https://www.salon.com/2023/08/31/how-did-we-get-here-the-dumbing-of-america-from-reagan-to-and-beyond/
Every Trump tantrum makes headlines, while the actual president's work is ignored. This is Reagan's legacy
Honestly it's probably too late for many adults who have succumbed to the psychological manipulation tactics of politicians and the media.
If we want to save this country we need to start teaching children and young adults to recognize the signs of manipulative behavior in school.
This will of course be strongly opposed by the media, politicians, and advertisers, all of which rely on these tactics to make a profit.
and by the parents. At this point teaching signs of manipulative behavior and logic 101 like recognizing fallacies would be considered liberal endoctrination by the cultists.
Exactly. An entire cadre of parents and grandparents literally concocted a culture war out of thin air based on educators trying to teach their school-aged offspring to be more respectful and tolerant, and all they had to do was find a useful three letter acronym that would fit into a bullseye on a Fox News chyron. There is no remaining rock under which they won't find liberal demons, unfortunately. Our last best hope is that through sheer cultural inertia and the widespread exposure of kids to people from different ethnicities, races, etc in online spaces, they'll start to naturally pick up on the idea of diversity of thought and incrementally shed their parents' hateful neuroses. It's already kind of happening, and I sure hope it continues.
Another interesting dynamic is that boomers grew up during a time when SCOTUS helped usher in civil rights, abortion, affirmative action, etc. Their weird drift to the right can also be seen as a reaction to the issues that the judicial and political systems forced them to engage with. Gen Z is growing up in an era with a Republican Party completely untethered from reality and a SCOTUS dominated by hard-right cartoons, and I can't help but think that over the next 10-15 years they'll harden their stances to some degree in opposition to those factors.
Our last best hope is that through sheer cultural inertia and the widespread exposure of kids to people from different ethnicities, races, etc in online spaces, they'll start to naturally pick up on the idea of diversity of thought and incrementally shed their parents' hateful neuroses.
One can only hope.
But we already live in a good portion of the beginning, yet anti-semitism and race hate/discrimination is very well spewed everywhere you can look.
Maybe it's the vocal minority but it's the one most read and heard and so will stay in focus.
Exactly. As I said above, they were (and probably still are) explicitly against the teaching of critical thinking, which of course should involve teaching things like how to recognize logical fallacies.
Which is exactly WHY republican politicians are trying to destroy libraries, school curriculum, etc. Uneducated people are easier to manipulate.
Also it creates this weird sort of weird feedback loop of idiocy which is really hard to break. By that I mean, you cut funding for things like schools and libraries, and that naturally leads to a generation that's less well educated than the one before, who will then vote for more dumb shit like cutting funding schools and libraries, which then makes the next generation even less well educated and so on.
And that in return will let the well educated rather stay in a regular job where more money can be made with a brain (STEM) than with their mouth (politics).
And when they are hired for their "professional" opinion and recommendation and recommend the inverse of wanted or expected, they will be ignored to hell and beyond or get their words twisted beyond any resemblance to it's original.
If you think STEM’s the only thing you need your brain for, maybe you’re not as smart as you think.
Otherwise, not wrong.
Plenty of people in politics are very smart. Those people just tend to be on the policy side rather than the campaign side.
The Republican Party in Texas already have had opposition to critical thinking as a plank in their platform. I suspect it is no accident. Cannot have too many critical thinkers out there, that will make it very hard to recruit people into their cult "party".
And now you see why education gets less effective funding with each generation, and why gun hazard is apparently considered just part of being a teacher.
This is why I submit that Ronnie Raygun - at least until little d came along - was the worst President in recent history.
He made everything worse at the time, and laid the ground for even worse things to come. Also his administration was the most objectively criminal in history. Again, the aftermath of little d still remains to be seen as to how many of his people are indicted - even if after the fact.
The thing is, little d did not create what he waltzed into and took advantage of - he's a symptom, not the cause. Ronnie's wrecking crew got the ball really rolling, people like Newt kept it up, as well as Faux and hate radio and the likes of Lil Alex, up until little d announcing his "presidency".
Reagan was the literal actor hired to play president by a group of Machiavellian assholes, many of whom were also behind the scenes of both Bushes, Nixon, and lots of Republican Congress members. Not disagreeing that Reagan is where they really got traction on their dreams of power, but Reagan wasn't the architect.
Oh, definitely not. He was the J.R. "Bob" Dobbs image that they slapped on the advertising of all the BS they were selling under his image.
Because news cycles play to the lowest common denominator.
Sex, scandals, arrests. Those topics get eyeballs.
And in the case of Faux News, they take that to the extreme by blatantly ignoring anything good that Biden may be doing in favor of spewing the latest far-right lies.
Biden could announce tomorrow that he has a proven plan that will end world hunger forever and the majority of people will still just tune in to whatever crap is currently on TLC.
Biden could announce tomorrow that he has a proven plan that will end world hunger forever
I can't figure out what my uncle would say but I feel sure it would be something like:
"That's actually the Trump Plan he's talking about and it would absolutely do what he was saying about it,, but Biden's gonna put some sorta socialism spin on it and really mess us up. Ain't nothing to do with socialism that's ever done one thing to benefit the country. Oop! There's the time and I've got to get. Gotta hit the interstate and get by the bank to cash my social security check on my way to the VA."
News sank to being edutainment. The outrageous gets air time and eyes while actual news that can be used is boooorrriiinnnggg. Then, we have to have the obligatory awww and feel good story at the end.
There's a straight line from Reagan to Gingrich to W to Palin to Trump. The scary part is that the "dumbing" is far from over.
I think it's actually worse than the movie Idiocracy TBH. At least in that movie they eventually listened to the one smart person and actually did what he suggested to unfuck themselves. I don't think we would do the same, because we already haven't.
That movie’s eugenicist propaganda. If you’re going to rebut that, please watch the first 5 minutes again first.
But yes, our culture’s run by fools and it’s terrible.
There's nothing like The Media, asking why The Media only reports on Trump's stupid tweets and not on Biden's successes.
Look in the mirror, assholes. You people in the Media are just as complicit, probably more so in fact, in having this become a reality as anyone else.
Our useless news media let's right wing politicians get one free-pass after another, while they hold Democrats to impossibly high standards.
Reagan was a symptom, not the cause of the disease. The press has always acted like Watergate was simultaneously a moment of pride and a moment of shame.
First I've heard this claim. Got any sources?
Boomers elected Reagan. Their first big showing in politics and that was their choice. They have been making terrible choices since.
The media wasn't what it was today. Reagan created it.
Don’t forget to include Nixon’s contribution to how the GOP conducts business. He laid the foundation and Reagan just amplified it
The so-called "greatest generation" voted much more heavily for Reagan than the Boomers did. Reagan didn't create the media. He played the media. It turned out the media likes getting played.
He created a Republican party that's publicly obsessed with identity and image, and privately sets all policy to help the rich.
Ronald Reagan was a actor, not at all a factor
Just an employee of the country's real masters.
Ronald Reagan was a actor, not at all a factor
Slap a symmetric, charismatic face on shit, and people will eat it up.
Stupidity and wealth are intrinsically intertwined with each other. Intelligence requires the ability to perceive and respond appropriately to nuance. Capital allows a person to disregard the nuances of reality in favor of a forced alternative. It hides problems and extends deadlines. There is a threshold at which the wealthy disconnect from reality and live entirely in their capital fueled delusions. At that point every decision becomes self-justified, and before the leadership can cope, they find themselves with an empty bag to pass off to some sucker before the bills come due. Capital blinds leadership and while it also motivates people, it only does so while it flows generously into the pockets of the working class. From their posts on the ground, the decay and ignorance is everywhere. The working class live in the heart of the corruption and strive every day to draw enough from the system to feed their families and pay their bills. The wealthy will hire middle management and public relations to string the employees along, but propaganda can never erase the daily reality of struggle. That's why they push for more police and military, because when bargaining breaks down the masks come off. Working for the ruling class was never optional. Every hierarchy is enforced by the violence of the stupid and cruel.
Yeah its crazy how far it goes back which does make me wonder as any further is hard to gage by anyone alive today. It has definately gotten worse though and reagan and trump have been big tipping points.
Well, the first thing I have to say is: "mandate my ass".
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=Ij_UQEY1OQE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Well that's odd. Oh well, I usually just switch another Invidious server when that happens.
Honestly american culture and its politics are rothen and they absolutetly brought this upon yourselves, just straight up, ehile the whole regan admin ended up having the effect of making the world the hellscape it is and it seems to not be slowing down, right now censorship is gaining a very real foot (in both sides) and its been working its way to make the religious nuts into full on nuts, and while they probably have been this way since the begining, religion kinda limited their madness by scaring them into believing they where gona go to hell if they didnt behave, but their bipartisan bullshit managed to replace religion in their minds and Just make them dance to wathever bullshit their favorite politician spews out this week.
And the left is no better, you guys used to promote anti-hate and freedom of speech, but now, What the hell happened to you? their head is so up their own assess that they became what they sought out to destroy, instead of promoting sane discussion they relegated into bipartisan tribalism and started censoring people they didnt agree with, even going as far as to defend the democratic party, even if their interests are as against the general population as the republicans, but since they where the ones that supposedly didn't want to oppress social groups (even if they totally still fucking do just look at the fucking border ffs) they are right and everything they spew out is right, and while trying to make a safe space online, in academia, and in political discourse, is just naive, promoting respectful language and tolerance to diferent social groups is not a bad thing, but the way they handle it is the definition of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", specially in media.
They ended up making bipartisan hate grow into the other side on top of the hate they already had, and politicians (democrats and republicans ) took full advantage of this and we have what we have now in the political big picture.
American politics is just a fucking reality show now and I believe they deserve it, only problem is they take the rest of the world between their crotch and fuck us all up since they rule the world/economy. I really hope those guys wake up from their bipartisan bitch slapping nightmare and start fighting the real war which is the class war. Against, you know, the only assholes that get benefited by you too infighting.
Anyhow rant over, down votes to the right. But whrite a comment first, i really whant to hear why you disagree.
You're going to have a hard time finding anyone who understands what in the hell you're trying to say in the first place, let alone someone who can figure out how to "disagree" with whatever it is. Why don't you pick a single argument, make it concisely without any major spelling errors, and we can go from there?
edit: Are you trying to turn this error riddled garbage into copypasta?
Nice i have a fan.
But seriously now, im not trying to make it one, i just really wanted discussion from this thought i had, but i havent seem to find any, just people attacking me and not the subject, its a little disapointing. What im trying to convey is that they are becoming to attached to their political parties when it really shouldnt be like that in the first place at least in my opinion. But if you whant to call me an idiot and stalk my comments anyways then go ahead.
I don't care what you do, my dude. Nor am I calling you an idiot. You made that part up. I'm just saying no one is going to engage you if you can't even bother to spell words correctly and jump from thread to thread to post the same unhinged rant that no one responded to the first time around. The fact that you immediately played the victim card probably explains why folks would rather just downvote and ignore you than engage on any meaningful level. You're giving off "crazy uncle" vibes.
So it sounds like "people are attached to political parties" is what you want to debate. Am I correct in that? Because it's a pretty easy argument to dispel completely, not to mention the fact that you haven't provided any legitimate support for it in the first place. Is there a more substantive opinion that you feel like you can flesh out in detail? If so, please do. Because from where I sit, if this were a game of tennis you'd really just be dumping out an entire basket of balls to roll around on the court. You can't expect us to return a serve you didn't actually bother to make.
Well you did return, and thats all i wanted, saying im playing the victim and all that and the fact that im making up the idiot thing when you know im not being literal about it, and that im not refering to you necesarilly. But the info you provided is really cool and gives me hope that they are gonna be going on the right path politically, but i still think they are gonna have a bad time getting away from the culture war bs. And i did aknowledge that it was a rant. But still you are very rude, and crazy like me for engaging with me, lol. But i do agree with yah.
