This fallacy takes two forms, one where the blank is known, but not to the idiot, and another where the blank is known.
Let us start off with January 6th. Biggest caper in US history. You however, have got it all figured out. You’ve watched a couple hours of CNN, and even, for good measure, some NPR. “Fucking white supremacists” you say to yourself, as they cuff the alleged culprit, a dark skinned afro-cuban.
As human’s, we don’t like to spend too much time going “Wait, what in the actual fuck was that?” While fine for an initial reaction, we’ve convinced ourselves that this will all be resolved within a half hour to forty five minutes before things are tied up with a well shot, slow motion FBI raid. So what do we do when its apparent that that’s not going to happen? WE MAKE SHIT UP. What sort of filler material are we looking for? Well, it has to be on topic, in line with whatever was said before, and kinda work as a bridge, over the gaps in the story, to the conclusion we’ve already reached. Intellectual spackle essentially. This spackle, as its total fiction, doesn’t hold up to FACTUAL scrutiny, but narratively, its as convincing as on narrative facts, and in fact is MORE convincing than any off narrative facts. Thus, the spackle not only fills in gaps in information, but is also useful for preserving a false narrative that would be true if not for a few inconvenient facts.
This application is especially true in providing for counterfactualist narratives where the truth is known by one party, but not the other. This often happens when a party has SOME proof, but has witnessed the rest of a matter. The idiot will typically apply spackle over the parts which the other person has witnessed as if his filling in the blanks with bullshit puts him on equal footing to say what has happened. This is especially likely to go over well when the spackle matches the prevailing narrative.
Should you see someone filling in the blanks in the wild, feel free to give them a solid Will Smith style slap.
The mechanism, in my view, that is behind a lot of what you’re calling the “Fill in the Blanks Fallacy” is ingroup political signaling and the need to escalate that signaling (even to absurdity) to signal ingroup loyalty. Combine that with a little over credulity and you get Jewish Space Lasers (Greene never said Jewish Space Lasers) and I Can See Russia From My House (SNL made it up).
But these spread through memetics and became ingroup political signaling for Liberals to say “See how sane we are by comparison to our political enemies.” Just like “Terrorists at the insurrection January 6th insurrection killed insurrection five police officers insurrection. One insurrection was beaten to death insurrection.” from e.g. NPR for the last two years like a reenactment of that scene from Blade Runner 2049.
And “Blueanon” is really the driving factor behind the escalation. When the walls keep closing in on the piss tape and all the other things Steele’s sources made up at the bar, you have to make more absurd things up about your enemies.
The factual basis for the signaling doesn’t matter, what matters is “truthiness” as king shitlib Stephen Colbert coined.
I think there’s a significant element of ignorance of true politics as well i.e. power, patronage etc. Combine that with the current Regime of Truth we are living under and you have modern Western Liberal “politics”.
Reminds me of a discussion I had on reddit. The Proud Boys acted a fool somewhere and guy pulls up online like “Man, every time I check to see if ONE, just ONE of these dudes had real plates in their vests.” I pointed out that their armor is real and he says “Hey, don’t be defending them.” I then pointed out the costs of a plate carrier are about the same as the cost of a plate carrier with armor and that his claim just didn’t make since and was clearly false. He shut up after that.
It used to be that we hated liars. Now we hate people who disrupt a good narrative with their pesky facts.
Rioters should be prosecuted.
Rioters should be prosecuted.
Jan 6, Seattle, Portland, and all the rest.
Destroy property, do violence, and one should be prosecuted.
I have no comment on what crimes they may or may not have done. All I know is that there is certain standard to what we should expect from Americans. A lot of those who proclaim such a standard my fall short if you know what I mean.
Oh god. With police statements, I didn’t get either. Just BULLSHIT designed to fit a narrative. Then the judge and everyone, including some defense lawyers, would be like “Oh my god, you animal.” for about a year, before ultimately getting bored and finding someone else to fuck with. Sometimes they’d feign shock and disgust that they’d been mislead.