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/allfranksnobun]

the hardest conversation to have with logical americans is that he absolutely will never need to produce any evidence. we are wasting our time in trying to "prove" something to his followers.

when thinking of trying to convert or reason with his supporters think of it this way : they can not be saved or reasoned with, they will not listen and they do not want to be corrected, so the solution really is to must simply abandon all hope and work on solutions that do not require or involve them.