It’s this. It’s what we have now. Ask them.
It’s this dystopian Socialist/Marxist/Communist nightmare, blindly being served up by JoeTato and Kamala.
During the worst of COVID, that … that was Fascism (carrying a hypodermic needle and wrapped in an N95 mask).
To them, things can only get better.
It’s a vicious cycle and a poisonous feedback loop.
“rock bottom” is just a distraction.
Do you think they’re sitting around and carefully calibrating when things are improving slightly, declining surprisingly, ticking up a bit suddenly?
Of course not. These are the people who have contempt for any sort of evaluation, for any attempt at scientific (or even quasi-scientific) inquiry, or any kind of objective analysis.
It’s always rock bottom when a Democratic administration is in charge, or a Democratic Congress is elected, or when and where any democrat anywhere serves in a position of power. It’s always “sad” and it’s always “wrong” or even “demonic” before they’ve explored what’s happening. Conclusions first, evidence last.
The important thing to them is power, never principles. I’m amazed it took them this long to decide not to bother with an actual platform to run on.
I think you misunderstand. In this context, “Rock bottom” is what will make them finally realize that they’re an addict. In this case, an addict to propaganda. I’m not asking them for a definition of what they think “rock bottom” is, I’m asking, “What real-world condition will make them realize that voting for Trump and the Trumpanzees is a bad idea?”
A million Americans dying of a disease, at least some of which deaths were preventable, millions more being sick, some uncertain percentage of whom are suffering long-term health problems as a result, wasn’t enough.
Will Trump cratering the economy be enough? Will Trump outlawing unions be enough? Will Trump banning elections be enough? Will Trump allowing Russia to roll over half of Europe be enough? Will Trump allowing China to take over half the South China Sea area be enough? Or will they some day be sitting in the bombed out ruins of their towns, saying, “Well, Biden would never have given us such nice ruins to scrounge in!”
Well, not so much Biden specifically but they WILL say it was all the fault of the “woke libs” who they just know prevented the forces of good from prevailing.
Nope. I knew what you meant. I just don’t see that scenario. They – probably more than ‘we --’ live in a near perfect information bubble. If they never leave the Episcopal Church then they’ll never know what the Presbyterians are saying.
If they never leave the conservative information silo, then They Are Owned.
Have you looked over at Fox News … to see how they’re covering the latest bombshells from the Dominion lawsuit against … Fox News?
AFAICT, they aren’t. They just … aren’t.
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
– Mark Twain
Forget rock bottom, arguendo. I don’t even see any substantive cracks in the collective armor.
Trump’s never going to do any of those things because he’s never going to be POTUS again. But if those things happen under the next GOP president, the response from MAGAts will be:
No, I don’t think you’re understanding me. They HAVE no bottom. The concept of a bottom is meaningless to them. The bottom would just be proof that they have more digging to do.
That’s why these are the people I choose to give up on. They cannot be persuaded or shown anything. In fact, they define themselves by their imperviousness to persuasion.
…and I can’t even really argue with that, which is why I say I have no idea what it will take for them to finally wake up. Some catastrophe so catastrophic that it’s immune to spin. Does such a thing even exist?
Yes, I was wondering what my mom thought about all of that, then realized…she doesn’t know about it. Probably never will.
I think it has to be something personal, not national or international. Some of the people convicted of crimes related to Jan. 6 seem to have reached this point, when they realize the information they’d been consuming and the leaders they’d been following were actually counter to the values they thought they had.
IOW, people’s individual lives have to be destroyed, and even then many will still blame everyone but themselves.
But even then, we have counter-examples from COVID. People in the hospital, literally in the process of dying from COVID, loudly insisting that they’re fine, COVID is just a hoax, and it’s the commie doctors who are really trying to kill them.
It’s really just about Jonestown in our media milieu these days.
But there’s no Jackie Speier and no Congressional Delegation going in to do some reconnaissance. The bubble is basically hermetic. It’s an informational Faraday cage.
To use the analogy of “rock bottom,” the dealers are extremely well-funded, well organized, have ample infrastructure, significant numbers, and powerful lobbying and PR firms all designed to keep the addict … using.
And feeling good about using.
When things look the bleakest, and “rock bottom” should be in sight, the machine doubles down on the blame game, the demagoguery, the existential threats that The Other Guy represents, and gives you just enough more of your drug of choice to perpetuate your oblivion.
Right, which is why I wrote
Just as many drug addicts will blame their parents, their exes, their former employers and any number of external actors for the shitty circumstances they find themselves in. They only begin to turn their lives around when they not just hit rock bottom, but admit that it’s the stuff they’ve been consuming that landed them there. Many never gain that clarity.
Which leads us back (I think we’ve gotten a bit off-topic) to the idea of giving up on people who are wedded for life to the MAGA worldview.
The OP (that’s me) is interested in probing the difficulty of reaching that point, the comfort of making excuses for them, the sentimental or nostalgic position that remembers how they were (or seemed) before falling overboard into the MAGA Ocean.
Some people just refuse to accept that there is such a point of no return, and I’m interested in hearing why they find that point so difficult to reach or even to see.
Fortunately, I’m not close to anyone who’s sunk that far. But if I was, I like to think I’d have the spine to tell them I was about to write them out of my life, and why.
I imagine most people, given that information, would say fuck you and go away. But maybe there’s a chance that kind of message puts a tiny crack in their bubble.
My own most upsetting lost-to-MAGA friend was actually a Democrat whose elderly dad was a MAGA-nut. My friend was explaining how terrible it was to bring her kid (10 years old) to his grandpa’s house for the holidays and expose him to all this toxic ranting and raving, but when I suggested that maybe NOT exposing her son to his crazy grandpa was an option, she lost it with me, saying how vital family was to her, how grateful she felt to her father (he supported her financially through a rough divorce) and how offended she was that I could even suggest breaking it off with her father, who only had a few more years to live, etc.
It was too bad, and I only made it worse by defending what I’d said (it was just a suggestion, not an order, and she was free to reject it entirely) but she just got angrier the more I tried reconciling with her. So we decided to break off the friendship. even though she and I agreed on politics pretty much right down the line.
Which as mentioned earlier is one of the factors involved. For many people, there are others, particularly family, for whom continuing engagement is just plain non-negotiable…
…and armchairing it from here, probably because even unconsciously on the part of the both of you, to her it only felt like getting rubbed in the face with how it was she who could not bring herself to do what was “right”. And coming from someone outside the family!
I believe my father sincerely and genuinely holds MAGA/QAnon positions that genuinely make sense to him. I don’t believe he’s just been trolling for close to a decade. He believes it so much he’s lost his home, lost his family and lost his mind. What does sincerity of belief have to do with it? He’s still a toxic moron I want nothing to do with.
A true statement, but not Twain’s. It was coined in 2011. The closest Twain came was:
How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!
I think a lot of people need to learn something I told a friend a long time ago: “You have to love your family, but you don’t have to like them very much.” It’s okay to maintain some social contact with MAGA types, or other problematic types, but it’s also okay to limit those contacts for your own mental health. Show up just in time for Thanksgiving dinner, but “Ooops, I have to run!” right after the pumpkin pie is done.