General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow is it possible that one person can divide the country to the extent that it is now?
How was it possible that one person could divide the world to such an extent in 1933?
Primarily, it is by the use of sophisticated propaganda.
It worked then and it works now.
People hear what they want to hear. They do not reason with rationality - they reason with emotion.
The person that can touch those emotions can divide the nation, or the world.
The only weapons that can defeat such propaganda are facts and truth.
It is built on a false foundation.
'Money & Media', he replied when asked why he decided to run as a Democrat.
Media will be the driving force that destroys our US Govt.
It cannot be accomplished without them.
Dustlawyer
(10,493 posts)It is the media doing it but behind that are the major advertisers using their ad dollars as leverage for it to be done. Just like the actions of politicians being directed by big donors. The big donors are also, in many cases, big advertisers.
Response to Dustlawyer (Reply #16)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
Budi
(15,325 posts)MSM, Social, Advertisers & the profiteers who drive it & reap from the multibillion $$$ industry.
'Media' has a top tier that doesn't give 2 shits what damage the messsaging says as long as profits grow & their ability to continue freely is gauranteed by those who've promised to protect their assets, & write offs.
It is all about making, rewarding & protecting wealth within that top tier.
Good example is FB. Mark Zuckerburg literally sold his sole upwards for global profits..
MSM & Opinion Writers for Online Magazines.
Response to Budi (Reply #24)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
Budi
(15,325 posts)Every damned one is a sellout with zero integrity. All for Name recognition & $$$ in a competitive industry.
I could not do it. Just stare into a camera & speak your prepared lines & call it 'news'.
Response to Budi (Reply #30)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
Budi
(15,325 posts)I agree with you. Guess this is why I just don't bother to watch MSM anymore.
"20 paid 'narrators' that get on tv everyday and expound like
they know absolutely everything about everything. A host of them barely 10 years out of school."
Their presence is more about base & age group targeting.
I assumed their age group mostly got their news online, not from their parents' TV News from the living room recliner.
😬
They family paid how much in student loans for that Journo degree??
They got ripped off. 🙄
Response to Budi (Reply #33)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
Budi
(15,325 posts)All day practicing to deliver that 30 sec spot.
Its acting school they needed, not journalism.
Response to Budi (Reply #36)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
bluestarone
(16,723 posts)TFG had MANY co conspirators. Look the Senate is half full of them and the House has almost as many! Plus RUSSIA is supplying all the LES! Plus i believe we've ALWAYS had these Right wing ASSHOLES, plus the QANON'S were prime time! Not just ONE GUY!
kentuck
(110,950 posts)But, there is always a catalyst that brings them all together, in opposition to the status quo. They were there all along, but the nation and the world could not be divided until they got the right catalyst to spark the people.
bluestarone
(16,723 posts)3 years to stop these crazy SOB'S. I'm ready to protect our country and my family anyway i can. I'm worried that we may ALL have to be ready for anything and i mean ANYTHING!
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)bluestarone
(16,723 posts)I believe when we were HACKED, Putin gained control of almost EVERY Rethuglicon, because they were the DIRTIES bastards ever!
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)What we see is thousands of Reptilian puppets; all their strings lead back to Putin.
SamKnause
(13,043 posts)step of the way.
He could not have accomplished what he did, without all those willing to help him and ignore what an evil person he is.
uponit7771
(90,225 posts)... given up on democracy long ago and Putin's Whore is their deal with the devil
Beausoleil
(2,827 posts)Newt Gingrich's whole deal was to demonize the democrats and liberals for the power of a twisted anti-democratic ideology. They have been building on that philosophy ever since. This is the essence of the great right-wing conspiracy.
Reagan cleared the way and the likes of Gingrich, Rove and Atwater laid the groundwork for what we see today.
I'm surprised it has gone this far, but the direction is very familiar.
CrackityJones75
(2,403 posts)Oh my. That would be disregarding the republican political machine and its various wings of propaganda that atretch around the globe.
Autumn
(44,765 posts)asshole was elected.
lark
(23,006 posts)There was a core of rw racist & gun loving idiocy already there, they just fluffed it right out to huge proportions and put it on steroids. Putin orchestrated this using selected tools like Guiliani & TFG & Paul Rand & Ron Johnson to drive the hate and dysfunction of this country.
Xoan
(25,294 posts)Ocelot II
(115,280 posts)The Tea Party, and long before them the John Birch Society and others, had already started the process. TFG just had a little extra gasoline to throw on the fire. Even Hitler couldn't have done what he did without a lot of help.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)as much as what he's made of them is his.
And hard-right white Christian power blocs had already decided that democracy's majority rule wasn't working for them and would eventually destroy their power if they didn't overthrow it. They were right.
Chin music
(23,002 posts)The bot army w platforms like Fb IG and others keep people arguing w, and agreeing with, people who aren't even there. Pre paid yes droids.
Lucinda
(31,170 posts)Once the media was no longer required to air both sides of an issue it left room for the deliberate partisan misinformation to take hold. People like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones have been spewing hate and lies for years unchallenged. People believed it because they thought it must be true or they wouldnt be allowed to say it...
It is hard for people to realize they have been conned...
GoodRaisin
(8,889 posts)in order to get what they want. And they found the perfect jerk to spread it.
FakeNoose
(32,356 posts)Chump's just the useful idiot that the REALLY smart guys (the ones with all the money) drafted to be the face of the party. Since he's stupid, he has never realized how he's been used by those same people.
Chump has convinced himself that it was all his doing. Same thing happened when he gave himself credit for the success of "The Apprentice" shows.
Response to FakeNoose (Reply #22)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
WarGamer
(12,106 posts)kentuck
(110,950 posts)There are traits that are not found in the "normal" person, beginning with a narcissistic personality. Not everyone is a malevolent narcissist. There is a degree of lawlessness and paranoia required to fit the mold.
FakeNoose
(32,356 posts)I'm talking about the ability to formulate an evil plan and consider all the possible ramifications - before the plan is put into motion. To my way of thinking, that takes intelligence. Maybe you might call it something else.
I do agree with your original premise, that it's inconceivable how one person could create so much havoc in our governmental system.
highplainsdem
(48,732 posts)Fox News.
It accelerated with bigots' response to Obama being elected president, and then the Tea Party claiming "We the People" and "Patriots" as labels for themselves, as if only their views were truly American.
And it was encouraged all along by NRA leadership, pushing both conspiracy theory fears that all guns would be taken away, and the idea that threats of armed resistance by RWers were patriotic rather than insurrectionist.
Trump didn't create this toxic mix. But he did identify with parts of it, and he picked up enough of it, especially from RW talk radio, to exploit it.
moondust
(19,917 posts)spreading the garbage they hear on Fox, etc. The KKK, etc., didn't have their own media outlets so they had to meet in person to organize, foment hatred, and get attention. No more. Now millions of them can do it from grandma's basement.
Starting in 1934, it was illegal to criticize the Nazi government. Even telling a joke about Hitler was considered treachery. People in Nazi Germany could not say or write whatever they wanted.
Examples of censorship under the Nazis included:
Closing down or taking over anti-Nazi newspapers;
Controlling what news appeared in newspapers, on the radio, and in newsreels;
Banning and burning books that the Nazis categorized as un-German;
Controlling what soldiers wrote home during World War II.
~
Textbooks are a good example of how propaganda and censorship worked together in the Nazi regime. The Nazis used both propaganda and censorship to control what students read in school. Nazi censors removed some textbooks from classrooms. New textbooks taught students to obey the Nazi Party, love Hitler, and hate Jews.
~
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propaganda-and-censorship
It's what totalitarians do. Taking control of the relatively few media outlets made propaganda much easier to push in 1930s Germany as well as in the USSR and now China.
lpbk2713
(42,696 posts)And the willfully ignorant drank the Kool-Aid and asked for more.
Hekate
(90,202 posts)You should see Gingrichs list of how to twist words in public speaking from that era.
JHB
(37,133 posts)Paladin
(28,204 posts)The only clear solution is to fight back. Whatever it takes.
WarGamer
(12,106 posts)Trump is a symptom NOT the disease.
We had this problem before and will have it long after TFG is dust.
kentuck
(110,950 posts)But we did not have "this" problem. It takes more than one person, little soldiers, but it only takes one catalyst to change the entire form.
WarGamer
(12,106 posts)There has been this anti-neocon wing of the GOP for 20 years or so...
The same people who supported Rand's Daddy and hung teabags from 3 pointed hats at rallies.
That's why Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson and that crew are so upset. They lost their power.