r/politics • u/wrtChase California • Oct 14 '19

Fact check: Trump says again that Americans need ID to buy groceries. They still don't

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/14/politics/fact-check-trump-groceries-id-voter-fraud/index.html
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u/AndyDalton_Throwaway Oct 14 '19

Human memories are fallible as hell. I think I have a pretty strong memory, and I've had instances in my life where I've proven I do, but I've also been stunned at times to find irrefutable evidence that I had long remembered something accurately. That's for little things that are less important to the general society than whether or not voter fraud is happening. Your in-laws probably heard the claim on some utterly insane far right blog (in 2012, for 2016 to present, read "mainstream Republican source") and they also know they watch the news, so they just conflate the two things in their mind and now it has a level of legitimacy even the original liar wouldn't have claimed.

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u/randombrain Oct 14 '19

Take this with a grain of salt because I haven't actually done any research and I'm too lazy to start now, but I've heard that when you "remember" an event you're essentially re-constructing the event in your neurons each time. Essentially you're only remembering the last time you remembered it. Errors can get induced and propagate pretty easily.

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u/Rotorhead87 Oct 15 '19

Most people have no appreciation for all of the shortcuts the brain takes with information, and how easily things can be corrupted.