Are you going to be a 'good American' and boo and hiss when you hear "socialist" or "liberal"? [View all]

[ck4829]

Because you're supposed to... That's what normal people do according to the groups I am going to mention next.

Years of conditioning by Fox News, talk radio, right wing pundits, radical right groups seeping into the mainstream, right wing religious leaders, politicians, media, astroturf efforts, etc. have led to this.

You're supposed to boo and hiss the liberal, the socialist and the perceived 'socialist', the Democrat, GLBTQ people, the poor, the person with pre-existing conditions, the refugee, the Muslim, the black civil rights activist, the activist in general, anyone who is against system justification, etc.

Years spent normalizing and creating outrage, finding the one person who is most outraged about these groups who doesn't look like a deranged killer, making opposition to these 'other' groups seem normal and more normal than these 'other' groups, associating hating these 'other' groups with pleasant-sounding groups like the Family Research Council, making it seem abnormal to associate with these 'other' groups (Who wants to be a snowflake, right?), providing rewards and 'rewards' like with feeling a sense of belonging or a vague notion of 'national security', providing a scapegoat for their troubles, etc. I could go on and on... this isn't political, this is purely physiological in many ways.

Here's the thing: We can argue what socialism is and what the definition of it is until the cows come home. We can move to the center or, heck, even be on the right. You can be the perfect anti-socialist. We can have tough border policies. We can do all sorts of things to appeal to people on the other side of the aisle. But as we approach November, here's what will happen... Fox News, Breitbart News, Republican politicians, the White House, Christian right leaders, and others of the first group I mentioned will say "SOCIALIST", "DIRTY LIBERAL", "OPEN BORDERS", etc. and it will be just like Pavlov ringing the bell, one segment of Americans will go into visceral hatred of the 'other' (AKA you), and another segment will not say anything because they don't want to make a scene or look 'different'.

We've got to call it out, we've got to cause the 'extinction' of this conditioning. That's all there is to it, refusing to be a 'good American' is a first step, because I'm not going to wait for 'heretic against Trump or Trumpism' to be the next bell.