I think those of us Never Trumpers believe the Republican Party needs better leaders. Almost all of the elected Republicans have proven to be spineless when it came to standing up to a wannabe autocrat taking over the party. But, sadly, at the end of the day, the problem is primarily the GOP voters. We have too many of them who self-…
I think those of us Never Trumpers believe the Republican Party needs better leaders. Almost all of the elected Republicans have proven to be spineless when it came to standing up to a wannabe autocrat taking over the party. But, sadly, at the end of the day, the problem is primarily the GOP voters. We have too many of them who self-isolate themselves from objective facts and choose instead to be brainwashed by a panoply of Trumpian social and traditional media sources. (I don't call those sources "conservative" because such a description would be a bastardization of the term "conservative.") Some Trump supporters, who have isolated themselves, even go so far as to believe the most far-fetched conspiracy theories such as the Qanon nonsense.
With these brainwashed Republican voters, we face exactly the same problem as families who have members who have joined a cult. Cult leaders purposefully isolate their followers from outside information. The way you deprogram cult followers is to physically get them outside the cult information bubble so they are exposed to objective and truthful information.. But how do you deprogram Trump supporters who are intentionally allowing themselves to be brainwashed and who self-isolate from information that doesn't fit the narrative of their cult? I wish I knew.
As a side note, one thing not talked about regarding Ginni Thomas is how she came to become so radicalized. No doubt, it came from self-isolation from truthful information and instead being fed conspiracy nonsense from a constant drumbeat Trumpian social and traditional media sources. The problem is Justice Thomas is in the same household as Ginni Thomas. Maybe he hasn't gone down the same conspiracy-nonsense rabbit hole as Ginni, but you have to wonder.
Again, as I have said repeatedly, these people are not brainwashed. They believe the things they believe because, when push comes to shove, they WANT to believe them. They do a lot of work to make sure that their narrative remains intact and undisturbed--even if that means denying family and friends.
Perhaps it’s all a toxic mix in the same bucket. I was going to write that we shouldn’t get mired in the semantic weeds, but I guess it matters somewhat in how best to fight/resist.
That isn't brainwashing, that's pandering. In general, brainwashing (used colloquially) means taking someone and conditioning them to a belief that they did not have originally. The simplest example (of conditioning) is Pavlov's dogs. You can do the same with people if you have the resources and time.
Agree. Although I had one surprise when I pushed back, mildly, on a couple Trumpers during a car ride with just the three of us. They instantly folded. It's one isolated case, but in those two at least, i had some evidence that they were aware that their take on a news story (flight cancelations last autumn) wasn't true. It's performative, required for membership in a club.
Yes - there is something about not being able to stand alone for what you believe to be true. The classic experiment that shows this is the Milgram Shock Experiment that focuses on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience (https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html).
This is exactly correct. Remember that, in reality, most of these "leaders" are not leaders--they simply amplify the thoughts and ideas that they think will get them money and/or power.
The thoughts and ideas were already there. The beliefs were already there. The media (particularly Faux and their major personalities like Tucker and Hannity) plays a larger leadership role than most of these performance artists masquerading as legislators or national leaders.
People, in general, get the leadership they want--because, in a democratic system, it is really easy to replace people if you want to badly enough. So these are the "leaders" they want or at least, they don't dislike what they are peddling enough to get rid of them.
The great weakness of democratic system is that, for the leadership and nation to have character, the people voting need to have character as well.
"If you want to badly enough" is a huge qualifier. It is not "really easy." You have to wait the full term of office and a lot of damage can be wrought in that time. And you need a whole of of "yous" to overcome districting and incumbent advantages.
Or, as John Adams put it, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people (AKA people with character). It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Actually, our form of government comes from the Constitution, which was written in 1787 and ratified in 1788. The framers (of the Constitution) were Madison, Hamilton, Washington and Jay. See "The Quartet" by historian of the founding period, Joseph Ellis (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/239532/the-quartet-by-joseph-j-ellis/).
When the Constitution was being drafted and ratified, Adams was in Europe, serving as an ambassador in London. He was not involved. That qoute comes from when he was president, in 1798.
Adams was the leading voice for independency during the Second Continental Congress that declared our independence from Great Britain in 1776.
It's not JUST that they won't go outside their information silos. I am a never trumper whose family, including parents, one sister, aunts and uncles and cousins, ALL DISOWNED me, CUT ME OFF, think I have been deceived by the devil. They would crucify me for there beliefs because me and my other sister are scapegoats for their delusions, illusions and hypocrisy.
They will SACRIFICE family relationships for their ideology because they think they are morally supreme. They think god is on their side. It is religious zealotry and bigotry wrapped up in Christian nationalism. They don't see it and will do whatever it takes to STAY in that silo, even if they sacrifice their children, extended family, friends and country. Me and my sister confront it when we can but it does little to change anything.
On the plus side, there are many in the next generation (my nieces,nephews, my children) who see their BS and will have NOTHING to do with it. My hope is in that generation. Out of the 9 children between my sisters and I, 5 of them are inclusive and think their beliefs are CRAZY.
You've earned my "1000 likes" comment. I've lost some friends but, fortunately, my family is mostly Dem. That's a LOL...because I was one of the only GOP's among them.
I also agree that most of the next generation sees through it...because they grew up on social media and are much more savvy than many baby boomers.
"They don't see it and will do whatever it takes to STAY in that silo"
Once people have chosen a side as the side of all that is righteous, they can be fearful of confronting any contrary information.
First, it might shake their moral confidence -- "Could it be that my side is not always with the angels?"
Second, it might shake their intellectual confidence -- "Did I let myself be misled?"
Third, beneath the posture of being resolutely on the side of the good, they fear that they cannot defend their position against a challenge.
Fourth, they might fear, deep down, that they are easily swayed: "I thoroughly bought into this narrative without asking a lot of questions. So if I see a different narrative, will I fall for that one too? And then lose my sense of identity?"
Ooo - narrative and identity - the latter is a very powerful construct of the human psyche, especially when the identity gives you membership in a social group.
We humans are social beings. "(W)e share mirror neurons that allow us to match each other’s emotions unconsciously and immediately. We leak emotions to each other. We anticipate and mirror each other’s movements when we’re in sympathy or agreement with one another—when we’re on the same side. And we can mirror each other’s brain activity when we’re engaged in storytelling and listening . . ." (https://www.forbes.com/search/?q=We%20Humans%20Are%20Social%20Beings&sh=59340356279f).
As systems programmers put it decades ago, "It's a feature, not a bug."
It takes guts to stand with an unwelcome opinion! For you, personal conscience is greater than obedience. Isn't that what the American Revolution was about??
I agree with that. Since the Trumpers are mostly old, white people, they will soon die off. What's the expression? Adapt or die? (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugN5aD5p2NU.) If they want to make America Great Again they sure aren't adapting.
I have a feeling Ginni has a lot more free time than Justice Thomas, and that's part of how she got to this point. I have to hope in some way he feels about his wife the way you describe family members who deal with family that has joined a cult. Because if he's into the same stuff she's into, he totally lacks the judgment to be on the Supreme Court.
There's something energizing about the feeling that one is on the side of good, battling resolutely against the side of evil. It gives one a sense of purpose. "My life is meaningful because I'm fighting the good fight against those guys."
At the same time, once you've chosen sides, you don't need to give much thought to what's best in any particular situation. You just line up with the side you've chosen.
For the Trumpites, there's an added thrill: The feeling of discovering that most of your side had been wrong, but you've found the group of renegades who really get it and see the truth of things; who know that your old enemies are still bad but also that most of your old allies were secretly working with your enemies!
Once you've aligned with the renegades, and they have now subjugated most of your old allies, are you going to decide "Maybe those who opposed the renegades got something right after all"? Or would you be more likely to say: "We were right about how corrupt the establishment is, and it's even worse than we realized!" Probably the latter, because it would confirm your sense of moral purpose.
This just came across my Twitter feed, so I haven't read beyond the abstract yet, but it looks very interesting: preprint article titled "The manifold effects of partisan news media on viewers' beliefs and attitudes: A field experiment with Fox News viewers". https://osf.io/jrw26/
"too many of them who self-isolate themselves from objective facts and choose instead to be brainwashed"
I agree with this thought, and it needs to be expressed more often. I've been writing for a while now that many Trump supporters are willfully being fooled by 'Stop The Steal', for example. It gives them an escape from accountability to say that they've been duped, or misinformed.
Without doubt, it's easier to believe simplistic lies than doing the hard work of digging for truth. That's more true recently with the explosion of available media. Too many Americans lack the time required, the education required, and unfortunately the sense of importance required, to do the work of democracy.
Today's internet is the greatest victory for confirmation bias in human history. And it's a shame, because there is so much great information on the internet, but too many people go for affirmation of their priors instead. They want cake, not broccoli.
I wonder if there's any hope that society will adapt to the negative aspects of the internet. Previous media advances, from the printing press to the telephone to television raised fears of negative change. But in the case of the internet it's almost the opposite; everyone thought it was revolutionary in a good way, until the dangers became obvious.
I fear the Internet parallels the printing press. The printing press led to intense disruptions and the tearing down of Catholic hegemony, which led to copious violence in the name of religion and about 200 years of religious wars. But for all of that, we’re in a much better place today than we would have been if we still only had monks copying manuscripts. I think if we survive, your hopes for society’s adaptation to the Internet are likely to materialize. But it will be a very long, very bumpy ride getting there.
I have to say, it's pretty interesting to be witnessing it and being AWARE of the magnitude of it simultaneously, which wasn't the case for the humans alive as the printing press caused such massive upheaval. I'm not sure if the awareness is a blessing or a curse.
Amen. Amen. Amen. I thought the internet would open up the world to more information than ever before. But what it's done is give people an opportunity to isolate themselves from information they don't like.
The problem is that the internet has increased our access to information, but it has not increased man's ability to understand and interpret the information. So, you have a lot of people who read all of this information, but are too dumb/ignorant to understand it. They know just enough to be dangerous!
I remember a radio host discussing a poll/survey which showed that viewers who watched Fox News were less informed/more misinformed, than viewers who watched no news!!
Oh, that's great! The best movie I've ever seen about conmen, that explains how it's done, is "House of Games" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAT7pA83cXY). "Con man" is short for "confidence man." The scene with the Marine shows how he gains his confidence then gets him to give him his money.
You're assuming they went outside their information silo to learn information contradicting their previous position, i.e. so they know they've been duped. I so wish that was happening, but sadly it is not.
Apparently someone did a study paying fox viewers $15 per hour to watch CNN properly paired with a “placebo” group. After watching CNN, at least some of those realized that they weren’t being informed or told the truth by fox.
To a large degree it is. It depends somewhat on your job and who you work with more than anything else, I think.
If you only look at certain media sources and you are surrounded largely by fellow-travelers, you can have a very limited window on the world.
If you want to avoid the angst, for short periods as a break, the best thing you can turn is stop consuming media of any kind that you have not carefully curated--PARTICULARLY social media.
Don't know if it is or not. But if it is and you find out how that's done, please let me know. Would be nice to take a break now and then by some means other than the funeral home.
Yeah, I would very much disagree with this. Anyone who thinks today's Republican Party is the same today as it was during Reagan and Ike years is not paying attention.
The old GOP was comfortable identifying itself with classical liberalism. The New Right says that classical liberalism was destructive.
Trumpers arose on the explicit premise that the existing form of conservatism was a failure and needed to be replaced, and that virtually all Republican leaders of the past were wrong -- unless they chose to get on the Trump Train. Many politicians did so for cynical reasons. Many lifelong Republicans quit the party because it became unrecognizable. That's one reason why The Bulwark exists.
As for the rank and file: while Trump alienated many Republicans, he also brought in many people who hadn't been very political, or who had been Democrats. So if the worst elements of the Trumpy GOP are just saying what the base wants to hear, it isn't exactly the same base as 10, 20 years ago.
There's no doubt some truth to the idea that Trump gave people permission to say out loud what they already believed, that doesn't translate into "the GOP was always this bad, but just covered it up better."
Another factor is how Trump and his hardcore base encouraged the further radicalization of conservative media, which in turn radicalized the people who rely exclusively on those outlets.
Long before Trump brought in Dems, in 1980, Reagan brought in Dems who were also political, like my mother. They were called Reagan Democrats. Her generation of Irish Catholics were anti-Semitic and racist. That was the quiet, unspoken part.
Yes, as early as '64. But that was saying it out loud which Carol mentioned above, unlike the Southern Strategy. Per Lee Atwater, "opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 [...] and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster..." (https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/).
The GoP wasn't always bad--but they started going bad quite some time ago. Reagan was part of that trajectory, but his actor persona and charisma helped cloud that.
There has always been a fairly large number of Americans who are actually pretty deplorable by the standards of modern civilization. They have wandered around in politics for some time, surfacing here and there when circumstances allowed.
Sometimes they were Dems. Sometimes they were Republicans. Sometimes some wanky third party. But they have always been there and probably always will be.
The current GoP has kind of selected for these people over the last 30-40 years in a continually reinforcing cycle of excrement. When the current iteration of this dies (for whatever reason or accident of history) they will go quiet for a bit and then reappear again when the circumstances are right.
The GoP might not survive, but the excrement they current increasingly represent will remain alive and well.
TC...have you ever read "I Love You, Ronnie"? My take from that book...is that Ronald Reagan had a soul, was compassionate and was thoughtful.
I'm only pointing this out because Trump is so FAR from that...so far as to be on the edge of ridiculousness to compare them.
If you want to argue that Reagan was simply a tool that got used to soften an otherwise hard and sharp edge of the GOP...I won't argue, but I truly think that Reagan would be very broken-hearted about today's GOP. Possibly...and my hopeful thought would be...that he would love the Bulwark and would also despise today's GOP.
I think those of us Never Trumpers believe the Republican Party needs better leaders. Almost all of the elected Republicans have proven to be spineless when it came to standing up to a wannabe autocrat taking over the party. But, sadly, at the end of the day, the problem is primarily the GOP voters. We have too many of them who self-isolate themselves from objective facts and choose instead to be brainwashed by a panoply of Trumpian social and traditional media sources. (I don't call those sources "conservative" because such a description would be a bastardization of the term "conservative.") Some Trump supporters, who have isolated themselves, even go so far as to believe the most far-fetched conspiracy theories such as the Qanon nonsense.
With these brainwashed Republican voters, we face exactly the same problem as families who have members who have joined a cult. Cult leaders purposefully isolate their followers from outside information. The way you deprogram cult followers is to physically get them outside the cult information bubble so they are exposed to objective and truthful information.. But how do you deprogram Trump supporters who are intentionally allowing themselves to be brainwashed and who self-isolate from information that doesn't fit the narrative of their cult? I wish I knew.
As a side note, one thing not talked about regarding Ginni Thomas is how she came to become so radicalized. No doubt, it came from self-isolation from truthful information and instead being fed conspiracy nonsense from a constant drumbeat Trumpian social and traditional media sources. The problem is Justice Thomas is in the same household as Ginni Thomas. Maybe he hasn't gone down the same conspiracy-nonsense rabbit hole as Ginni, but you have to wonder.
Again, as I have said repeatedly, these people are not brainwashed. They believe the things they believe because, when push comes to shove, they WANT to believe them. They do a lot of work to make sure that their narrative remains intact and undisturbed--even if that means denying family and friends.
I'm sorry....I think that brainwashing is exactly that...tell them what they want to believe...and continually reinforce it.
Perhaps it’s all a toxic mix in the same bucket. I was going to write that we shouldn’t get mired in the semantic weeds, but I guess it matters somewhat in how best to fight/resist.
That isn't brainwashing, that's pandering. In general, brainwashing (used colloquially) means taking someone and conditioning them to a belief that they did not have originally. The simplest example (of conditioning) is Pavlov's dogs. You can do the same with people if you have the resources and time.
That isn't what is happening.
Totally!
Agree. Although I had one surprise when I pushed back, mildly, on a couple Trumpers during a car ride with just the three of us. They instantly folded. It's one isolated case, but in those two at least, i had some evidence that they were aware that their take on a news story (flight cancelations last autumn) wasn't true. It's performative, required for membership in a club.
Yes - there is something about not being able to stand alone for what you believe to be true. The classic experiment that shows this is the Milgram Shock Experiment that focuses on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience (https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html).
Not exactly better leaders, there are some better leaders. The party needs better followers.
This is exactly correct. Remember that, in reality, most of these "leaders" are not leaders--they simply amplify the thoughts and ideas that they think will get them money and/or power.
The thoughts and ideas were already there. The beliefs were already there. The media (particularly Faux and their major personalities like Tucker and Hannity) plays a larger leadership role than most of these performance artists masquerading as legislators or national leaders.
People, in general, get the leadership they want--because, in a democratic system, it is really easy to replace people if you want to badly enough. So these are the "leaders" they want or at least, they don't dislike what they are peddling enough to get rid of them.
The great weakness of democratic system is that, for the leadership and nation to have character, the people voting need to have character as well.
"If you want to badly enough" is a huge qualifier. It is not "really easy." You have to wait the full term of office and a lot of damage can be wrought in that time. And you need a whole of of "yous" to overcome districting and incumbent advantages.
Or, as John Adams put it, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people (AKA people with character). It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Wow...great Adams reference. I think he had more to do with our form of government than any of the Founding Fathers.
Actually, our form of government comes from the Constitution, which was written in 1787 and ratified in 1788. The framers (of the Constitution) were Madison, Hamilton, Washington and Jay. See "The Quartet" by historian of the founding period, Joseph Ellis (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/239532/the-quartet-by-joseph-j-ellis/).
When the Constitution was being drafted and ratified, Adams was in Europe, serving as an ambassador in London. He was not involved. That qoute comes from when he was president, in 1798.
Adams was the leading voice for independency during the Second Continental Congress that declared our independence from Great Britain in 1776.
They were Deists, no?
It's not JUST that they won't go outside their information silos. I am a never trumper whose family, including parents, one sister, aunts and uncles and cousins, ALL DISOWNED me, CUT ME OFF, think I have been deceived by the devil. They would crucify me for there beliefs because me and my other sister are scapegoats for their delusions, illusions and hypocrisy.
They will SACRIFICE family relationships for their ideology because they think they are morally supreme. They think god is on their side. It is religious zealotry and bigotry wrapped up in Christian nationalism. They don't see it and will do whatever it takes to STAY in that silo, even if they sacrifice their children, extended family, friends and country. Me and my sister confront it when we can but it does little to change anything.
On the plus side, there are many in the next generation (my nieces,nephews, my children) who see their BS and will have NOTHING to do with it. My hope is in that generation. Out of the 9 children between my sisters and I, 5 of them are inclusive and think their beliefs are CRAZY.
You've earned my "1000 likes" comment. I've lost some friends but, fortunately, my family is mostly Dem. That's a LOL...because I was one of the only GOP's among them.
I also agree that most of the next generation sees through it...because they grew up on social media and are much more savvy than many baby boomers.
It must hurt to be cut off from your family. My heart goes out to you.
I too have hope in the next generation. I am blessed to be able to work with them as an educator.
"They don't see it and will do whatever it takes to STAY in that silo"
Once people have chosen a side as the side of all that is righteous, they can be fearful of confronting any contrary information.
First, it might shake their moral confidence -- "Could it be that my side is not always with the angels?"
Second, it might shake their intellectual confidence -- "Did I let myself be misled?"
Third, beneath the posture of being resolutely on the side of the good, they fear that they cannot defend their position against a challenge.
Fourth, they might fear, deep down, that they are easily swayed: "I thoroughly bought into this narrative without asking a lot of questions. So if I see a different narrative, will I fall for that one too? And then lose my sense of identity?"
Ooo - narrative and identity - the latter is a very powerful construct of the human psyche, especially when the identity gives you membership in a social group.
We humans are social beings. "(W)e share mirror neurons that allow us to match each other’s emotions unconsciously and immediately. We leak emotions to each other. We anticipate and mirror each other’s movements when we’re in sympathy or agreement with one another—when we’re on the same side. And we can mirror each other’s brain activity when we’re engaged in storytelling and listening . . ." (https://www.forbes.com/search/?q=We%20Humans%20Are%20Social%20Beings&sh=59340356279f).
As systems programmers put it decades ago, "It's a feature, not a bug."
Spot on! It was really hard for me to finally say..."I'm no longer GOP" because I knew it would be crossing a line.
I sort of had to brace myself for my opinion not really being welcome any more.
However...that being said...there was some freedom in being able to say EXACTLY what I wanted to say.
It takes guts to stand with an unwelcome opinion! For you, personal conscience is greater than obedience. Isn't that what the American Revolution was about??
I agree with that. Since the Trumpers are mostly old, white people, they will soon die off. What's the expression? Adapt or die? (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugN5aD5p2NU.) If they want to make America Great Again they sure aren't adapting.
I have a feeling Ginni has a lot more free time than Justice Thomas, and that's part of how she got to this point. I have to hope in some way he feels about his wife the way you describe family members who deal with family that has joined a cult. Because if he's into the same stuff she's into, he totally lacks the judgment to be on the Supreme Court.
I agree with Sandy G. in that I think he's probably 75% "all in" on her beliefs. She says everything that he can't as a SCOTUS.
To think that she wasn't sharing what she just texted Mark Meadows is beyond reason.
I think he belives the same thing she believes, something they share in their conservative Catholic faith: The Left is destroying the country because it's secular; the US without Christianity is doomed. Bill Barr, another conservative Catholic, spoke to this in his 2019 speech to the Notre Dame Law School (https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics). You can see this belief in her tweets.
Does he believe the Qanon conspiracy, or that the Bidens are a crime family? Who knows?
There's something energizing about the feeling that one is on the side of good, battling resolutely against the side of evil. It gives one a sense of purpose. "My life is meaningful because I'm fighting the good fight against those guys."
At the same time, once you've chosen sides, you don't need to give much thought to what's best in any particular situation. You just line up with the side you've chosen.
For the Trumpites, there's an added thrill: The feeling of discovering that most of your side had been wrong, but you've found the group of renegades who really get it and see the truth of things; who know that your old enemies are still bad but also that most of your old allies were secretly working with your enemies!
Once you've aligned with the renegades, and they have now subjugated most of your old allies, are you going to decide "Maybe those who opposed the renegades got something right after all"? Or would you be more likely to say: "We were right about how corrupt the establishment is, and it's even worse than we realized!" Probably the latter, because it would confirm your sense of moral purpose.
This just came across my Twitter feed, so I haven't read beyond the abstract yet, but it looks very interesting: preprint article titled "The manifold effects of partisan news media on viewers' beliefs and attitudes: A field experiment with Fox News viewers". https://osf.io/jrw26/
"too many of them who self-isolate themselves from objective facts and choose instead to be brainwashed"
I agree with this thought, and it needs to be expressed more often. I've been writing for a while now that many Trump supporters are willfully being fooled by 'Stop The Steal', for example. It gives them an escape from accountability to say that they've been duped, or misinformed.
Without doubt, it's easier to believe simplistic lies than doing the hard work of digging for truth. That's more true recently with the explosion of available media. Too many Americans lack the time required, the education required, and unfortunately the sense of importance required, to do the work of democracy.
Today's internet is the greatest victory for confirmation bias in human history. And it's a shame, because there is so much great information on the internet, but too many people go for affirmation of their priors instead. They want cake, not broccoli.
I wonder if there's any hope that society will adapt to the negative aspects of the internet. Previous media advances, from the printing press to the telephone to television raised fears of negative change. But in the case of the internet it's almost the opposite; everyone thought it was revolutionary in a good way, until the dangers became obvious.
I fear the Internet parallels the printing press. The printing press led to intense disruptions and the tearing down of Catholic hegemony, which led to copious violence in the name of religion and about 200 years of religious wars. But for all of that, we’re in a much better place today than we would have been if we still only had monks copying manuscripts. I think if we survive, your hopes for society’s adaptation to the Internet are likely to materialize. But it will be a very long, very bumpy ride getting there.
I have to say, it's pretty interesting to be witnessing it and being AWARE of the magnitude of it simultaneously, which wasn't the case for the humans alive as the printing press caused such massive upheaval. I'm not sure if the awareness is a blessing or a curse.
I think so, but not the current generations of adults.
Amen. Amen. Amen. I thought the internet would open up the world to more information than ever before. But what it's done is give people an opportunity to isolate themselves from information they don't like.
The problem is that the internet has increased our access to information, but it has not increased man's ability to understand and interpret the information. So, you have a lot of people who read all of this information, but are too dumb/ignorant to understand it. They know just enough to be dangerous!
I remember a radio host discussing a poll/survey which showed that viewers who watched Fox News were less informed/more misinformed, than viewers who watched no news!!
I heard somewhere that "the con" is the least reported crime, because that would require an admission of some failure of intellect.
Oh, that's great! The best movie I've ever seen about conmen, that explains how it's done, is "House of Games" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAT7pA83cXY). "Con man" is short for "confidence man." The scene with the Marine shows how he gains his confidence then gets him to give him his money.
You're assuming they went outside their information silo to learn information contradicting their previous position, i.e. so they know they've been duped. I so wish that was happening, but sadly it is not.
Apparently someone did a study paying fox viewers $15 per hour to watch CNN properly paired with a “placebo” group. After watching CNN, at least some of those realized that they weren’t being informed or told the truth by fox.
Yes it is. You just tell yourself anyone who presents you with any information that doesn't conform to your worldview is "fake news".
To a large degree it is. It depends somewhat on your job and who you work with more than anything else, I think.
If you only look at certain media sources and you are surrounded largely by fellow-travelers, you can have a very limited window on the world.
If you want to avoid the angst, for short periods as a break, the best thing you can turn is stop consuming media of any kind that you have not carefully curated--PARTICULARLY social media.
Don't know if it is or not. But if it is and you find out how that's done, please let me know. Would be nice to take a break now and then by some means other than the funeral home.
You're welcome!
Yeah, I would very much disagree with this. Anyone who thinks today's Republican Party is the same today as it was during Reagan and Ike years is not paying attention.
Indeed, many in today's GOP and conservative media world are openly scornful of the GOP is it was before Trump.
The old GOP was comfortable identifying itself with classical liberalism. The New Right says that classical liberalism was destructive.
Trumpers arose on the explicit premise that the existing form of conservatism was a failure and needed to be replaced, and that virtually all Republican leaders of the past were wrong -- unless they chose to get on the Trump Train. Many politicians did so for cynical reasons. Many lifelong Republicans quit the party because it became unrecognizable. That's one reason why The Bulwark exists.
As for the rank and file: while Trump alienated many Republicans, he also brought in many people who hadn't been very political, or who had been Democrats. So if the worst elements of the Trumpy GOP are just saying what the base wants to hear, it isn't exactly the same base as 10, 20 years ago.
There's no doubt some truth to the idea that Trump gave people permission to say out loud what they already believed, that doesn't translate into "the GOP was always this bad, but just covered it up better."
Another factor is how Trump and his hardcore base encouraged the further radicalization of conservative media, which in turn radicalized the people who rely exclusively on those outlets.
Long before Trump brought in Dems, in 1980, Reagan brought in Dems who were also political, like my mother. They were called Reagan Democrats. Her generation of Irish Catholics were anti-Semitic and racist. That was the quiet, unspoken part.
But that base actually started building with Nixon in '68 with the Southern Strategy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy).
Also conservative media began long before Trump when the GOP-controlled FCC abolished the Fairness Doctrine. See https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fairness-Doctrine.
Yes, as early as '64. But that was saying it out loud which Carol mentioned above, unlike the Southern Strategy. Per Lee Atwater, "opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 [...] and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster..." (https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/).
The GoP wasn't always bad--but they started going bad quite some time ago. Reagan was part of that trajectory, but his actor persona and charisma helped cloud that.
There has always been a fairly large number of Americans who are actually pretty deplorable by the standards of modern civilization. They have wandered around in politics for some time, surfacing here and there when circumstances allowed.
Sometimes they were Dems. Sometimes they were Republicans. Sometimes some wanky third party. But they have always been there and probably always will be.
The current GoP has kind of selected for these people over the last 30-40 years in a continually reinforcing cycle of excrement. When the current iteration of this dies (for whatever reason or accident of history) they will go quiet for a bit and then reappear again when the circumstances are right.
The GoP might not survive, but the excrement they current increasingly represent will remain alive and well.
TC...have you ever read "I Love You, Ronnie"? My take from that book...is that Ronald Reagan had a soul, was compassionate and was thoughtful.
I'm only pointing this out because Trump is so FAR from that...so far as to be on the edge of ridiculousness to compare them.
If you want to argue that Reagan was simply a tool that got used to soften an otherwise hard and sharp edge of the GOP...I won't argue, but I truly think that Reagan would be very broken-hearted about today's GOP. Possibly...and my hopeful thought would be...that he would love the Bulwark and would also despise today's GOP.