“The United States, just months before its 250th birthday as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the edge into authoritarianism and fascism,” Garrett Graff, the American historian and author, wrote in August. “In the end, faster than I imagined possible, it did happen here.”
One awakes to new horrors each day. And it is difficult to grasp – and painful to realize – just how far gone we are, and how quickly it has happened.
I don’t know, the line between malice and stupidity has become so blurred with these folks - like some really didnt know what they were voting for but that’s only because they didn’t want to either out of weakness or assholishness. I never really grasped Malicious Stupidity before, nor how many of us were in its throes.
I think so many people have been raised/indoctrinated into the notion that they could not possibly vote Democratic. To do so would mean their soul would go to hell (“demoncrats”), or that they’d lose their manliness (cuz “soy boys” and Teh Gheyz, etc) or that they are siding with “radicals” (lol), and so on. Or you have single issue voters that are still hung up on things like their precious gunz or worried about abortion or getting their little book club into schools…
I think some people are so very locked into a certain identity so much that they think the only option besides voting Republican would be to not vote at all.
I feel like this argument would have held ground in 2016. After the first time around - after Jan 6th - everyone knew exactly what they were voting for.
Idk propaganda is strong, I’ve been having some good discussions with my maga dad and I feel like I’m starting to get through to him, it’s slow but I feel like it’s worth it. He honestly just wants the best for people and the country and he’s been mislead. I know this isn’t true for everyone in maga but some of them for sure are not forever lost.
Traditionally, being a consumer of mainstream media wasn’t the disability that it has become currently. Not that it was ever totally accurate or great. It’s just managed to get far worse. But so many people out of cultural and social inertia still are.
20 years ago blanket calling out the msm would have safely gotten you dismissed. Today it’s just par for the course as they’ve all been captured by fascists oligarchs.
One semantic point, “it did happen here” is inaccurate, it continues to happen and what little road blocks were in place ammounted to the suggestion of a speed bump in practice. This is still going on and will continue because it has not been stopped.
In a way, all malice is born of stupidity.
Either way, it’ll be small comfort when they are loading people on to the cattle cars saying, well, they were too stupid to know what they were voting for…