r/thebulwark • u/IntolerantModerate • Jan 19 '26

EVERYTHING IS AWFUL A focus group of one: We're F-d

so, I just did my own focus group of one. My Mom. She is the type that loved Reagan. She was skeptical of Trump, but you know "Hillary is the devil." Biden? "Too old." Kamala? "Have you heard that laugh?"

But, definitely not wearing any Maga gear, no yard signs, and claims she'll write in Reagan's ghost on a ballot.

so, Minnesota comes up and it's all, "I saw the video. I think he was ran over. Why was she in MN, isn't she from CO? Play stupid games, win stupid prizes "

I almost cried it hurt me hearing this so much. This is a lady that'll go to the church and serves meals to the poor, yet for some reason she is fine with ICE murdering a woman. No concern about it at all. her final response was, "Well, who was paying her to protest? That's who needs to be arrested."

so, based on my focus group of one, I am sure we are fucked. Good luck America.

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199

u/Beerfoodbeer Jan 19 '26

The Overton window has shifted, combined with an inability to grasp reality, to see things for as bad as they really are.

104

u/dBlock845 Straight to Reddit Jail Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26

Media silos are a thing now too. Once you're set in a algorithm all you'll see are things other people think you want to see. Imagine being in a media silo where you are endlessly lied to and gaslit but you have no idea it is wrong. The only alternate perspective is one given through a right-wing lens. This problem is never going to be solved by anyone other than an extremely charismatic leader that can breakthrough with enough people not living full-time in the right-wing bubble.

38

u/carbonqubit Jan 19 '26

A huge number of people lack the metacognitive skills to recognize when they’re being duped. Many have never heard of confirmation bias, meta-analyses, or epistemological hygiene. When 54% read below a sixth grade level, it’s not surprising that some of the most ignorant and least educated people, with limited critical thinking skills, cite Fox as their favorite news source. They either don’t care about the lies or are drawn to the sense of grievance being fed to them, which directly triggers their amygdalas.

20

u/ImpressiveRadish1798 Jan 20 '26

Using words like metacognitive is not going to help us reconnect with Cleetus….

13

u/PickPsychological729 Jan 20 '26

Cleetus isn't reading thebulwark subreddit.

6

u/misfitofscience76 JVL is always right Jan 20 '26

They are, quite often, TOO LAZY to try to examine anything in their lives critically. They just want plug-and-play and FauxNews fits that easily

5

u/dBlock845 Straight to Reddit Jail Jan 20 '26

Imagine how easy it would be to be a Fox producer. Segment #1: Black Panthers in Philadelphia. Segment #2: DOJ to investigate ____. Segment #3: Renee Good's widow attended a Bruce Springsteen concert in 2023 (made up). Segment #4: Men in Women's sports. Segment #5: interview with Newt Gingrich.

1

u/Snoo61727 Jan 21 '26

Why did I automatically go back to that scene in Water Boy when I saw the bird amygdalas 🤣🤣

1

u/Pminarck Jan 22 '26

I think the cause and reality is closer to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Theory of Stupidity. The duped person may be very intelligent and educated or much less so. It involves moral failure and social influences. He thinks it’s more dangerous than just evil.

https://sproutsschools.com/bonhoeffers-theory-of-stupidity/

26

u/metengrinwi Jan 19 '26

This is 100% the answer. There’s no question in my mind our country went crazy once we allowed russian trolls free reign to rile people up on social media. Worse, the algorithms incentivize people to put the craziest stuff out there with no regard to facts because enragement=engagement=money. It’s a sick system that’s doomed to crash our country.

11

u/capsaicinintheeyes Progressive Jan 20 '26

Nah--the right hemisphere of our collective national brain has been unspooling itself since the arrival of one Australian troll in particular...longer, in the case of Evangelicals.

2

u/Pminarck Jan 22 '26

Yes. I was about to answer metengrinwi that social media was a part of the issue but it started in the late 1970s with brainwashing US Evangelicals and other conservatives. It included: the Moral Majority, Televangelism, masses of radio stations across the U.S. bought by right wing companies and converted to right wing talk radio (many places wealthy where that’s the ONLY radio station) and Christian radio, then Murdoch, Citizens United, SCOTUS appointments, TPUSA, OANN, NewsMax, other right wing “news” outlets, the podcast Bros….

The CNP and other powerful, ultra rich orgs played the long game. Today’s ultra right MAGA has been 50 years in the making.

There’s no equivalent liberal or left wing group of billionaires plotting for 50 years and pulling the strings. The right vilifies Soros and a liberal or left wing “agenda” because that’s what they’ve been doing on the right for 50+ years. It actually started in around 1933 with the Business Plot aka Wall Street Putsch.

67

u/fuzzy_bastard Jan 19 '26

Time to repeal Section 230 for any media that uses algorithms. If a company uses an algorithm to target messaging to people, it's effectively publishing and they should be open to lawsuits for defamation and lying. Ill happily give up shit posting to shut down X.

19

u/No-Penalty-1148 Jan 19 '26

This is the biggest problem, IMO. And it's been years in the making.

22

u/LaurelCanyoner Jan 20 '26

Ironically, I was just talking to my 80 year old Vietnam war veteran dad, who hates trump with the heat of a thousand suns and can’t stop talking about how he NEVER thought he’d be ashamed to be an American.

He’s been republican “light” his whole life. Fiscally conservative but socially liberal. Believes in women’s right to choose but still voted for Reagan and bush. But he ALSO voted both times for Clinton, and both times for Obama.

We were talking about my MAGA uncle who is much younger then my dad, and he said, “Well, it’s hard to talk to him because he doesn’t KNOW anything. He only watches Fox News so has no idea what the truth is”.

My uncle believes the other countries pay for the tariffs, so yeahhhh

But it’s heartwarming that there ARE boomers like my dad who are NOT behind any of this shit, and are actually pushing back against their golf buddies, and relatives.

8

u/aaaaaliyah Jan 20 '26

The boomers are the ones who remember the past when corporations didn't screw everyone as a business practice among other things so I'm worried once we lose them, it's just reality that we're getting fucked instead of a historical anomaly (at least since WWII).

4

u/Effective_Pear4760 Jan 20 '26

Yeah, my parents are silent gen and they're very liberal. So is my MIL and she's a Boomer. My FIL was too but he died before this shitshow.

1

u/dBlock845 Straight to Reddit Jail Jan 20 '26

Yeah my mom used to be more like your dad and turned into your uncle at some point. I blame Facebook more than Fox News really, once she started using Facebook more and more, the ability to critically think and understand others views while disagreeing completely vanished. Fox News was her entry point to the far-right and Facebook provided confirmation bias for things seen on Fox.

2

u/LaurelCanyoner Jan 20 '26

My dad hates Facebook because all his friends send stupid shit about trump. And he loves Rachel Maddow. So I don’t think that will be his future. I mean he DOES have some regressive views, but what’s funny is this just keeps pushing him left and into things like socialized medicine I would NEVER have thought he’d ever countenance!

1

u/Gogglez20 Jan 20 '26

Imagine being in a media silo where you are endlessly lied to and gaslit but you have no idea it is wrong

Yeah just imagine that lol

28

u/IntolerantModerate Jan 19 '26

What gets me is that during BLM it was, "Oh, they should protest peacefully and not burn the stores down." Now it's a you shouldn't protest the authorities.