Yet such fantasies are now the common currency of politics on the American right. Remember the days when pundits solemnly declared that Trumpism was caused by economic anxiety? Well, despite a booming economy, there’s still plenty of justified anxiety out there, reflecting many people’s real struggles: America is still a nation riddled with inequality, insecurity and injustice. But the anxiety driving MAGA isn’t driven by reality. It is, instead, driven by dystopian visions unrelated to real experience.
That is, at this point, Republican political strategy depends largely on frightening voters who are personally doing relatively well not just according to official statistics but also by their own accounts, by telling them that terrible things are happening to other people.
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Is there anybody left in the entire country who does not understand the fundamental reality that conservatives in general are people who like to be lied to?
The thing is, they don’t know their being lied to. I think the big issue with many conservatives is that they are conditioned, basically from birth, to believe fantastical things as truth, without evidence. I.e. Bible stories as fact. Yes, Gabriel was swallowed by a whale. Of course Noah had all of the animals in the world on his boat. They learn to accept things at face value as long as it sounds good to them. This requires no critical thinking.
This is how you get otherwise intelligent people who believe right wing myths like high school kids identifying as cats and requiring litter boxes. They will believe anything as long as it confirms their biases. Belief = truth. I believe it, therefore it is true. It’s this simple to them. You can present all the evidence in the world to counter any one of their ridiculous conspiracy theories, but they will never change. Because, to them, belief = truth.
OPEN YOUR EYES SHEEPLE!!!
Says the sheep with their eyes closed
Full disclosure: I’m going off the title alone in this comment. It’s late.
That said: no fucking shit
Fear mongering is kinda their thing. The illegal brown people are INVADING lol. The libs are DESTROYING our country…
Look at how they are with their guns. Every time there’s another school shooting another GUNS SAVE LIVES bumper sticker is sold. “This was preventable, if only I, Rambo was there.” No. You wouldn’t have saved shit and you don’t need a gun to survive.
The GOP and MAGA folks are nothing but scared pussies. Enough with this snowflake mentality.
they’re the snowflakes now.
👨🚀🔫👨🚀 Always have been.
Took you this long to notice, did it NYT?
Kinda been a theme for Krugman for a while.
Ugh, it’s a Paul Krugman piece? He’s such a pro-corporate establishment hack 🤢
Nobody should ever look to him for anything, much less timely analysis of what’s going on in the real world.
They had another article today that effectively said “yes, the insurrection is made of insurrection.”
Is it possible they fell into some kind of time warp, and are perceiving the universe at a slower rate than the rest of us?
It’s more that the NYT is studiously centrist and is getting to the point where it is OK for their left-of-center opinion writers to say this kind of thing
the NYT is studiously centrist
More center-right to right wing. Just like the DNC leadership and strategists with which they’re joined at the hip.
I had to stop reading at “despite a booming economy.” It may be booming for Paul Krugman and the wealthy, but for the rest of us it sucks. No amount of gaslighting will convince the 750k unhoused, the 65% living paycheck to paycheck, the 50% of renters that cant afford rent (soon to possibly be homeless,) the skyrocketing auto repos and credit card usage for necessities that the economy is doing well.
He may as well include BlueMAGA in that statement of ‘based on fear,’ thats how the DNC holds onto power, by selling fear. Fear of what that other guy might do, while we do the same thing.
I cannot in good conscience upvote the OP, bc of exactly that sentence. However, their (NYT) gaslighting I think is of a different kind. For one, there are THREE entities involved here - which they hoped you would not notice: there are MAGA Republicans, there are the Dems, and then there are the billionaires who control both regardless of who wins (guess who owns the NYT btw:-P). The billionaire class would like it very much - please!? - if you would pretend that they did not exist, and were not the cause of there being no money available for common folks to eat/breathe/everything else, as they send rockets into space, self-admittedly bc they have literally no idea how to spend all that amount of money…
But as for BlueMAGA, there I disagree with you, bc the two sides are nowhere close to being equal. You might have no idea how close this country came to an actual coup - and I don’t even mean merely January 6. The Republicans winning is worth being afraid of, and I mean literal and actual fear not figuratively by any means. As in by-by democracy as Trump declares himself dictator for life, and then we have a literal civil war over it. It’s no joking matter, in that direction. While if Democrats win, school shootings won’t diminish in any way, so… also not great, but again nowhere close to being equal.
The BlueMAGA cult is as deranged in their loyalty to anything with a D in their name as a mainstream MAGA.
Nearly 100% of the stuff claims he will do cant happen. If the President had that type of unilateral power to change stuff without Congress why hasnt Biden exercised it? He couldn’t even repeal the ACA with a Republican Congress.
There was no coup or coup attempt, there was a bunch of hillbillies that stormed the Capital building. And the same gaslighting media like the NYT, among others, see dollar signs from liberals and call it coup. In the end we will see the entire Jan 6 dog and pony show was just a distraction to keep the rabid dogs at attention and barking.
The Democrats are not bluemaga, they operate and reason out policies completely differently, and don’t pretend that you not reading makes you an authority on the matter.
Many Dems are very much BlieMAGA, Some are a blueANON combo.
Please provide evidence, especially relative to the number of maga and the real world consequences of maga that have occurred?
It sure wasn’t Blue maga, a made up group, that violently stormed the capital trying to overturn an election, or blue maga, a made-up group, that mailed forged election certificates to the national archives and the vice president.
It’s no one’s job to prove to you that you belong to a cult.
