# The years of brain washing by the right paid off **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 23, 2024, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667 "2024-11-23T14:02:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2024, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/121 "2024-11-26T20:27:02Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Those placing blame on the election results. Those results could really jack up the country. As could the people that created those results. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2024, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/122 "2024-11-26T20:31:55Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Those placing blame on the election results. And like I said: Different groups have different opinions on that. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2024, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/123 "2024-11-26T20:35:18Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And like I said: Different groups have different opinions on that. Can you unpack that? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2024, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/124 "2024-11-26T20:36:16Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > Can you unpack that? What’s to “unpack”? ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2024, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/125 "2024-11-26T20:38:09Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Every society I’m aware of has SOME of these untrue beliefs as a part of their culture, either as mythology or more generally. Every society can stand some of these. I think that right now, we’re developing a subculture with an unusual and problematic amount of these, and I think that’s more of an issue than the fact of. I think it’s an excellent point and very well made. As I was reading it, I just kept thinking about the Third Reich, and how demagoguery from the highest branches of government, particularly when supported by State Media, is sui generis, given that it has the force of law – and, generally, the might of the military – behind it. But I’m not arguing against your premise. It’s simply been taken to a level that, IMHO, the US has never seen, and that the world hasn’t seen on this scale since Germany in the 30’s. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2024, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/126 "2024-11-26T20:38:40Z")
Which groups are you talking about? The election results are due to one group. The GOP. You said different groups. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2024, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/127 "2024-11-26T20:40:11Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > The election results are due to one group. The GOP. You said different groups. The question was about people’s _opinions_ on the results, and there are many groups with different opinions on that. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2024, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/128 "2024-11-26T20:43:05Z")
Some people think Harris ran a bad campaign, or was too woke, or not woke enough, or too pro-Palestinian, or not pro-Palestinian enough. Some people blame racism or sexism or both. Some people think that Trump had a better populist message, or was better at getting that message across, and so on and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2024, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/129 "2024-11-26T20:43:40Z")
And the people that put the traitor back in have one opinion. The rest of us, have a different one. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2024, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/130 "2024-11-26T20:56:48Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > And the people that put the traitor back in have one opinion. What’s that opinion?. Consider the fact that it was many registered Democrats that voted for Trump. ---
**Author:** ![TeroSunbear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terosunbear/32/14748_2.png) [@TeroSunbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeroSunbear)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2024, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/131 "2024-11-26T21:44:56Z")
Not a significant number. The divide is deep. Split votes did not get a lot of senators in: Since then, however, the mismatch rate has trended lower. In 2012, the same year Democrat Barack Obama carried 26 states in his presidential reelection bid, the mismatch rate was 18%. In the 2013-14 cycle, all but three of the 38 Senate elections mirrored the 2012 presidential vote, for a mismatch rate of 8%. And in 2016, all 34 Senate contests tracked the presidential vote in their states. Link: [More states elected president and senator of different party in 2024 | Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/26/2024-elections-show-more-partisan-splits-between-states-presidential-and-senate-votes-than-in-recent-past/) ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2024, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/132 "2024-11-27T00:23:03Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > What were the figures and facts used to dispute what issues. I have no intention of rehashing several long conversations on Facebook over the past few years, no matter how unfailingly politely you ask. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2024, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/133 "2024-11-27T00:28:23Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > > [@Lumpy](#): > > > > Maybe what changed is that the Left made conspiracy theories seem less implausible. > > How, who, and when – precisely? > > Thanks. Here you go > [@What could the Harris campaign have done differently?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-the-harris-campaign-have-done-differently/1009798/325): > > The Democrats have followed the strategy of championing oppressed minorities, focusing on ever tinier and more aberrant fringe groups, to the point of diminishing returns. First African-Americans, then women, then gays, and now various flavors of non-binaries. I’m not sure there’s anywhere left to go except for maybe incest practitioners. Great replacement theory. The “gay agenda”. Black people are really intellectually inferior but “woke” scientist won’t let those studies get published. Women are also inferior and must be sexually controlled or society will collapse. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2024, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/134 "2024-11-27T00:42:23Z")
Nice of him to admit that those groups are “oppressed” and that it’s not the Democrats doing it. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2024, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/135 "2024-11-27T00:43:30Z")
I think he wanted to put oppressed in quotes. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2024, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/136 "2024-11-27T00:51:59Z")
Also, I’m not convinced African-Americans, women or gay people constitute an “aberrant fringe group”. But the post is a useful example of the sort of right-wing “brainwashing” this thread is about. In both 2016 and this year’s campaign the right hammered home the idea that the Democrats only care about such “aberrant fringe groups” and not “real Americans”. It was bullshit in 2016 and it remains bullshit, but we can see that the tactic of attacking vulnerable minorities and then, when Democrats try to stop the right from hurting people, accusing them of identity politics and focusing on tiny fringe demographics _works_. Because millions of Americans have been conditioned by decades of right-wing programming to believe it. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2024, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/137 "2024-11-27T07:48:52Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Also, I’m not convinced African-Americans, women or gay people constitute an “aberrant fringe group”. Yeah, it’s interesting how almost nobody - on Right _or_ Left - so much as acknowledges that “woman and minorities” are by the nature of things _the majority of the population._ ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2024, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/138 "2024-11-27T07:55:38Z")
I agree. Framing it as majority vs minority is unhelpful, as if the problems a group faces goes away the moment it surpasses 50.0%. It should be framed as privileged vs disadvantaged. For instance, black people are 80% of the population of South Africa, so they could never be called the “minority” there, but they certainly were, for a long time, not the privileged group. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2024, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/139 "2024-11-27T13:41:12Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > It’s the degree, and the differening subcultures, that make it a problem. In particular the later: I wonder if this is ethnogenesis, where “American” is bifurcating into “Red American” and “Blue American”? I think it’s a bit too early to tell. It’s not ethnogenesis it’s entheogenesis. We’ve made shareholders into gods, billionaires into prophets, Trump as pope, and whites into chosen people. We failed to take the entire course of antibiotics against the false religion of white supremacy, and it’s evolved into a democracy-resistant super-strain. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2024, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667/140 "2024-11-27T13:43:35Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > whites into chosen people Only white _males_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-years-of-brain-washing-by-the-right-paid-off/1010667.md?page=8)