This is fucking nuts. Some of those answers are people being so uninformed and then acting like they're the ones that are informed. Some even voted for Trump because they think he's anti-war and will stop the Genocide in Gaza despite him wanting to turbocharge it. It's just. Fucking depressing. I don't know how to counter this. The far right has created a media ecosystem that allows them to feed trash into their viewers brains even if it's a blatant lie and those people will go from voting for a blatant racist and fascist who thinks people of color are not real Americans, to voting for a left leaning woman of color.
It's almost like they don't have any actual morals or beliefs and only care about being anti-establishment. Some say they'd vote for Bernie but instead voted for Trump despite them being completely opposite people. These people don't have media literacy. They've been brainwashed, and I don't know how to fix it.
The thing AOC, Bernie and Trump do have in common is that they are all populists. That they would also have accepted AOC or Bernie means that they dont necessarily want a demagogue, but its also not a deal breaker for them.
We need to stop with the brainwashing talk. A few people on the fringe were clearly mentally ill, but the rest of them had agency and they made a choice.
I get what you're saying. And agree somewhat. But I think you don't have to be mentally ill or an idiot or whatever to be brainwashed. But being brainwashed is 100% what a lot of people on the right are and refusing to use that term might make sense in some regard, but it also doesn't properly address how we could go about fixing things. While I don't fully know how to fix this, treating it like brainwashing is the only way we can address it, as long as we also approach these people with patience and compassion and try to show them why what they spout is brainwashed.
It's a cult ya know? And cults are brainwashed. And calling people mentally ill or idiots for falling for it will definitely just make them double down. But it's still brainwashing.
If half the population is actually susceptible to brainwashing over Facebook then democracy itself is unworkable. These people clearly have preferences and are making choices, including the choice to know very little about what they vote for. Im afraid that patience and compassion will only encourage this behavior.
We’re all brainwashed in the US though. We’re all in the USA cult here while our taxes bomb and starve millions of people. We still vote for blue even when they continue the embargo on Cuba and we bomb the poorest countries in the world.
Everyone thinks their populist is the real deal and the others are frauds, but at the day populism is not about good policy, it's about making a show of putting up a fight. There have been many populists in political history and only a very small percentage have been materially helpful to their constituents.
American voters have zero agency. We only exist to pay taxes and legitimize the state, which is not obligated to provide us with actual options to vote for.