Quote:it was probably a bad idea to allow young White House aides with MFA degrees to create “public opinion” from their iPhones and laptops, and to then present the results of that process as something akin to the outcome of the familiar 20th-century processes of reporting and analysis that had been entrusted to the so-called “fourth estate,”

Quote:Nor did I foresee that Trump would himself become the target of a messaging campaign that would make full use of the machine that Obama had built, along with elements of the American security state. Being physically inside the White House, it turned out, was a mere detail of power; even more substantial power lay in controlling the digital switchboard that Obama had built, and which it turned out he still controlled.

Quote:At every turn over the next four years, it was like a fever was spreading, and no one was immune. Spouses, children, colleagues, and supervisors at work began reciting, with the force of true believers, slogans they had only learned last week, and that they were very often powerless to provide the slightest real-world evidence for.

Quote:...the model of politics in which operatives are constantly running permission structure games on the body politic, assisted by members of the press and think tankers eager to be of service to the party, has more in common with pyramid schemes and high-pressure network-marketing scams than it does with reasoned democratic deliberation and debate.

Quote:The effect of the permission structure machine is to instill and maintain obedience to voices coming from outside yourself, regardless of the obvious gaps in logic and functioning that they create.

(12-19-2024, 05:08 PM)F2d5thCav Wrote: This article is a long read, but very much worth it.

https://www.tabletmag.com/feature/rapid-onset-political-enlightenment

It is all about the weaponization of the internet and social media that was organized post-2000.

And I mean, it explains a LOT.  The fanaticism, the willingness of people to operate against their own interests, the overnight-generated fake consensuses ... and why all of that upturned what everyone thought they understood about politics until that point.

It identifies three key men who stood against this digital machine.  It explains why the Left was so unhinged about Musk buying Twitter.  And so much more.

Some quotes:

Quote:it was probably a bad idea to allow young White House aides with MFA degrees to create “public opinion” from their iPhones and laptops, and to then present the results of that process as something akin to the outcome of the familiar 20th-century processes of reporting and analysis that had been entrusted to the so-called “fourth estate,”

Quote:Nor did I foresee that Trump would himself become the target of a messaging campaign that would make full use of the machine that Obama had built, along with elements of the American security state. Being physically inside the White House, it turned out, was a mere detail of power; even more substantial power lay in controlling the digital switchboard that Obama had built, and which it turned out he still controlled.

Quote:At every turn over the next four years, it was like a fever was spreading, and no one was immune. Spouses, children, colleagues, and supervisors at work began reciting, with the force of true believers, slogans they had only learned last week, and that they were very often powerless to provide the slightest real-world evidence for.

Quote:...the model of politics in which operatives are constantly running permission structure games on the body politic, assisted by members of the press and think tankers eager to be of service to the party, has more in common with pyramid schemes and high-pressure network-marketing scams than it does with reasoned democratic deliberation and debate.

Quote:The effect of the permission structure machine is to instill and maintain obedience to voices coming from outside yourself, regardless of the obvious gaps in logic and functioning that they create.

Enjoy the read.

Cheers

(12-21-2024, 01:04 PM)F2d5thCav Wrote: @ Jackleg,

Many people didn't have the capacity for such (or, I think in a lot of cases, didn't have the *time* to think about these issues in depth), and so, many got 'converted' by these overnight causes and the entire country got dragged for a damaging ride.