Right-Wing Media are Destroying Our Country

[livinincali]

[quote=zk]
Maybe some of that is wishful thinking. I keep thinking the democrats are going to put up somebody with vision and charisma. Like Obama. [/quote]

If you look at the current pool of democrat governors and senators who looks like a promising candidate. Booker of New Jersey, McCaskill of Missouri, Cuomo of New York, Tom Wolf of PA, McAuliffe of VA but he has ties to Clinton, Bloomberg as the rich guy with an agenda. The democrats seemed to be all in on Clinton so they are left with a bit of a vacuum right now. There’s obviously time and nobody knew who Obama was prior to the nomination process so who knows.

[Anonymous]

All the Dems need to win the presidency is someone with a military background who respects social justice issues without overplaying the political-correctness card.

Then they need to play the game like the Republicans do: Mock the fuck out of Trump’s draft dodging record, golf-playing, empty promises and cronyism.

It shouldn’t be that hard, but the Democratic party has a history of screwing these things up.

Even then it may not work because of the media bubble that the right lives in today. In 2008 John McCain ran as a war hero with an unquestionable record of service and commitment. Less than ten years later his courage and sacrifice during war makes him an unpatriotic failure. It’s staggering how many Americans have abandoned truth and critical thinking, and are willing to accept the bizarro world created by the right wing media.

[zk]

I guess I should’ve noticed the extent of this before.

I played golf with a couple friends yesterday. One of them is a consumer of right-wing media. In the bar afterwards, over a couple beers, he started telling me how I feel about politics and about society and culture and liberals and conservatives. Every single thing that he said, both about how I feel and in general, was straight out of the fox playbook.

I hadn’t understood just what a huge part of right-wing propaganda is disinformation about the viewpoints of those who aren’t brainwashed like they are. It’s harder to argue with well-reasoned positions, so fox sets up some straw men instead. A tactic as old as the hills, I know. And I was aware that fox has been doing this for decades. I just didn’t notice how much until now.

I had noticed that right-wingers used the same insults: snowflake, SJW, cuck, etc. And I knew they generally considered those not on their side to be weak, unpatriotic, etc. And I knew they got those insults and ideas from their echo chamber. But I didn’t realize that they have assigned viewpoints (made-up viewpoints, of course) to the left on quite a few specific issues. We only discussed maybe half a dozen issues. But on each one, he told me what I thought and how I felt. I am extrapolating, but I would imagine that, given his perfect score of “knowing” what I felt on those issues, he’s pretty sure how I feel about a pretty high percentage of the issues.

This friend is very intelligent, and very funny. And usually quite reasonable. But there was just no way that he was ever going to believe that fox is propaganda and that WaPo and the NYT are real news. He was quite adamant – even a little emotional – about that.

I came away from the conversation even more dispirited than ever about our prospects of bringing reason back to the discussion. If a reasonable, intelligent guy like this can be so irreversibly brainwashed, so completely immune to facts, reason, evidence and logic, I don’t see how we can turn around this bamboozling of a huge swath of the country.

[FlyerInHi]

ZK, question for you. Why is that friend still your golf buddy?

What do you think would happen if, in conversations with your friend, you dished out the same shit about the right wing? Actually, you don’t need to go that far — just based on facts, show him what morons his kinds are.

I think liberals are part of the problem because we are too tolerant of the ranting from the right. We enable them. Throw the shit back and they will see quickly how it feels.

I used to be nice, but I now have no hesitation in writing off “friends” since Trump’s election. The deplorables have revealed themselves for who they really are. Let’s not pass it off as the fault of the right wing media. If you friend were as intelligent as you say, he wouldn’t fall for the Fox propaganda.

Zk, by allowing the assymetrical relationship, you are enabling the behavior.
I have written off several “friends” because they could not handle the pushback. Not my fault.

[zk]

[quote=FlyerInHi]

ZK, question for you. Why is that friend still your golf buddy?
[/quote]
Question for you, Brian. Are you religious? If so, your beliefs are as ridiculous and ungrounded in reality as any fox viewer’s beliefs. If you’re not religious, do you eliminate all religious people as possible friends? If not, why not? Virtually all religions contain beliefs at least as horrible as anything trump and fox are pushing. And to believe what those religions are teaching requires just as much ignorance of reality and susceptibility to brainwashing as believing what fox and trump say. So what’s the difference?

To answer your question, he’s still my friend because he’s a good person and I like him. He has fallen hard for fox propaganda. That doesn’t make him a bad person deep inside. It makes him a human being who is susceptible, like almost all human beings, to emotional manipulation. Susceptible to believing what he wants to believe instead of what the evidence shows.

[quote=FlyerInHi]
What do you think would happen if, in conversations with your friend, you dished out the same shit about the right wing? Actually, you don’t need to go that far — just based on facts, show him what morons his kinds are.
I think liberals are part of the problem because we are too tolerant of the ranting from the right. We enable them. Throw the shit back and they will see quickly how it feels.
[/quote]
What makes you think I didn’t throw any shit back? I did. And hard. I pointed out a couple of his hypocrisies, told him that I didn’t think and feel how fox told him I feel, told him that fox was lying to him, told him he should open his mind to the possibility that fox is nothing but propaganda, told him that the only reason he thinks NYT and WaPo are fake news is that fox told him to think that. Etcetera.

And this isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation, so to answer your question about what would happen if I threw back, well, we’d still be friends and we’d be out there playing golf again.

What I should have done, and probably would have if I hadn’t had a couple beers, is told him that we both want the same things. That we’re friends and countrymen and fellow human beings, and that we really do want the same things. And then gone on to ask him some questions. Which, done skillfully enough, can occasionally get someone to maybe start pondering whether they’ve made some bad assumptions (not that I’m skillful at it, but it would’ve been better than just telling him that he’s brainwashed, which is basically what I did).

[quote=FlyerInHi]

I used to be nice, but I now have no hesitation in writing off “friends” since Trump’s election. The deplorables have revealed themselves for who they really are. Let’s not pass it off as the fault of the right wing media.
[/quote]
I don’t think you can lump all of them together like that. Some of them have bad hearts and some of them are just brainwashed. Just like religious people. Some christians take leviticus and turn it into their own personal crusade, and others take the teachings of Christ and actually live by them. And most (but not all) christians, just like most (but not all) of those conned by right-wing media, are no better nor worse of human beings than they would be if they weren’t brainwashed. Their ignorance and whatever malice that they might have are just more visible. That said, there are a few from both of those groups who get wound up and do bad things they otherwise wouldn’t do. And those people (and those whose malice is otherwise revealed) deserve to be “unfriended.” But I think maybe you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. I know I would be if I didn’t hang around this guy any more.

And I do blame the right-wing media. As I’ve said over and over, humans are susceptible to emotional manipulation and brainwashing. Con men throughout human existence have taken advantage of that susceptibility. Right-wing media are nothing but con men, taking advantage of the particular fears, angers, and desires that exist in a large segment of America’s population right now.

Con men and rubes. That’s where the right is at right now. It’s where a lot of humanity is and always has been. You can place all the blame on the rubes if you want. But you seem to be ignoring human nature and ignoring the ice-cold and immensely selfish con men who are fleecing your fellow humans.

[quote=FlyerInHi]

If you friend were as intelligent as you say, he wouldn’t fall for the Fox propaganda.
[/quote]
You couldn’t be more wrong about that. Intelligence (of the standard variety) has very little to do with susceptibility to a con. Take Ben Stein, for example. Here’s a man who was valedictorian of his class at Yale Law School. That doesn’t happen without a very powerful intellect. Yet he seems to believe in young-earth creationism. People believe what they want to believe. And con men are great at getting people to want to believe what they (the con men) want them to believe.

[quote=FlyerInHi]

Zk, by allowing the assymetrical relationship, you are enabling the behavior.
[/quote]

The friendship would only be asymmetrical if your assumptions about it were true (which, as you can see, they’re not). As I said, I did tell him that I thought he’d been manipulated, that fox was propaganda, that if he wanted the truth, he needed to read some reliable reporting. As I said before, what I should’ve done was find some common ground and led him through the process that got him to his current thinking with his own words (via questions). Maybe next time.

[quote=FlyerInHi]

I have written off several “friends” because they could not handle the pushback. Not my fault.
[/quote]
If those friends have malice in their hearts, then good for you. If not, I think you made a mistake.

[FlyerInHi]

ZK, you’re a good man full of compassion.

I am more practical. I feel that compassion is best spent on people who deserve it.

When people have strong beliefs, you’re wasting your time on them. I feel that right wingers should be treated in a practical, rational manner devoid of compassion. I treat right wingers like bad tenants: evicted! or you’re fired!. Not my job to understand their dysfunction. There are plenty of good tenants to replace them.

You didn’t push back on your friend. You tried to counter his arguments with reason; and that puts you in an assymetrical inferior position. You said that he calls liberals “snowflakes, unpatriotic, etc…”. What about if you called him similar names?

Learn from Trump. If someone hits you, hit back twice as hard. The Trump or Kim Jung Un theory.

ZK, you’re a good person. I admire you. Just know that you’re in an asymmetrical relationship and you’re turning the other cheek all the time.

[zk]

[quote=FlyerInHi]ZK, you’re a good man full of compassion.

I am more practical. I feel that compassion is best spent on people who deserve it.

When people have strong beliefs, you’re wasting your time on them. I feel that right wingers should be treated in a practical, rational manner devoid of compassion. I treat right wingers like bad tenants: evicted! or you’re fired!. Not my job to understand their dysfunction. There are plenty of good tenants to replace them.

You didn’t push back on your friend. You tried to counter his arguments with reason; and that puts you in an assymetrical inferior position. You said that he calls liberals “snowflakes, unpatriotic, etc…”. What about if you called him similar names?

Learn from Trump. If someone hits you, hit back twice as hard. The Trump or Kim Jung Un theory.

ZK, you’re a good person. I admire you. Just know that you’re in an asymmetrical relationship and you’re turning the other cheek all the time.[/quote]

If your position is, “If someone hits you, hit back twice as hard,” then I can see why you would think I’m in an asymmetrical relationship. I think that’s a foolish position and one that will inevitably result in escalating conflicts and a lack of peace, collaboration, and progress.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=zk]
If your position is, “If someone hits you, hit back twice as hard,” then I can see why you would think I’m in an asymmetrical relationship. I think that’s a foolish position and one that will inevitably result in escalating conflicts and a lack of peace, collaboration, and progress.[/quote]

zk, I’m in total agreement with you. It’s not my position, but it’s the position of Fox, Trump and their supporters. You have to speak the language they understand.

My belief is that humans are full of failings and we need to treat people with compassion and understanding. But…. when you friend calls you “snowflake” or “bleeding heart”, he is rejecting compassion. He’s saying that a hardass society forces people to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

Zk, by blaming the right wing media, you are absolving your friend of character flaws and personal responsibility. That only reinforces his belief that you’re bleeding heart.

Let me tell you how I “lost” as friend.
The guy is nice, intelligent, top student and athlete at a top school, retired military officer, and no-non-sense Republican. I have known him since college.

All those years, I have been very tolerant and listening to his rants of personal responsibility, his complaining that bleeding hearts are losing the country, blah, blah, blah.

Well, the guy got older, made more money, became more arrogant. But he also got fat, became a food addict, borderline opioid addicted, experiencing joint pain from being obese. One time, he was telling me he wanted knee surgery. I told him to grow some responsibility and lose weight first, then consider surgery after. Our friendship has been downhill ever since. I’m all for peace for progress, but why am I the only one showing understanding?

Another take away from Trump and his art of the deal: Always win when you negotiate. The other side should give up more than you do.

zk, don’t you think that right-wingers were more tolerable before Trump? With Trump, they revealed themselves for who they really are.

[FlyerInHi]

We need liberal media like Bill Maher.
In your face, don’t-be-a-pussy media

[zk]

Super-conservative commentator quits fox because it’s a propaganda machine:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/03/21/a-conservative-commentator-revolts-against-fox-news/?utm_term=.eadaaf27b92b

And, as bad as fox was for the country for getting this buffoon elected, they’re even worse for influencing his decisions.

from the WaPo article:

What makes Fox’s ravings so scary is that they are not just influencing the public — they are also influencing the president. Matthew Gertz of Media Matters for America found a feedback loop between Trump and the TV personalities he watches so faithfully. Many of the president’s deranged tweets — e.g., his claim that his “nuclear button” is “much bigger & more powerful” than Kim Jong Un’s or that Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin should be imprisoned — are lifted straight from Fox.

From Peters’ resignation letter:

… I feel compelled to explain why I have to leave. Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to “support and defend the Constitution,” and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.

In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts–who have never served our country in any capacity–dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller–all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of “deep-state” machinations– I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.

As a Russia analyst for many years, it also has appalled me that hosts who made their reputations as super-patriots and who, justifiably, savaged President Obama for his duplicitous folly with Putin, now advance Putin’s agenda by making light of Russian penetration of our elections and the Trump campaign. Despite increasingly pathetic denials, it turns out that the “nothing-burger” has been covered with Russian dressing all along. And by the way: As an intelligence professional, I can tell you that the Steele dossier rings true–that’s how the Russians do things.. The result is that we have an American president who is terrified of his counterpart in Moscow.

Millions of brainwashed fools lap up fox’s excrement and treat it as the gospel. And they vote based on it. Even worse, our president laps it up and makes decisions based on it.

If anybody out there still thinks right-wing media aren’t destroying – or at least causing great damage to – our country, I’d like to hear their case for that opinion.

[FlyerInHi]

It shows that Americans are not that smart to allow themselves to be brainwashed.

I watch Fox sometimes to see how right wingers think. Kinda entertaining.

[Ribbles]

It’s the WWE of news, with the same audience.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=Ribbles]It’s the WWE of news, with the same audience.[/quote]

That’s a pretty good analogy. I don’t think they are growing the audience, they are just milking the cash cow for all it’s worth.

[FlyerInHi]

The right wing press fuel the conspiracy theories. But what is destroying the country is really the low education culture that increasingly incompatible with a high tech globalized world.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/the-fix/wp/2018/03/30/why-roseanne-reinforces-a-myth-about-trump-supporters/

[Anonymous]

The headline article on Fox News at the moment:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/03/30/flynn-selling-home-under-mounting-legal-bills-as-mccabe-racks-up-cash-online-to-pay-lawyers.html

Because it’s not fair! It’s not fair that the convicted felon and Russian conspirator has money problems.

Why should the other guy get to pay his bills just because he’s not a criminal?!? (And his wife is a physician…that’s important to know!)

It’s not fair!

[Author]

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