Trump is genuinely popular now, at least enough so to win the election, because they were fed a diet of extremely professional fake news which was designed to create the impression that he should be popular.
I must register my disagreement. America, as a whole, is fine with a Trump presidency, knowing full well what that represents. People have agency, and shifting responsibility to “propaganda” ignores that agency and relieves people of responsibility.
No, the American electorate as a whole is responsible here.
Some of them, yes. And some of them, once the real horrors start in their neighborhood, will be too complacent to do anything or even say a word against it, but just keep going with the herd. My point is that I think a huge number of them have no idea what’s actually going on.
I’ve talked with them. They really think Trump is a genius, and that he’s finally going to start fighting for the working man, after decades of the Democrats’ betrayal (which that part is, kind of, pretty accurate). All this stuff you and I talk about, the reality of what he represents and what he plans to do, they have absolutely no idea about. It’s not in their media landscape, and their media landscape includes deliberately designed features to make sure they won’t be able to accept it when they are occasionally exposed to it. It’s really hard to wrap your head around how little of an idea they have about what’s going on.
I’m not saying you are completely wrong. Some of them really want mass deportations and a Muslim ban, even if they don’t know that he plans to do much worse than that. And some will go along with it as it starts happening, and fuck them. But I think the level of ignorance is really vital to keep in mind, in particular because it means that a lot of these people who are about to start taking part in atrocities are not really “bad people,” in the way it would mean that they were if they completely understood it.
There’s also the factor of “people tend to gravitate towards media outlets that tell them what they already want to hear.” Yes, propaganda works, but it works best on people who already want to believe it.
I must register my disagreement. America, as a whole, is fine with a Trump presidency, knowing full well what that represents. People have agency, and shifting responsibility to “propaganda” ignores that agency and relieves people of responsibility.
No, the American electorate as a whole is responsible here.
Some of them, yes. And some of them, once the real horrors start in their neighborhood, will be too complacent to do anything or even say a word against it, but just keep going with the herd. My point is that I think a huge number of them have no idea what’s actually going on.
I’ve talked with them. They really think Trump is a genius, and that he’s finally going to start fighting for the working man, after decades of the Democrats’ betrayal (which that part is, kind of, pretty accurate). All this stuff you and I talk about, the reality of what he represents and what he plans to do, they have absolutely no idea about. It’s not in their media landscape, and their media landscape includes deliberately designed features to make sure they won’t be able to accept it when they are occasionally exposed to it. It’s really hard to wrap your head around how little of an idea they have about what’s going on.
I’m not saying you are completely wrong. Some of them really want mass deportations and a Muslim ban, even if they don’t know that he plans to do much worse than that. And some will go along with it as it starts happening, and fuck them. But I think the level of ignorance is really vital to keep in mind, in particular because it means that a lot of these people who are about to start taking part in atrocities are not really “bad people,” in the way it would mean that they were if they completely understood it.
There’s also the factor of “people tend to gravitate towards media outlets that tell them what they already want to hear.” Yes, propaganda works, but it works best on people who already want to believe it.