“The United States, just months before its 250th birthday as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the edge into authoritarianism and fascism,” Garrett Graff, the American historian and author, wrote in August. “In the end, faster than I imagined possible, it did happen here.”
One awakes to new horrors each day. And it is difficult to grasp – and painful to realize – just how far gone we are, and how quickly it has happened.
And yet, none of this is in any way surprising. This is what the US voted for. Nobody who voted for Trump can claim innocence. They all knew exactly what they were doing.
I don’t know, the line between malice and stupidity has become so blurred with these folks - like some really didnt know what they were voting for but that’s only because they didn’t want to either out of weakness or assholishness. I never really grasped Malicious Stupidity before, nor how many of us were in its throes.
I think so many people have been raised/indoctrinated into the notion that they could not possibly vote Democratic. To do so would mean their soul would go to hell (“demoncrats”), or that they’d lose their manliness (cuz “soy boys” and Teh Gheyz, etc) or that they are siding with “radicals” (lol), and so on. Or you have single issue voters that are still hung up on things like their precious gunz or worried about abortion or getting their little book club into schools…
I think some people are so very locked into a certain identity so much that they think the only option besides voting Republican would be to not vote at all.
I feel like this argument would have held ground in 2016. After the first time around - after Jan 6th - everyone knew exactly what they were voting for.
Idk propaganda is strong, I’ve been having some good discussions with my maga dad and I feel like I’m starting to get through to him, it’s slow but I feel like it’s worth it. He honestly just wants the best for people and the country and he’s been mislead. I know this isn’t true for everyone in maga but some of them for sure are not forever lost.
Traditionally, being a consumer of mainstream media wasn’t the disability that it has become currently. Not that it was ever totally accurate or great. It’s just managed to get far worse. But so many people out of cultural and social inertia still are.
20 years ago blanket calling out the msm would have safely gotten you dismissed. Today it’s just par for the course as they’ve all been captured by fascists oligarchs.
One semantic point, “it did happen here” is inaccurate, it continues to happen and what little road blocks were in place ammounted to the suggestion of a speed bump in practice. This is still going on and will continue because it has not been stopped.
In a way, all malice is born of stupidity.
Either way, it’ll be small comfort when they are loading people on to the cattle cars saying, well, they were too stupid to know what they were voting for…
This comment reduces a 50 year campaign to destroy education in the US and polarize everything to people simply voting this in.
I’m with you. The school system is designed to keep voters stupid and uneducated when it comes to civil matters. But at some point, you can’t use it as an excuse. Yes, the system was against them, and miseducated them to this purpose, but they’re still making the decision. You can’t just handwaive away 100% of responsibility for the decisions people make as being a result of being victims of circumstance, because then there’s no such thing as a human being being responsible for their decisions.
True, but don’t forget that the internet essentially destroyed the last guardrail against stupidity: social exclusion.
Pre-internet (not even social media mind you as prior to that, BBSes and forums existed), if you were a dumbfuck, you got excluded. No friends, no hanging out with people, nobody wanted to spend time with you. And most people being social beings, you’d want to avoid that, therefore you either didn’t voice those opinions, or learned to change them.
Then came the internet and suddenly, the morons found brethren. First were the conspiracy theorists who were already excluded, finding safe havens to hide out at. But then slowly - and this is where mass social media, and easy access to it via smartphones and tablets, and affordable computing, comes in - the other morons, let them be racists, antisemites, homophobes, transphobes, etc., slowly discovered that hey, while they might be alone in their surroundings, they’re not alone when you account for 7 (back then, today it’s 8) billion people!
And so the last guardrail was gone, and stupidity, a la Idiocracy, has begun to spread.
Not to mention that the Nazis, coming out of hiding, were quick to utilise these new spaces to recruit people. Now with less overt racism and antisemitism, they preyed on the newer generation.
Remember when around 2012-13-14, all the big meme sites - 9gag, iFunny, etc. - slowly became more and more extremists, racist, and overtly Nazi? That was a somewhat coordinated move, capturing the youngest generation knowing full well their parents aren’t yet tech-savvy enough to do anything about it. Kids under 20-22 lack the reasoning skills older people do, this directly leads to lesser understanding on how bad their actions are, and how they’re being influenced. Which did happen slowly but surely, and resulted in the Trunp win just a few years later.
Mind you I’m not saying these people don’t need to take responsibility for their actions - they most definitely do. I’m purely explaining the reasons why things unfolded as they did, so we can prevent it in the future.
The real mistake was not finishing the job of getting rid of all Nazis back in 1945.
People were dumb and voted for fascism before the Internet, you know
In limited numbers, sure.
I was merely commenting on the verifiable result of the last US presidential election. I’m certainly aware of the events that lead up to that. On the other hand, I’m really really sick and tired of the constant excuses I’m hearing that are being made for the morons and assholes. If you voted for Trump you’re a moron and/or and asshole (usually both). No excuses. Nobody can tell me those people didn’t know what they were doing.
Have you watched their propaganda networks? They believe the same things about the left. They think they saved the republic from monsters. They think ICE is deporting murderers. They think antifa is a literal terrorist organization. They think 47 stopped 8 wars. They think these things because they’re in an information silo. No wait, they’re in a CULT. Some people do know that what they’re doing is evil. Most likely those at the top. But the rank-and-file MAGA are brainwashed cult members.
It would be very easy for these people to get information from different viewpoints. Their ignorance is wilful.
Oh for heaven’s sake they would say the same thing about you! Cult members do not think rationally. I know this from personal experience. If the message comes outside approved channels, it is disinformation at best and at worst, the work of Satan. Would you go to OANN for a different viewpoint? I’m beating this horse because I think it’s important to keep straight who the real enemy is: the elite class who is manipulating media and money to keep you and your MAGA neighbors under their heel. Your neighbor may lick the boot while you spit on it, but it’s crushing you both. The only way to turn the tables is to understand why your neighbor licks the boot and find common ground so you can work together to untie the laces and trip the enemy.
Yes and no. A lot of people are misinformed. It’s easy to say not being misinformed is the responsibility of the individual, just like recycling plastic is the responsibility of the individual consumer. Reality is a bit more nuanced. Misinformed people often simply don’t have access to good information or critical thinking skills to not be duped. Many others are straight up vulnerable to manipulation, through fears etc.
Democracy only works if people are informed. I think the American system has failed catastrophically to inform ordinary people.
That might apply to people in North Korea. In the US a different viewpoint is literally just a press of a button away. Their ignorance is very much willful. They believe all this shit because they want to.