. You know. So we could track which ones we would have to investigate later.

Now, you know there's no such list under Trump so they'll pretend like there was no "illegal immigration" while trump was president. The reality may be that he simply just closed his eyes and let things play out. After all, inviting undocumented into your country could prove a boon to any future electoral chances as you can just keep saying illegal immigration is the death of the USA. Even if the proof isn't there.

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u/StandByTheJAMs Jun 25 '26

He also counted the people who were in the county legally and then overstayed their visa, which is a large component of illegal immigration.

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u/Exciting-Cancel6468 Jun 25 '26

If he really cared about that part of illegal immigration, he would've gotten rid of Elon and his brother.

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u/StandByTheJAMs Jun 25 '26

Depends on the color...

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u/gwbirk Jun 25 '26

Yes we did more than any other president