Do u believe Donald Trump is to blame for the recent shootings in the US ? 🤔

@Kwek00 These words.of his enrage the lunatics in his base. And now they have become a victim of his manipulation tactics. 🤔

@Zonuss Only "now" ? ROFL , you haven't been paying attention.

And it's not just him. You have an entire culture or demagogues that just grift off of youtube and television and ride the waves of discontent. Rallying up the crowd with vindictive toxic language filled with biasses to make people feel good about their tribe and blame everything that they consider negative on everybody else.

You can find it with people like: Mark Levin, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Tim Pool, Ben Shapiro, ... it's all toxic right wing garbage. And that's only the right wing, because I'm not that familiar with the american left wing media because they just catch my eye a lot less. But I've been watching CNN for the presidential elections and for the washington DC debacle. And some of the people on there make me vomit too. This "painting with a large brush" and unnuanced remarks about 50% of their country because these people vote republican, is utterly disgusting for a person like me.

@Kwek00 True. But now a lot of his peers have disowned him. That also includes Vice President Mike Pence. Of all people. 🤔

@Zonuss So what Zonuss? Like... serious, so what?

The GOP enabled a 100% demagogue, that weirdly enoug used the same tactics in their own republican primairy. Remember what this movement did with Ted Cruz in 2016? It spread the rumor that Ted Cruzs' dad was mingled up in a conspiracy to kill JFK. Also other candidates from the GOP were harrased by smear campaigns that originated from the Trump campaign to undermine their credibility by invoking hate. And because of political oligarchy, because the party wants to win elections, they united behind him because that was the best way to win the election as a political party. Trump broadened the base of the GOP amassed a lot of power by spreading a narrative that is totally delusional.

[media=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMhi06arV20]

And now 4 years later, a lot of this has been normalised. And America is stuck with it. Good job GOP. They opened pandoras' box and if they don't watch out it will consume them. Because it's not about the GOP it's about the believe of a voter base in Donald Trumps' narrative. It doesn't matter what we say, what academics say, what politicians say, ... it just doesn't matter, because this believe is religious in nature. And these voters won't go away. Some of them will snap out of it eventually, but a lot of them will just seek a way to voter what they believe in. This is either a new demagogue or Trump running for 2024.

And a lot of them, since FOX started to change their vieuws on Trump in the news, have moved away from FOX which was already pretty probematic. And now moved on to even more toxic bullshit. I wonder after feeding your head with Newsmax and OAN for another 4 years, how these people are going to vote in 2024, if they don't become so desperate that they take action in their own hands and start blowing shit up.

@MarmeeMarch If you think this makes fun of you, then you are unable to read.

@Kwek00 You are correct. This populist Right Wing extremism is just as dangerous as the Far Left Marxist Black Lives Matter charade. If only Americans would wise up and value the art of critical thinking. The country would be better off in the long run. But what we have is a bunch of scared little kitty cats who are molested by propaganda. And yet nobody has the audacity to question what they are being told. So they just go along with it. 🤔

@MarmeeMarch I don't revel in this. I've been saying since 2016 that this scares the shit out of me. 🤷‍♂️ It's a pitty you can't look up how manny times that I said it, but if you could, you'll have a lot to read.

@MarmeeMarch “typical European” lol. How many European countries have you been to and how much time did you spend in them? Ever lived in Europe?

@Zonuss I don't see a far-left wing BLM charade honestly 🤷‍♂️.

I don't think these people are molested, unless they like being molested. They choose to listen to this themselves. Mainly because all these speakers tell the same simplistic narrative. Namely:


And this is is a pretty "normal" kind of thinking. It's flawed, but it's something everyone has been guilty off at some point in time. It's just easier to find what is wrong outside yourself because it saves you the bothersome masochistic process of questioning what you believe and how you express yourself in society is actually okay to do. It makes you feel good about yourself and you blame the situation on someone else.

A person that cheats on his girlfriend for instace, might (when called out) tell his girlfriend that she made this happen because of a certain way she acts. So now we are no longer talking about the action of cheating, it's just her fault that it happened. And thus the cheater can live with himself and clear his conciouss. It's extremely alluring. It's like a kid blaming his/her imaginairy friend for breaking a piece of glass.

And demagogues apply this tactic on a societal level... which allows people to feel good about themselves and never ever review if how they live is a way of living that doesn't create negative consequences. The entire racist discussion, for intance, is shoved under the rug. Even though you can do studies that these biasses linger in society and that they materialise in all forms of actions, people can't look in the mirror and ask themselves if they have biasses, because they can't have biasses because they perceive themselves as "good people". A "good person" however, should at least be able to do some self reflection and ask if his/her ideas might have bad consequences in the large scheme things... but because this process is hard (like people go to psychologists and cry their head out and go into depression figuring out what's wron and why they are in situations) this isn't done. So instead, people blame it on someone else. And tribes blame it on other tribes. Eventually, this can spark terrible consequences. These ideas linger in society but they only become really visible when a leader figure take advantage of them and forms a group that seeks political power to "solve the problem". Once enough people parrot the same simplistic narrative, the next step is "solve the problem" (which means making sure that the demographic they dislike looses political power) and in extreme cases "get them".

This "we" vs "us" dynamic is super complex, but when it manifest itself intensively, it drives societies to madness.

@Kwek00 I agree. A good person does self reflection. And hold themselves accountable.

@Zonuss Yes, but that's a hard process. And it also needs a moment of "awareness". This can mean, that you come to the conclussion that you were wrong about something that you found was a defining thing in your identity. And this can lead to identity crisis, these are extremely painfull moments for people... but in the mental wreckage you can reevaluate your position. Most people try to avoid it.

Since I started studying politics, I had a lot of these. Just moments of crying because I found out that I had conversations where I couldn't be persuaded from being wrong. But today I reevaluated my position. But this process is painfull, because admitting that you are wrong is generally not a fun thing to do. Most people just try to avoid it, because it's a form of conflict and it's a conflict with an entity that you can't blame for annything else then you being you.

There is actually an incredible short segment from a US militairy educational movie... that shows how a demagogue operates.

[media=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJriMuVEPMY]

It's so incredibly well done, because the man listening to the rant agrees with him. But he snaps out of it ONLY at the moment that he understands that the speaker considers him "undesireable". The discourse used is incredibly alluring to people, it plays on peoples emotions and it creates an image of them being "good people" (something most people want to be). But the moment the speaker talks about why the good people are suffering, the demographic of the listener is named and that bursts his bubble.

Sadly, when I use this video on here... people have dismissed it by saying that they are not NAZIs, they are not stupid, they won't fall for this, they are not right wingers, ... etc.

But if the speaker is using the same language to aspire a demographic that the critics belong too... then I really wonder if they would be able to resist it's call. But right now, these people are convinced that they are not, because they consider themselves smarter then that.

And this isn't just a "right wing" thing. Demagogues can be found from left to right. There is also such a thing as "left-wing" poppulism. This isn't a strict right wing way of doing politics.

@Zonuss "far-left wing BLM charade" , btw... what do you mean with this? I really don't get the charade part?

@Kwek00 It was just sarcasm

@Zonuss Yeah okay, but what does that entire string of words mean to you, so I can at least understand what you are being sarcastic about?

@Kwek00 It was sarcasm. End of discussion.