None of them could find the border.
;)
ShivaX
4588
Yeah fuck those welfare queens amiright?
CraigM
4589
You know what? Let’s let them make that their talking point. As Sun Tzu said, never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake.
You know the Republicans are going to attack social spending. The VA falls under that umbrella.
Anything to keep from increasing taxes on the super-rich.
ShivaX
4592
Oh look the “Veterans are welfare queens” narrative is being tested.
A thread in response:
ShivaX
4593
Apparently someone gave the ALL IN signal.
This will be a GOP talking point before the week is out at this rate.
Tman
4595
Yeah, my dad consumes Fox and we don’t talk about anything anymore. I used to call him weekly but it’s just not worth it. It’s now every 2 weeks and the 10 minutes of discussion is a struggle to talk about anything as I will avoid anything remotely resembling politics.
I quit following him on Facebook because of the crap he would spout.
It’s sad.
I’ve been sort of lucky. My in-laws cut out all cable Television a few years ago and my conservative father in law never had Facebook. I used to think it was odd that he didn’t, but now I really glad.
Now, that being said, he still surrounds himself with conservative friends and family, and we hardly ever talk about politics, but it just seems like he hasn’t thrown himself into the deep end like a lot of people.
I don’t understand why people want to watch news all the time. I like to stay informed but when I turn on the TV I want to be entertained.
Why watch hours of Fox or MSNBC? Why watch stuff that makes you angry? Being angry is being unhappy. Just turn it off.
Nesrie
4598
I know a lot more people glued to Fox News than I do CNN or MSNBC… and they’re all the generations ahead of me. I am more likely to watch Infinity Wars again than listen to some personality drum up news panic everyday. The people closer to my age or younger; they’re getting their news, often in snippets, from social media, feeds or just random headlines on websites.
My dad is a new radio and Fox News junkie though. Every time we talk he brings up politics, and I shut him down. The last time was this huge worry about us becoming communist country, boogeyman socialism or something with AOC.
I have the same opinion of horror movies, yet gazillions of fans seem to ignore my sensibilities.
ShivaX
4600
A lot of them are older people that watched the news when it came on. Only now the news is ALWAYS on, so they just watch it. Forever.
Because a lot of it is reinforcing what they think. You are right, everyone else is wrong. You’re better than other people. Look how wrong everyone else is.
Younger people do it too, they just tend towards social media.
Yup. The key is it is anger at others. It’s a very human reaction, across the political spectrum, to a feeling that things aren’t as you would want them and/or to helplessness. You’re not to blame for those bad things, others are. By doing that, you feel better about yourself and your situation.
Disaffected youth suffer this just as much (or more) than the elderly. I remember various studies on how civil unrest had a very high correlation to the unemployment rate of male youth, particularly in societies with more defined gender roles. Being a young male that can’t meet societal expectations of your role can lead to very extremist behavior as the young male seeks to assign blame for why they’re not up to snuff.
One of the issues about Fox is that it isn’t just blame-assignment, they actively stoke the sense that things aren’t great, now. MAGA is the same thing—you’re in a bad place (even if where you’re at right now isn’t really bad), let me take you back to the (fictional) good place.
Right – Trump is the greatest president ever, yet at the same time everything is terrible and only he can fix it, which he hasn’t yet, despite being the greatest president ever, because everyone is out to get him.
It’s not just this, it’s that the business of shock jock outrage pushing mandates that in order to keep your audience, you need to keep amping it up. If you ever tone it down, the audience leaves, so you need to keep upping the ante and upping the outrage meter.
It’s how you get to where we are.
Menzo
4604
My mom fell into this trap, but the other way. She got super addicted to MSNBC and folks like Bill Maher. It was easier to talk to her because we shared a lot of political beliefs, but she really went hard left and angry.
I often wonder how she would have reacted if she were alive when Trump got elected. I think it might have killed her.
My MIL is also off the left-wing deep end, sharing shit on FB from “Occupy Democrats” and other left-wing crazies. She probably re-shares the false story of Trump saying in the 80’s how if he ever ran for President he’d run as a Republican because republicans are stupid and easily fooled. I’ve told her several times he never said that, but she insists he did and she remembers him saying it. Even though the thing she’s sharing is in print, not a video.
Scuzz
4606
I don’t know anyone of my generation who does that personally, but I do know my dad would turn on the TV and that thing would probably be on the same channel all day long. My FIL is like that as well.
I think Rush Limbaugh made Fox profitable, not by being on it (because I don’t think he ever was) but because he prepared people for it by offering the same crap on radio for three hours a day, and in most markets being the guy on before Hannity’s radio show.
