|
It's not just Right Wing Media, or Fox News' audience wouldn't be fracturing and going off to OANN and Newsmaxx and all these other "Real Right Wing" networks. So, yeah, Fox News plays into it by providing a constant influx of right-wing materials and propaganda to allow people to soak themselves in fake news and close themselves off from reality. But it wouldn't be nearly as successful - so successful that people have decided that Fox is actually too liberal and are running off to more right-wing news - if it weren't for the internet and social media. Fifty years ago, people moderated their views and pulled towards a general middle because you were usually in communities you couldn't curate, and so your workplace and your bowling league and your neighborhood were filled with people of different views and people shave the edges off of or hid their more extreme views to stay part of their communities. There's a lot that's wrong with that - it stifles minority views and makes questioning the monoculture dangerous and isolating - but what we've replaced it with has much, much worse results. Now you don't need to care as much about moderating views because you can ignore these communities of location to search the internet for communities of interest instead, and so you don't have to hide your racism or sexism or desire to exterminate the enemy de jure because you can find somewhere on the internet that tells you these views are cool and good. But it's worse than that! Two things have intensified how much that happens and how bad it gets: first, the proven effect that these communities of interest spin further and further into extremism as people stake out more and more outside views to differentiate themselves within these groups (think of Twitter and how there seems to be the rush to have the hottest take to get the most attention; think of some of the threads that got insular and super-weird in C-SPAM); and second, that The Algorithms our social media uses assists people in finding these extreme groups because it generates hits and views and things that are great for monetizing the internet but absolutely horrible for having a healthy community. Which is why Fox News is no longer leading that particular tiger; they have to try and keep up with what Facebook is doing to their audience. Then, add on top of that the GOP's overwhelming victory in 2010, a wonderful synergy of blowback to the idea of government doing things and to the idea of black people being the face of the nation, and they were able to gerrymander the gently caress out of the country, which was great for them in the short-term politically... but has now put them into a situation where they don't need to care about the general elections, so they only care about the primaries, and it turns out that due to the aforementioned Social Media Extremist effect the people who matter most in the primaries are the most extreme people who live in an internet information bubble. The best way to unfuck this would be to force social media companies to actually moderate their sites, to force them to be accountable for their algorithms, which of course they won't do on their own because it cuts into their profits. The way it might unfuck itself naturally is as older people who are more susceptible to Facebook-brain die off and as we raise generations used to how much social media fucks you up, some of that effect dies off. Right now, some of the extreme actions on the part of the GOP are because they know for certain that they can't win free and fair elections, and at some point their voting base will be too small to even threaten to win unfair elections, and they'll have to figure out how to expand back to a viable coalition. Or, y'know, until the suburbs decide that it's okay if we have a dictatorship that exterminates minorities if it means that they get a tax cut, or even just a potential tax cut once they finally become the billionaires they know they eventually will be.
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2023 23:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 17:17 |
|
|
Zwabu posted:Right Wing Media, the topic of your other thread, BiggerBoat, is in my view the primary reason behind the continuing rightward shift. Without it things would not only ratchet in one direction, the GOP would move back towards the center sometimes in response to a loss like in 2008, 2012, 2020 or 2022. Totally agree. Advertising, which is what RWM and talk radio are, works and has a way of permeating discourse at a minimum and shaping thought on the top end. I don't think we have MAGA, Trump, 1/6 and a ton of other things without and its far reaching influence. It was one thing way back when where you had curmudgeons blaming Walter Cronkite for helping us lose in Vietnam or even hating on Dan Rather for botching a GWB story but now they just simply have their own version of the news. Alternative facts, etc. and now they hate the idea of a free press and the very foundation of the 1st amendment. Social media isn't helping anything either, as has been pointed out. I wander outside of my echo chambers now and then - a few times a week really - and the reporting, comments, topics and selective reporting is really something. Especially when I know that it actually LANDS. All I need to know about it, I can ascertain by simply overhearing conversations at work. The Rush Limbaugh model is 100% the modern GOP mold. BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Dec 10, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2023 23:38
|
|
|
BiggerBoat posted:
There has to be a study out there about how the fracturing of media has allowed people to self-select what they want to see. Back when it was just ABC, CBS, and NBC reporting news you were getting dry fact reporting and then fox and all these smaller networks come out AM radio decides to go full conservative talk and it allowed people to not have to engage with uncomfortable things.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2023 23:48
|
|
|
BiggerBoat posted:When assholes like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney (plus Haley and Christie) are the grownups in the room making any kind of sense or behaving anything close to reasonable, we really have evidence of a continuing Overton Window shift that needs an entire foundational overhaul to move. I don't see how the constant doubling down and trying to out conservative the next person really ends anywhere other than 100% pure unadulterated fascism/authorianism, even assuming that we're not already there. I would say that the Overton Window is more of an Overton Venn Diagram and the circles no longer have any overlap. There are two Overton Windows. So much cross breeze. BiggerBoat posted:I truly don't see a way to unfuck this. There hasn’t been any explosion of poverty or violence. There is just a massive social sickness that's being caused by an unprecedented information environment. The later in life somebody entered this environment the more it scares and confuses them, and the easier it is to spin them up with propaganda. We can see on surveys about crime and the economy that most people look out their window and what they see is relative safety and prosperity, but they are sure things lie in ruins just outside their field of view. There are, as there always have been, people living in misery, but we have more people who are miserable for sport. The gap between generations has never been anywhere near where it is now, and our ability to imagine the future has never been more limited. I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t see a way to unfuck this, but I am pretty sure it is going to get unfucked, probably within our lifetimes, but probably when very few of the people alive are older than us because it's pretty well established a majority of those people suck. BiggerBoat posted:The only inspiring candidates my party has run in my lifetime were Carter and Obama Misunderstood fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Dec 11, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 11, 2023 14:13
|
|
|
I agree with above poster, I think this a fact that social media is basically “new” to anyone over 35, in that they got into it after a certain amount of maturity happened in their brain, and so it is a very strong propaganda machine whose influence diminishes the younger the cohort is. If you grow up today, immersed in social media, you probably understand how most of it is bullshit and in general social media companies should not be trusted. Unfortunately the knock on effects of FOMO/depression and negative social impacts of algo-driven content is real, but I think this overwhelmingly is in the context of non-political things on the whole. Yea now you get a lot more Andrew Tate wannabes and poo poo than in 1994, but you don’t end up with 30million+ smooth-brained voters who literally can’t tell fact from fiction on the most obvious scam articles in the world. And most of these kids still have to go through school for 12+ years of their life and then work and co-exist with other human beings at some level on the real world, which I would hope would drive a more resilient perspective of the world than what is being offered online. You also see, in general, a rise in individual rights and expression and need for financial assistance against a backdrop of diminishing religious views which, uhh, runs exactly counter to the current GOPs playbook. The smart R’s know this so that’s why you see overt moves to ensure GOP wins despite shrinking demographics. Who knows, I could be wrong, we’ll have to see.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 05:51
|
|
|
I was nearly 40 when I first started using social media. I think there is way more to it than "olds are dumb*. Making generalizations about whole groups of people doesn't help
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 13:20
|
|
|
Crazyweasel posted:
 Social media zaps all our brains. The only winning move is not to play.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 13:33
|
|
|
Jesus III posted:I was nearly 40 when I first started using social media. I think there is way more to it than "olds are dumb*. Making generalizations about whole groups of people doesn't help Yeah but you grew up in a media and data environment that prepared you for it and you had at least a few years of SA posting in you before things went nuts in the early 2010s so you were at least familiar with how to sift through information. There is absolutely a point when our brains begin to lose the ability to process and apply new information. It generally occurs in a persons late fifties or early sixties, depending on a lot of factors. And for a bunch of neurocognitive developmental reasons, when this happens people don’t reexamine their abilities but look for things that reinforce their existing beliefs. Imagine every middle manager in their late fifties for example. When social media went huge, the cohort that was in their mid fifties and upward absolutely could not process what was happening and its one of the main factors that drove radicalization among the white conservatives. It was the single most revolutionary and impactful event in human cognitive history and it happened in a blink of an eye. Add on to that social media allowed people to isolate in echo chambers and there you have it. They don’t even have to pretend to process differing opinions.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 13:38
|
|
|
Why don't we see organized movements in opposition to social media or even the Internet as a whole? I would have expected militant luddites with this much change, even if things were going well.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 23:49
|
|
|
MixMasterMalaria posted:Why don't we see organized movements in opposition to social media or even the Internet as a whole? I would have expected militant luddites with this much change, even if things were going well. They don't get the meetup notifications
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2023 04:14
|
|
|
MixMasterMalaria posted:Why don't we see organized movements in opposition to social media or even the Internet as a whole? I would have expected militant luddites with this much change, even if things were going well. I think we’re a bit early for that yet. It’s pretty obvious how toxic social media is to anyone who is paying attention, but to your average person it’s just an innocent habit that is at worst a waste of time, at best it’s a way to keep in touch with grandma and your friends who moved out of state. Most people don’t seem to be aware of how it is specifically engineered to trick your brain into wanting to engage more, nor do they appreciate how it has been infiltrated from every special interest group on the planet. I have personally been anti-social media for a while now, since around 2016 when it was considered a pretty extreme position. Since then I have seen more and more people recognize the dangers of it, and even personally abstain from it, but they’re still a small minority. I’d compare our situation to smoking in the 1950s - it was well known to medicine by then that smoking was bad, but it didn’t really hit the public consciousness until 1964 when the government started publishing reports on how terrible smoking is for you. By the early 1970s there were mass movements to ban smoking which eventually lead to where we are now with massively reduced smoking rates. I hope that social media will follow a similar trajectory - hopefully faster than half a century at least - and we end up with it being a much more limited part of our society.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2023 04:38
|
|
|
Nikki Haley having a normal one on trying to explain the cause of the Civil War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FytvnU34N8Q I know we all quote that Achewood comic about "this is the worst possible answer in the universe" but this might actually be the case here, and that smug "next question" is gonna bite her in the rear end. Bellmaker fucked around with this message at 12:33 on Dec 28, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 12:31
|
|
|
It’s an incoherent answer that totally dodges the question. Seems like the right move for winning over Republicans.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 14:47
|
|
|
Bellmaker posted:Nikki Haley having a normal one on trying to explain the cause of the Civil War: I love how the woman in bottom right just clearly says 'slavery' to the woman next to her.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 15:25
|
|
|
Vivian Darkbloom posted:It’s an incoherent answer that totally dodges the question. Seems like the right move for winning over Republicans. In South Carolina yes, but that answer isn’t going to help her in New England, the ones that aren’t Libertarians are very much “Party of Lincoln” types. She already has that evangelical stink to her New Englanders despise (less so than DeSantis but enough) and this isn’t going to do her any favors.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 15:44
|
|
|
The thing is, no matter where she is actually campaigning, she has to be paranoid to avoid a video clip that will alienate the huge number of “state’s rights heritage not hate” people in her party.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 16:16
|
|
|
Yeah, there wasn't really any winning with that question, whoever asked it was definitely trying to screw her over. Good on them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 16:22
|
|
|
Has anyone identified who asked the question of Haley? It's a fantastic shivving.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 16:25
|
|
|
Zwabu posted:The thing is, no matter where she is actually campaigning, she has to be paranoid to avoid a video clip that will alienate the huge number of “state’s rights heritage not hate” people in her party. You bullshit a list of a bunch of things that ultimately boil down to slavery but make it seem like they're something else, then end with "of course slavery was also an issue". Racists are happy, because you clearly said slavery to avoid the gotcha, and Democrats are unable to spin up an effective controversy because you said the magic words.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 16:34
|
|
|
Damage control has arrivedquote:Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Thursday sought to clean up controversial remarks in which she failed to mention slavery as the cause of the Civil War.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 16:37
|
|
|
Discendo Vox posted:Has anyone identified who asked the question of Haley? It's a fantastic shivving. quote:At first, when she heard the question, Haley appeared caught off guard. The recreation room in this northernmost city in New Hampshire, a place that has leaned red in recent elections, grew quiet, and Haley looked at the man dressed in a plaid shirt who stood behind his sons seated in the back row.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 16:48
|
|
|
Vivian Darkbloom posted:It’s an incoherent answer that totally dodges the question. Seems like the right move for winning over Republicans. She's trying to avoid alienating the CHUDS in her base who still fly confederate flags, call it 'heritage not hate' and who go around getting in people's faces telling them that the Civil War was about states' rights. Especially in South loving Carolina. She's not an idiot. She knows the correct answer but, like you said, she just can't SAY it because the people she needs votes from are brain poisoned racists who still put "the South WIll Rise Again" and confederate bumper stickers on their trucks. Zwabu posted:The thing is, no matter where she is actually campaigning, she has to be paranoid to avoid a video clip that will alienate the huge number of “state’s rights heritage not hate” people in her party. Essentially this. Also lol at her moving on to the "Antifa Soros BLM UNdercover Plant 'Gotcha Question'" part of the explanation. Wonder if he was one of the secret operatives from Jan. 6? It's nothing new. Remember when Sarah Palin called "what do you like to read?" a 'gotcha' question? The most innocuous, basic, harmless softball journalist question in the world that anyone could answer in a heartbeat was somehow this unfair attack on Pit Bull Soccer mom. Of course, in Palin's case, the problem was that she actually never loving reads anything at all besides maybe Facebook posts, Tweets and emails but all she had to loving say was "I don't get much time to read these days since I'm so busy governing, running my state, working hard for the AMerican peoples and trying to save the country". She was too dumb to even have that answer locked/loaded/ready and made it look she was being picked on by pointy headed, mean, hard hitting journalists like *checks notes* Katie Couric. ... "Hey, Zwabu and Vivian Darkbloom, either of you read any good books or news articles lately?" Sorry if that question seems unfair. "No, not really" is an acceptable response. God drat. I typically read a lot but even I haven't picked up a book in 8 months or so and I'm not embarrassed admitting that. BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Dec 28, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 16:56
|
|
|
I wonder how Trump would have responded. Probably something just incomprehensibly stupid.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 17:11
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I wonder how Trump would have responded. Probably something just incomprehensibly stupid. "Everyone was happier before the civil war. So many people died, so much money was wasted, all for what? So we could have income taxes? They didn't have to pay income taxes back then, no taxes at all. Black people didn't pay taxes. Very happy when you don't pay taxes, trust me I know."
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 17:29
|
|
|
Timmy Age 6 posted:WaPo talked to the guy but he didn't want to identify himself. The guy knew just what he was doing and this makes me even more curious who he was and if he was working for someone.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 17:52
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I wonder how Trump would have responded. Probably something just incomprehensibly stupid. This might be a situation where Trump is too alienated from conservative political correctness to know what he's supposed to say, and ends up being relatively honest that the emperor has no clothes. Like when he said that women should be punished if they get abortions, which is the logical implication of believing that abortion is equivalent to killing a baby, because he didn't realize that the pro-life line is "abortion is like killing a baby but we would never punish a woman who did it." He might say "well the South wanted to keep doing slavery and the North wanted to get rid of it and today there's a lot of people say the South should've been able to do its own thing, but I'm a big fan of this guy Abraham Lincoln, we love Lincoln, he brought the country together, I'm gonna bring the country together..." Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Dec 28, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 18:16
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I wonder how Trump would have responded. Probably something just incomprehensibly stupid. The phrase "at a level never before seen" would have been used at least once, there'd be a "Big, strong Civil war veteran" with tears in his eyes, and Trump would have pinched many invisible nipples and played air accordion while telling the "sir" story.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 18:21
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/EggerDC/status/1740436604496605689?s=20 ron's answer while smarmy is about as correct as a gop chud will be. if he had played the Hogan "moderate" instead of weird church lady homelander, this probably would have helped him but dude set up a system that has books about the civil war and civil rights movements banned from schools so gently caress him. also its not the dems riding around with confederate flags.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 21:19
|
|
|
This sort of thing is why I think it might not have been a dem operative. If it were, why target Haley?
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 21:52
|
|
|
Discendo Vox posted:This sort of thing is why I think it might not have been a dem operative. If it were, why target Haley? . i think haley if she didnt gently caress up could win enough moderates/suburbs who wouldnt go for trump or ron. to get a swing state or two. but thats the whole beating trump thing, idk. i think its probably some moderate republican history dad who was curious to see what she would say.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 22:03
|
|
|
Discendo Vox posted:This sort of thing is why I think it might not have been a dem operative. If it were, why target Haley? Haley's in 2nd place in NH and gaining ground fast, and some Dems would rather face Trump again than her. Not saying it definitely was a Dem op*, but if it was, that would be the reason why *my guess, some anonymous dude in NH wanted to embarass a Republican by asking this question and hers was the town hall he was able to get in
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 22:05
|
|
|
I would probably be in the camp of rather facing Trump than her, although I don't know how she would ever get there currently. Trump is a loser with a dedicated fan base and my gut feeling is the turnout will not be there for him like it was in 2020. Haley would be an attractive option to people like my mom who recognize now that Trump is a batty maniac but who haven't yet realized or allowed themselves to admit that the entire Republican party is like that. Haley would be a "normal' Republican who you could vote for against Biden without hesitating over Trump's innate toxicity.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 22:10
|
|
|
The Ninth Layer posted:I would probably be in the camp of rather facing Trump than her, although I don't know how she would ever get there currently. Trump is a loser with a dedicated fan base and my gut feeling is the turnout will not be there for him like it was in 2020. Haley would be an attractive option to people like my mom who recognize now that Trump is a batty maniac but who haven't yet realized or allowed themselves to admit that the entire Republican party is like that. Haley would be a "normal' Republican who you could vote for against Biden without hesitating over Trump's innate toxicity. yeah. i think it would depend how haley did with abortion and the various awful poo poo thats gonna pop up because of the bans. but i think haley could win back my dad if she said/didnt say the right stuff. personally i also agree. id rather face trump or desantis then haley. least for now. obviously that big loving risk but if trump wins we are already in deep poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 22:27
|
|
|
Haley would be a return to Business Republicanism. She sat on the board of Boeing for a while after bringing a Boeing plant to SC (a right to work, anti-union state).
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 22:32
|
|
|
Virtually anyone but Trump also doesn't galvanize the other side to crawl through broken glass to vote for the candidate they don't really like that much anyway.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 22:41
|
|
|
Gyges posted:Virtually anyone but Trump also doesn't galvanize the other side to crawl through broken glass to vote for the candidate they don't really like that much anyway. i think desantis would to an extent, he would screech about makinge america florida and banning woke and etc.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 22:55
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:Haley would be a return to Business Republicanism. She sat on the board of Boeing for a while after bringing a Boeing plant to SC (a right to work, anti-union state). Business Republicanism is a big part of Trump's appeal too, by the way. My mom is not a single issue voter with no strong opinions on guns or abortion but votes R because they are pro business, and Trump was literally the Business Guy famous for Making Deals to a large amount of voters who otherwise did not engage in or particularly care about social issues. Post January 6th I think a lot of that luster has faded on Trump's end so there is definitely an opening for a "sensible" Republican focused on "fixing the economy" if they can somehow make their voices heard over the horde of Trump's shrieking base.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2023 23:55
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I wonder how Trump would have responded. Probably something just incomprehensibly stupid. Not sure. But I know it would have been self aggrandizing at a minimum and pretty sure he would squeeze something about how much he loves Lincoln along with something about how much black people love him. Or he might just call the entire civil war fake news and call the reporter or whoever it was that asked about it a mean, nasty person who's being very unfair to him. And, whatever it was, it would have been something many people are saying and something something like no one has ever seen before in all of history because anything he does is always that. It would be an attempt to sound smart in a way that might probably even give him credit for ending the Civil War or him talking about how, had he been president, it would have been solved better and far sooner with no bloodshed and black people would be rich and far better off now and he'd be on Mount Rushmore MAGA! Fact is, I doubt Trump knows one loving thing about Lincoln or the Civil War and could honestly care less, but all the statues are glorious and all the generals tell him they wish he'd been president back then so they could go back in time and thank him with tears in their eyes. The glorious, wonderful times of America's Civil War that are wonderful and beautiful. ... GOD I hope he doesn't win. I can't take 4 more years of listening to that jackoff bullshit every loving day. BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Dec 29, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 00:18
|
|
|
Trump will ramble on in every direction no matter what the question, but I think you guys are really overthinking his thought process. Dude's a product of the Northeast and has zero curiosity or brains. He'll say it was slavery, and then enter his typical word salad where he may brag about how he would have won the war so fast or he might just start ranting about how everyone is so uncivil to him now. If he'd actually spent any real life time outside New York, LA, or South Florida then he might maybe do a little off-key ditty about State's Rights.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 01:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 17:17 |
|
|
Gyges posted:Trump will ramble on in every direction no matter what the question, but I think you guys are really overthinking his thought process. Dude's a product of the Northeast and has zero curiosity or brains. He'll say it was slavery, and then enter his typical word salad where he may brag about how he would have won the war so fast or he might just start ranting about how everyone is so uncivil to him now. There is also a good chance he'd go onto a tangent about that property of his that he insists was the site of an important civil war battle despite that being categorically false, to the point where he commissioned his own historical marker for it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2023 02:53
|
|
