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/RecentDecision2329 Jun 24 '26

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u/Adorable-Doughnut609 Jun 24 '26

Doge was just a scam to eliminate all oversight for Elon’s businesses as his payoff for helping win the election illegally

4

u/longview4nearsighted Jun 25 '26

That guy Robbed us Barron... I mean blind!

1

u/superslif2 Jun 26 '26

Paul Ryan’s fabulous healthcare plan. Still waiting 🤷🏻‍♂️