I don't normally watch TV, so it's easy to forget, but it's frankly horrifying just how heavily propagandized the average American is.
I don't normally watch TV, so it's easy to forget, but it's frankly horrifying just how heavily propagandized the average American is.
My liberal parents are like "television news is all propaganda" but also "so I was listening to NPR and..."
"Our local paper takes the side of big business" but also "the NYT and WaPo are the last bastions of democracy in this age of division"
I'm just going to share a chat convo I had with a lib friend about NPR:
<Me> Just because [NPR] isn't outright stating what you should think doesn't mean they're not trying to sway your opinion. Propaganda is just as much (if not more) about emphasis as it is about fabrication.
<Me> Who are the "both sides"?
<Him> NPR gives equal time to all views
<Me> How often do they feature Marxist-Leninists? Anarchists? Maoists?
<Him> NPR does a pretty good job of presenting enough info for me to form my own opinion
<Me> How often does it bring communists on to speak?
<Him> Don't know
<Me> What do you mean, "you don't know"? If you listen to NPR on a regular basis, you should be able to tell me roughly how often it includes communist voices.
<Him> I mean I haven't really paid attention to the exact view points. only that I get multiple sides of the story.
<Me> How can you claim they represent "all sides" when you aren't even paying attention to what people are saying?
<Him> I am paying attention to what they are saying.
<Me> But you just said that you "haven't really paid attention to the exact view points."
<Him> Bad wording on my part. I paid attention to the view points. But not to the political leanings of the person making the view
<Me> It shouldn't be hard to infer someone's political leanings from their viewpoints. They're going to make points that are in line with their views.
<Him> I dunno. I don't fit cleanly into any given political category.
"I don't know anything about the categories and this is a way for me to assert my individuality instead of revealing my ignorance"
Most people have contradictory viewpoints that don't align with their broader political views.
"When was the last time they had a conservative/republican give a viewpoint"
"Today."
"When was the last liberal/democrat?"
"Today."
"When was the last anarchist/communist?"
"I don't really know what viewpoints the speakers have."
:centrist: and most likely right wing.
I cut contact with him after he argued at length in support of vaccine apartheid because "poor countries don't contribute as much to medical research"
And nothing of value was lost.
No he's most likely telling the truth. The vast majority of Americans have completely incoherent political views that can change wildly depending upon the particular issue at hand. It's why culture warring is particularly effective here. You can have hardcore reactionaries who basically espouse communist-esque views on economic issues but vote Republican because they think Cultural Marxism is destroying American when the fucking Teletubbies said "trans rights"
Why are they like this?
By design. The two major political factions that the media and parties allow to exist are entirely differentiated by culture war bullshit and anything outside that paradigm doesn't exist as far as society at large is concerned. Without any sort of coherent central ideology people just aimlessly bounce from position to position depending on what they're exposed to, leading to completely incoherent views like someone agreeing they and their coworkers should own the company they work for and receive the fruits of their labor but vote for open fascists because McDonalds had a pride flag on their soda and the only source of information they're exposed to has beaten them over the head with tHe GaY aGeNdA for the past twenty years.