There are certainly very dumb people that support trump. There seems to be a willful ignorance amongst his base. That said, dismissing them all as “dummies” hides the really scary problem: they aren’t necessarily dumb; they are brainwashed.
Imagine if all you heard was how great Trump was, how much he’s accomplished, how badly Democrats want to bring him down, how they are setting him up,that Biden is the reason for these prosecutions, and never hearing any of the facts about the cases or anything remotely negative about Trump.
If you lived your entire life main-lining conservative talk radio, YouTube conservative conspiracy theorists, Fox News, news Maxx…and then have social media magnifying those views by feeding you all the things you already want to Believe (because you’ve been listening to this shit for years). Now Facebook is saying all of your friends think this way too.
Then you have republican “leadership” lying to you or misrepresenting almost everything because they can’t afford to lose their clicks or have news Maxx call them a Democrat plant. They are doing everything they can to stay in power even if it means they have no ethics or values. So they’ll sit there and weasel out of having any sort of backbone against obvious corruption or criminal activity.
And because of all that, people who grew up believing the news wouldn’t straight up lie or that their party has integrity, ethics, and values…they end up believing what they hear. It’s what their friends say on Facebook. It’s a massive groupthink.
When people say it’s like a cult, it truly is. They need to be deprogrammed. You know how hard it is to break people from their religion? That’s how hard it’s going to be to reel back Maga people.
But from their absolutely misguided, misinformed foundation, they are acting rationally. If everything they hear on a daily basis is true, of course they are fired up.
This trick is: how do we reach them? How can we even start reeling them back in?
We need things like this guilty verdict. We need actual leadership in the Republican party to stand up for what’s right and admonish his behavior. A group of them need to do it together so they can’t be picked off like injured gazelle by news outlets whose business is outrage.
I agree with you. I recognize my choice of words didn’t hit the nail on the head and I failed to take the time to find the right word(s).
Whatever the word is for people who are easily brainwashed and find comfort in their echo chamber despite being informed of the facts by historically reputable organizations - those people.
Because despite liberals also living in their own echo chambers, most of them can still observe reality and accept that Biden also has his shortcomings. They can also look at what’s going on with Hunter and agree with the reasonable Republicans and say whatever wrongs he did, he should be held accountable. They can judge him for what he’s doing / not doing in Gaza and protest him (as they should). If Joe Biden did one percent of what Trump has done in his life, Democrats would turn on him, not defend him. I’m still not forgiving him for the 1994 crime bill and don’t think he should ever have been elected president. I was excited to discover a progressive voice in TYT in the mid 2010s but I’ve kept a level head and realized they were turning into extremists.
Brainwashing, propaganda, advertising; I don’t understand how they work. I worked as an art director in advertising and I had to quit because of all the manipulation. They all treat people like rats hanging a big chunk of stinky cheese in front of them.
I’m a pretty dumb person but I vividly recall, as an eight year old in catechism class, thinking all religions claim to be the “true” religion and realizing that there was no such thing as god and it was ll bullshit. How was I, as an eight year old, able to break free from the cult while most grown adults fail to see through it all? That’s the part I don’t get and I wrongly chose “dummy” to describe these people.
Yea, I definitely understand what you are saying. I dont get those people either. Its frustrating and even heartbreaking because they are so misled–but are also so easily “misleadable”. Its hard to not fault them for it; its hard not to call them dumb.
I guess historically we called those people “suckers” or “rubes” – which still may not accurately reflect that they can be very smart people (or even critical thinkers) in most other aspects.
My question to them was: How does “dehumanizing” work to begin with? If we’re wired to be social empathetic creatures, what is so powerful about these statements to unwire us?
The entire story is missing right between these two paragraphs.
Why are dehumanization and violence so closely connected? As social creatures, we’re wired to empathize with our fellow human beings, and we get uncomfortable when we see someone suffering.
Once someone is dehumanized, we usually deny them the consideration, compassion and empathy that we typically give other people. It can relax our instinctive aversion to aggression and violence.
There are certainly very dumb people that support trump. There seems to be a willful ignorance amongst his base. That said, dismissing them all as “dummies” hides the really scary problem: they aren’t necessarily dumb; they are brainwashed.
Imagine if all you heard was how great Trump was, how much he’s accomplished, how badly Democrats want to bring him down, how they are setting him up,that Biden is the reason for these prosecutions, and never hearing any of the facts about the cases or anything remotely negative about Trump.
If you lived your entire life main-lining conservative talk radio, YouTube conservative conspiracy theorists, Fox News, news Maxx…and then have social media magnifying those views by feeding you all the things you already want to Believe (because you’ve been listening to this shit for years). Now Facebook is saying all of your friends think this way too.
Then you have republican “leadership” lying to you or misrepresenting almost everything because they can’t afford to lose their clicks or have news Maxx call them a Democrat plant. They are doing everything they can to stay in power even if it means they have no ethics or values. So they’ll sit there and weasel out of having any sort of backbone against obvious corruption or criminal activity.
And because of all that, people who grew up believing the news wouldn’t straight up lie or that their party has integrity, ethics, and values…they end up believing what they hear. It’s what their friends say on Facebook. It’s a massive groupthink.
When people say it’s like a cult, it truly is. They need to be deprogrammed. You know how hard it is to break people from their religion? That’s how hard it’s going to be to reel back Maga people.
But from their absolutely misguided, misinformed foundation, they are acting rationally. If everything they hear on a daily basis is true, of course they are fired up.
This trick is: how do we reach them? How can we even start reeling them back in?
We need things like this guilty verdict. We need actual leadership in the Republican party to stand up for what’s right and admonish his behavior. A group of them need to do it together so they can’t be picked off like injured gazelle by news outlets whose business is outrage.
I agree with you. I recognize my choice of words didn’t hit the nail on the head and I failed to take the time to find the right word(s).
Whatever the word is for people who are easily brainwashed and find comfort in their echo chamber despite being informed of the facts by historically reputable organizations - those people.
Because despite liberals also living in their own echo chambers, most of them can still observe reality and accept that Biden also has his shortcomings. They can also look at what’s going on with Hunter and agree with the reasonable Republicans and say whatever wrongs he did, he should be held accountable. They can judge him for what he’s doing / not doing in Gaza and protest him (as they should). If Joe Biden did one percent of what Trump has done in his life, Democrats would turn on him, not defend him. I’m still not forgiving him for the 1994 crime bill and don’t think he should ever have been elected president. I was excited to discover a progressive voice in TYT in the mid 2010s but I’ve kept a level head and realized they were turning into extremists.
Brainwashing, propaganda, advertising; I don’t understand how they work. I worked as an art director in advertising and I had to quit because of all the manipulation. They all treat people like rats hanging a big chunk of stinky cheese in front of them.
I’m a pretty dumb person but I vividly recall, as an eight year old in catechism class, thinking all religions claim to be the “true” religion and realizing that there was no such thing as god and it was ll bullshit. How was I, as an eight year old, able to break free from the cult while most grown adults fail to see through it all? That’s the part I don’t get and I wrongly chose “dummy” to describe these people.
Yea, I definitely understand what you are saying. I dont get those people either. Its frustrating and even heartbreaking because they are so misled–but are also so easily “misleadable”. Its hard to not fault them for it; its hard not to call them dumb.
I guess historically we called those people “suckers” or “rubes” – which still may not accurately reflect that they can be very smart people (or even critical thinkers) in most other aspects.
In related news, TheConversation promoted this 2018 article on Bluesky yesterday https://theconversation.com/the-slippery-slope-of-dehumanizing-language-97512
My question to them was: How does “dehumanizing” work to begin with? If we’re wired to be social empathetic creatures, what is so powerful about these statements to unwire us?
The entire story is missing right between these two paragraphs.