Sure, but as a leftist who grew up in a deep red area, I can tell you that those people are, largely, uneducated and ignorant.
It is because of that ignorance that they’re able to believe the lies that led them to acting the way that they did. The people who bear the majority of the responsibility and blame are the ones who know that they’re taking advantage of and cultivating that ignorance.
I get to hear, in real time, the propaganda engine work on these people (which includes most of my family). I see how topics are framed, by media personalities, into palatable actions. As I’m writing this, there’s a podcast playing at my job, where DOGE is being celebrated for finding ‘fraud and abuse’. I know, for a fact, that the listeners don’t have a high school education and have no idea how the government’s payment systems work… but the radio is telling them that DOGE is doing good work.
So, how can they know any better? These are not people who’re ever going to continue their education and their media literacy skills were developed in the 80s. They’re simply not equipped to handle the scale of lying that exists in the modern world.
On the other hand, the person talking, has multiple degrees and has served in the federal government. That person KNOWS they’re lying but continue to do so because it is profitable. I find people like that to be far more culpable. They’re lying for profit (grifting, to use an over used term) and their lies reach millions of voters.
Then you have the people who benefit from the lies. Trump and Elon know that they’re dealing with ignorant people, they know exactly how to use populist rhetoric at public events. While, in private, they’re using the power that they’ve obtained to corruptly enrich themselves and their sycophants.
Direct your ire at the people who’re actively profiting off of lies and corruption. Help to educate the other people around you when they’re being fed lies.
Attacking your neighbor while Elon and Trump ransack the government is not only pointless, it’s completely counter-productive and ensures that we’ll never unify against this kind of power grab.
I live in the state that gave Trump his highest margin of victory, so I have seen what you describe many times.
My friend listened to punk music and played in punk bands. He was very conservative politically. I hadn’t seen him in a while and we decided to go to a show hours away and catch up. We had stopped talking politics to preserve our friendship. We were on our way back from the show, listening to Rancid, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was like “hey man, you love this music, but do you not hear the lyrics? How can you say the things you say?” I didn’t know he had changed.
He had been doing survey work for a mining company for years. He explained that after he got out of that job, everything became clear. He wasn’t conservative anymore, in fact he had become progressive.
He explained that when he worked with nothing but hard right conservatives, with Fox News on all day, it seeped into his brain and corrupted him.
This is an intelligent man I’m talking about. He was a victim of propaganda and was smart enough to realize it once he was away from it.
This is always on my mind:
"“We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
Trump said this at a speech in Nevada during the primary in 2016, and people cheered.
Ok but I still partially blame the people who voted the oligarchs into power
Sure, but as a leftist who grew up in a deep red area, I can tell you that those people are, largely, uneducated and ignorant.
It is because of that ignorance that they’re able to believe the lies that led them to acting the way that they did. The people who bear the majority of the responsibility and blame are the ones who know that they’re taking advantage of and cultivating that ignorance.
I get to hear, in real time, the propaganda engine work on these people (which includes most of my family). I see how topics are framed, by media personalities, into palatable actions. As I’m writing this, there’s a podcast playing at my job, where DOGE is being celebrated for finding ‘fraud and abuse’. I know, for a fact, that the listeners don’t have a high school education and have no idea how the government’s payment systems work… but the radio is telling them that DOGE is doing good work.
So, how can they know any better? These are not people who’re ever going to continue their education and their media literacy skills were developed in the 80s. They’re simply not equipped to handle the scale of lying that exists in the modern world.
On the other hand, the person talking, has multiple degrees and has served in the federal government. That person KNOWS they’re lying but continue to do so because it is profitable. I find people like that to be far more culpable. They’re lying for profit (grifting, to use an over used term) and their lies reach millions of voters.
Then you have the people who benefit from the lies. Trump and Elon know that they’re dealing with ignorant people, they know exactly how to use populist rhetoric at public events. While, in private, they’re using the power that they’ve obtained to corruptly enrich themselves and their sycophants.
Direct your ire at the people who’re actively profiting off of lies and corruption. Help to educate the other people around you when they’re being fed lies.
Attacking your neighbor while Elon and Trump ransack the government is not only pointless, it’s completely counter-productive and ensures that we’ll never unify against this kind of power grab.
I live in the state that gave Trump his highest margin of victory, so I have seen what you describe many times.
My friend listened to punk music and played in punk bands. He was very conservative politically. I hadn’t seen him in a while and we decided to go to a show hours away and catch up. We had stopped talking politics to preserve our friendship. We were on our way back from the show, listening to Rancid, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was like “hey man, you love this music, but do you not hear the lyrics? How can you say the things you say?” I didn’t know he had changed.
He had been doing survey work for a mining company for years. He explained that after he got out of that job, everything became clear. He wasn’t conservative anymore, in fact he had become progressive.
He explained that when he worked with nothing but hard right conservatives, with Fox News on all day, it seeped into his brain and corrupted him.
This is an intelligent man I’m talking about. He was a victim of propaganda and was smart enough to realize it once he was away from it.
This is always on my mind:
"“We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
Trump said this at a speech in Nevada during the primary in 2016, and people cheered.
Ignorance is no excuse.
What if the system is designed to keep you ignorant?
If you want to come to that conclusion in a political postmortem 20 years from now I’d fully encourage it.
The problem is that right now the house is burning down and shaming people for playing with matches won’t save us.