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I recently came across this video from the NYT. It is titled: "We're experts in Fascism. We're Leaving the U.S."
Not to boo my outgroup too much here (and that's not the point of this), but holy shit this video is bonkers. The logical jumps these people are making, their inability to understand or recognize that they are explicitly not living in a fascist dictatorship when they work for the largest newspaper in the country publishing content about how the leader of the country is a giant fascist. This video is frightening to me for the following reason:
What does the deprogramming effort for all of this eventually look like? Or does it happen?
These people (not necessarily the ones in the video, but the ones who might watch this type of video earnestly) seem convinced that we are living in a society which is comparable in some way to Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy.
I guess I have to stop myself here to check my biases: are we? Just to look at the most obvious thing here, the press, the answer is unequivocally: no, or perhaps even "fuck no, lol".
Or the military? It seems like we have the most powerful military on earth, and are essentially not using it at all.
As far as ICE: ice killed two people in situations which were arguably (though not definitely) self defense, and the response was that the Federal Government largely pulled out of the area (Minnesota) where they were deployed. This is while local residents are doing things like stalking federal law enforcement, setting up various checkpoints, and delaying "rapid response forces" to track their movements.
Would Hitler have tolerated this? Was there an equivalent in Nazi Germany of non-Nazis setting up checkpoints for the Nazis and driving them out of town?
Okay I'm talking to myself here: no we are not even remotely close to anything even remotely like a fascist dictatorship. By almost every definition we are likely the farthest we have ever been from living in a fascist dictatorship.
So deprogramming: has there been any serious discussion about what this will look like? It's been on my mind for a little over a year now. Here was the positive realization I had about it: it's not necessary. The people being dispatched by this sort of propaganda don't hold coherent beliefs. This is not part of a larger system of beliefs that all build on top of one another. These ideas are mostly just sitting on their own. They are a collection, not a system.
So this means that deprogramming isn't so much a process of unwinding everything, it's just a matter of installing a new set of ideas. Deprogramming could happen in a few days, for some people it could probably happen in a single episode of John Oliver or Rachel Maddow.
Realistically this was a happy realization to me. Am I wrong to think this?
Nope, and to see it in real time, remember all the people who thought Obama was a secret-muslim-communist and was going to use operation Jade Helm to seize power. Well even if you do they don't. Or anything during Covid if you didn't notice the sides switched who was pro and anti-vaccine. To deprogram them Donald Trump simply needs to leave office and this will all have been a fever dream. Hardcore partisans of any stripe have an issue with talking themselves into these kind of positions but fortunately they are lightly held and easily forgotten. And even if a Republican wins he won't be as threatening to liberals as Trump and they'll simmer down.
Remind me of this comment when we get the "theocratic misogynistic racist Hitler the 14th" treatment of whoever that will be (remember Mitt Romney?)
No the real funny part will be when when Trump gets his heel-face turn like Bush and you'll have people asking why the current evilman can't be more like that generous new york democrat that was a republican president years ago, before the parties switched you see.
The public rehabilitation of Bush Jr. is one of the oddest things I've witnessed in my lifetime. It would be easy to assume there's some kind of statute of limitations element to it, but that doesn't seem to be the case: Reagan is just as despised as ever.
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