A good New York Times piece on Portland nevertheless demonstrates how the conventions of objective reporting fail to accurately capture the bad faith driving pro-Trump propaganda.
Given how often headlines claim that Maga has imploded, melted down, or been slammed, one would think that nothing would be left of it by now—but unfortunately, none of this has any consequences.
New Republic is a tabloid. As are Newsweek and Raw Story, which are all uncritically posted to this community multiple times a week.
They’re tabloids that often appeal to my political sympathies, but tabloids nonetheless. We shouldn’t treat them like real journalism. If I had my way they’d be banned and/or ignored on Lemmy.
It is really uncanny how pretty much the moment Trump announced his candidacy in 2015 every single tabloid rag in existence became credible news sources overnight.
I feel like MAGA just runs half molten down by design at this point
As with most authoritarian groups, I think that Maga is primarily driven by fear: on the one hand, fear of the fictional enemies that their demagogues constantly conjure up (foreigners, Antifa, etc.) and, on the other hand, fear of retaliation by their own people or exclusion from the sect if a Maga follower dares to express even the slightest criticism of the leaders of this idiotic movement.
Only the second threat, i.e., fear of persecution by their own people, is justified, because it actually stems from reality. This allows for the control of both the foot soldiers, whose interests are of course not represented by the leadership at all, and the higher-ranking members, who actually benefit directly from the sellout of the US through nepotism and, in particular, corruption.
Now that their leader is in office, it is difficult to say what role the fictional enemy images still play. I think the fear of their own people now prevails by a long shot.
One example that suggests this is the fact that during the election campaign, the MAGA leadership propagated the conspiracy theory of child molesters in influential positions. Now that the election has been won, this topic is being avoided at all costs. The reason is clear: there is some truth to this conspiracy theory—but contrary to what the MAGA leadership has portrayed this ominous group of evil, it is obviously the conservatives themselves who are the child abusers, who are this ominous group of infuencial criminals. This should also have become clear to many MAGA supporters by now, as the administration is, for obvious reasons, doing everything in its power to prevent the announced prosecution of Eppstein’s customers and partners from taking place.
Now, however, MAGA supporters are too afraid of being targeted by their own people if they demand that the election promise be fulfilled and insist that the influential child abusers finally be stopped, because that would mean making enemies of the MAGA leadership, who are obviously the ones responsible.
So in short, I think Maga is now mainly operating on the basis of fear of persecution by its own people—as was already the case with the Nazis in the Third Reich. So it’s quite the traditional Nazi strategy really.
Is this whole administration going to turn out to just be a Family Guy skit culminating in Peter fighting that giant chicken again? 🤔
Rooting the fuck out of that chicken to win decisively.
As an Australian this sentence made me do a double take.
You’ll do WHAT to the chicken?
🤣 I very much appreciate you Aussies!
Had the pleasure to visit Sydney, Cairns (specifically Trinity Beach), and swim in the Great Barrier Reef last year. I love your country, how clean it is, and how awesome all the locals were.
Don’t tell anyone cunt
Too easy!
I think what is happening is the reluctance of associating the term influencer with propagandist. The terms themselves are synonymous, influencer a little more specific, and without the added negative connotations propagandist has. If people realized “influencer” is just another term for propagandist, that may harm ad revenue. So we have “distinctions” being made, between influencers who do regular propaganda and influencers who do bad propaganda or “influencer propaganda” instead of just admitting they are all by definition propagandists.
Propaganda is the expression of opinions or actions carried out deliberately by individuals or groups with a view to influencing the opinions or actions of other individuals or groups for predetermined ends and through psychological manipulations.
Propaganda, Jacques Ellul
MAGA “implodes” over just about anything.
But do they actually?
Honestly, it seems like the only ‘source’ for any of these “MAGA in shambles!” stories are just a few angry posts on Twitter or whatever. By and large, the MAGAts (besides a few notable exceptions like MTG) appear to be as happy and as united as ever.
Did you forget about cracker barrel already?
