"I believe this election turned out the way it did in no small part because a large number of Americans are now submerged in new factories of lies more insidious than anything Orwell imagined,"

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

"Politics isn’t about politics anymore.

That significant numbers instead see it as a vehicle to channel their fears and resentment-driven emotional instincts – beyond facts – is the existential challenge facing democracy today. ...

The tech revolution has changed everything."

~ Hardeep Matharu

#Trump #Republicans #fascism #future #disinformation
/13

https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-psycho-social-techno-politics

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

"For many outside of progressive, liberal, and left-leaning circles, social media platforms rife with conspiracy, disinformation, and hate are what people are seeing daily – and where they develop their sense of the world they live in. Social media is now the media."

#Trump #Republicans #fascism #future #disinformation
/14

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

"In this ecosystem, what matters is what resonates, regardless of how outrageous, and getting riled up is rewarded by the algorithm. Again, there is the interaction of such visceral instincts with the more factual grievance of the system not working in their interests."

#Trump #Republicans #fascism #future #disinformation
/15

[pricklypam@mstdn.social]

@wdlindsy

First, I have to admit I didn't read/listen to this article.

That said, many people just don't read/listen to mainstream media. They can't be bothered. It's not fun.

Instead they get their news from podcasts and TikTok videos.

Those are more entertaining to people who can barely read.

[lolonurse@ohai.social]

@wdlindsy
Anyone who hasn't seen the "comedy" film A Day Without A Mexican", you really ought to!

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@LightFIAR Feel free, if you choose, to focus on the perceived shortcomings of Democrats and not the serious threat looming before all of us, and, in particular, before the most vulnerable of us.

Some of us don't have the luxury of playing that supercilious, self-defeating game. I'm among those "some of us." I refuse to entertain it, not even for a second.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@lolonurse Thank you for recommending it. I haven't seen it and will look for it. I need comic relief now, for sure.

[gooba42@mastodon.social]

@wdlindsy Deportation is expensive. Bullets are cheap. The final solution in the situations is always the same.

We're going to arrest and enslave people and then when we've decided we've got all we need, we'll execute the rest. This playbook was written a long time ago.

[skua@mastodon.social]

@wdlindsy

Thinking that one way to punish states what weren't loyal to DJT would be to sweep them clean of undocumented workers.

Disruption of production. Wages rise. Local inflation. Less local purchases.

Products from loyal states stay cheaper.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@PricklyPam Yes, this is the case. Many people, especially ones raised with the internet, read less and less in any case — and that's surely a big part of the problem facing us now.

[nazani@universeodon.com]

@wdlindsy Some years ago a raid on 2 Missouri chicken processing plants rolled up 700 undocumented workers. Don't know if the employers were arrested. Definitely sure locals didn't cue up to fill those jobs.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Nazani Yes, this has gone on in waves in some places in the past decade or so. Agricultural workers in Alabama were targeted, and the upshot was that crops needing to be harvested were left to rot in the fields. Some of us are so eager to hurt others of us that it never seems to occur to us that we hurt ourselves in the process.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@skua Yes, I could see that possibility. If so, we would all need to be very concerned about the fact that so much of our food is supplied by the blue state of California, where immigrant labor is absolutely essential (as in the rest of the country) to growing and harvesting food.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@gooba42 Yes, when we set ourselves on this path, we need to be very aware of grim historical precedents. Many of us are low-information voters who haven't troubled to inform ourselves of that grim history.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@PricklyPam Yes, you're right. For many of us, the old adage, None so blind as those who see, is going to be right in front of our noses soon.

[variant488@universeodon.com]

@wdlindsy
Great thread. Thanks.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Variant488 Thank you so much for letting me know it's worthwhile.

[gooba42@mastodon.social]

@wdlindsy Every major media outlet ran positively endless "People are worried about X" stories without balancing them with coverage of the facts.

We were told so many times about how anxious people were around crime, inflation, immigration, etc. as though how (misinformed) people felt was the only story.

Reflecting their anxiety and paranoia back at them turns out not to help anything but the media owners.

[lightfiar@med-mastodon.com]

@wdlindsy Well, that's head in the sand--if the Dems are going to be winners, they have to shift gears. It's PRECISELY because Dems failed to genuinely get things done in favor of kowtowing to their 0.1% owner-donors that they lost.

[sewblue@sfba.social]

@wdlindsy I was looking up Project 2025 to better understand what will happen to hubby's government job in Social Security.

I was confronted with dated news articles stating Harris was wrong for saying Trump wasn't going to cut social security following Project 2025, that he had distance himself from the plan. CNN.

She was wrong, but his lies were trusted.