← the whole motif index

🧩 BND Motif Index · M1605

Stab in the back

A side's defeat is laid on enemies within: its own dissident voices are said to have demoralized the faithful and kept them home, rather than its leaders' failures.

πŸ•΅οΈ TheoriesπŸ—‚οΈ Blame motifsπŸ—‚οΈ Betrayal and Loyalty

⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.

A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.

πŸͺœ Its family

what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it

πŸ”— goes with: 🧩 They betrayed us

πŸŽ™οΈ Who it came up with

the shows we follow where its claims came up (0 left-leaning, 0 center, 1 right-leaning so far), colored by the show's lean; the bar is how many of its claims each one heard

  1. 🐘 Candace (podcast) 1 claim

"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.

πŸ—£οΈ In so many words

the words that carry it

πŸ’¬ the tellers' own words: β€œevery freak show podcaster on the right... spent the last two years demoralizing their tens of millions of listeners” β€œHe also blames Candace and Tucker” β€œSo he blamed podcasters in his COPE sesh”

🧢 Its claims

what's been told in this shape, in our words, by who told it: newest first in each; a claim's dots are the shows it came up on, in their lean's color (point at them for their names)

Told on the left 0

claims heard on left-leaning shows, and no right-leaning one

πŸ¦— No claim heard only on the left so far.

Told on the right 1

claims heard on right-leaning shows, and no left-leaning one

  • 2026-11-05 β€œAfter the defeat, right-wing podcasters are blamed for demoralizing millions of listeners by saying the GOP betrayed them; others answer that the GOP did.” 1

M1605 Β· first seen 2026-11-05 Β· what this is Β· how the index works