I feel for you guys who have parents firmly hypnotized by the GOP and Fox News. It seems strange to me to have a family so divided. I was raised by liberals and I’m a parent of liberals now.
KevinC
4963
What really gets me is that as someone of the Oregon Trail generation, I was lectured endlessly on the importance of not believing everything I read online. Not trusting random people I ran into there. That sort of thing. Yet now my parents and their generation have zero filter when it comes to information on Facebook, Fox News, or anywhere else. A meticulously sourced article on the Washington Post? Fake news. Something shared by Karen on Facebook? THE UNQUESTIONABLE TRUTH!
Thrag
4965
My wife and her family escaped the Soviet Union. Back in the USSR they didn’t believe a word of what was in Pravda. Now some decades on most of them get all their news from Fox News and believe it wholeheartedly. When trying to explain to my mother in law that something on Fox news was simply not true she wouldn’t have it because of some magical belief that only true things are allowed to be broadcast. They couldn’t say it if it wasn’t true! Of course that somehow doesn’t apply to other news outlets.
This woman escaped soviet fucking Russia. It just boggles my mind. Thankfully she’s not aboard the Trump train, she’s more “both sides are bad so vote republican” so she’s not beyond hope.
Edit: I should add, you think the Fw: Fw: Fw: emails your parents/grandparents are getting from their conservative friends are bad. She gets those emails from her friends who still live in Russia. She gets both American and Russian FwFwFws.
My parents aren’t quite this bad - and I’m happy to say that my father who was a lifelong republican has abandoned the party because of trump. Which I think is pretty good for people in their late 70s to critically evaluate lifelong positions
But even my liberal mom and now politically homeless father only seem to be able to recognize this with things that are highlighted by the huckster nature of trump. They dont seem able to apply the critical spotlight to old beliefs they used to have.
The old GOP tropes of poor people being lazy, Black people should stop having so many babies, migrant immigrants take all the jobs that hardworking Americans want just seem to leak out of their mouths at the weirdest time. When I point it out they get hyper defensive before they incorporate it into their worldview. Luckily trump usually offers me a stark example of how those lines of thinking are bullshit.
I can only imagine how for people less willing to be introspective how much Fox News and propaganda is a means to insulate themselves from feeling like they have been duped their whole lives.
It also makes me wonder where my giant blind spots are.
MikeJ
4967
Yeah that’s one of the things I find most scary talking to people walking around with giant blinders on.
Yeah… That “both sides” stuff is the go-to excuse for people who just don’t want to listen to new evidence that might make them question their affiliations.
I will support the bad side that wants to keep Earth habitable, thinks caging kids is a bad idea, and would like to give health care to everyone including its political opponents.
RichVR
4971
When you find one, call me. :)
Timex
4972
Yeah, the thing that enrages me more than anything, is how the GOP has managed to destroy my father’s ability to think rationally.
While talking to him recently, i actually almost broke through i think. I actually took him through some long sequence of things, logically, and then was like, “but that right there… That doesn’t make sense. How does that work?”
And there was a glimmer of recognition in his eyes. He knew it didn’t make sense. But then he shrugged it off.
The modern GOP propaganda machine is a refinement of the old Soviet one, in a very literal sense. Not only is it being driven by the Russians in an operational sense, but it’s just much BETTER now than it was in the 80’s. The Russians got freaking GOOD at this shit. And the GOP did too.
We’ve got a ton of folks now who are more brainwashed than the Soviets were ever able to do in the USSR. Probably, a big party of it is the combination of Soviet techniques and religion, which the soviets didn’t leverage as much. All those tools of authoritarianism, combined with religious zealotry, seemingly liquefies weak minds.
And yeah, he’s definitely getting on the “Fauci is corrupt” bandwagon that we knew was coming. Fauci speaks about scientific truth… It was only a matter of time before he became Trump’s enemy. Because the truth is Trump’s enemy.
I think most Soviets had a lot of cynicism about the government, even in their prime propaganda days. The American Fox cult can really only be compared to places like North Korea and modern day China. It’s all childlike true belief, no questioning ever.
KevinC
4974
That’s sad. My parents and most of my family are so far gone I can’t even try to have a conversation. They just completely shut it down the second they hear even a criticism or disagreement with Trump’s statements coming. This doesn’t surprise me as all with my mother, as it is just another facet of my mother’s religious fanaticism. Still, almost seems worse to be able to get so close and then to have the doors close on rationality.
I was going to type out a big… you know, we all know it. /shakeshead
Indeed, the idea that Soviet citizens were brainwashed or naive or blinkered about the nature of their government is ahistorical and insulting to them.
Unfortunately, the cynical shrug is about as useful to the maintenance of free government as childlike credulity.
That’s what sets you apart from them, Mr. Dog. The foundation for critical thinking is wondering about what you don’t know and being skeptical about what you do know.
-Tom
vyshka
4979
Yeah, apparently my family has been passing around some article that says Fauci and Co. were misleading the President, because they are power hungry, and it is all their fault not the President. I’m happy I left Facebook last year.
RichVR
4980
Does that work for religious values as well, Tom? Not arguing. Serious. I respect your input.
That’s a fair question, and a discussion I’d love to have in the appropriate place! But I don’t feel that religion is about “knowing” things. The whole paradox of faith is something deeply personal, and therefore deeply subjective. Religion is a way to look at the world, and not necessarily a source of information about the world. If that makes sense.
I realize this might sound glib and condescending (especially since I’m not a religious person), but religion doesn’t exist to teach people “critical thinking”. And that’s not necessarily a failing of religion. In the parlance of internet nerds, it’s a feature and not a bug. You also don’t learn critical thinking from listening to Bach, or holding hands with a loved one, or admiring a sunset, or helping a stranger, but that doesn’t make any of those things less important or less fulfilling.
-Tom
