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I think I understand propaganda well enough. I think you underestimate people's intelligence and misunderstand how propaganda affects people. In your own story of dealing with propaganda, when confronted with conflicting information, you realized your error, or were at least open to learning more. Or is it that you feel that you are so much smarter than the average conservative that they are just helpless compared to you? You are correct that they are full of fear and anger, but I don't believe it was something that just happened to them without them being able to do anything about it.
Also, not fascist? He straight out said he wanted to be a dictator, he praised Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un and, Hungary's authoritarian leader, Viktor Orban.
And as for his first term, even if we pretend that his policies and actions didn't significantly worsen the spread of Covid, and wipe Covid from the slate, his presidency was still a nonstop shit show that separated children from their parents for cruelty's sake, got service men and allies killed, exposed, got tortured, and got murdered a significant part of our foreign intelligence gathering community. And that is just skimming the top and pulling out the easy stuff.
No, that's my point exactly - I felt the inconsistency viscerally. My reality conflicted with what I never thought to question. It's the same for everyone.
My example was not to say I'm superior, but to say propaganda works. Even if you're educated. Even if you put in time to question your own beliefs. It slips in without notice, and you don't know it's there until you do
And the news, social media, the language of politicians - it's intentionally designed to give people a skewed version of the world.
Let me give you an example happening right now... The tarrifs. Markets went down, Trump approval went down. The markets recovered, people think it was a nothing burger
The ports are empty. The supply chains cuts are about to ripple through... But most people think that whole thing is over, that Trump just did a little insider trading, but the economy managed to hold up to it. So his approval rate recovered a bit
This summer, we're going to have empty store shelves. It's so obviously not over... But many, many people have mixed up the "economy" with the actual trade of goods and services.
That's the level of most people's understanding