by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
From what I can tell about how my Traditionalist conservatives consume media, they turn to Fox News and Right wing podcasts in an effort to make some sense of the world.
The key element to this is once they have their talking points, they are able to dismiss anything that doesn’t fit their MAGA media narrative. There comes a point when this or that subject becomes so fucking loaded that it’s impossible to talk about with them if you disagree with them.
So, things like gun control, abortion and global climate change are now off limits because the Right has their orthodoxy and the Blues have their orthodoxy and that’s that. If you press Reds about what they believe –especially those beliefs that are obviously based on a lie — they just chuckle and wave off whatever point you are trying to make.
They know what they believe and fuck you, lib.
So, that’s the point of all the bullshit that is spewed out by MAGA Republicans is an effort to give low information conservative voters a reason not to listen to people like me. Low information conservative voters want simplistic, easy to understand reasons why Blues are children of satan who want everyone to be gay or risk being “canceled.”
A prime example of this is what’s been going on with the Paul Pelosi attack. It doesn’t matter if the talking point is created out of whole cloth, it gives low-information conservative voters something to glom onto, an excuse to dismiss anyone who is alarmed by it. Reds can just chuckle, wave their hand and pivot to something else they feel more comfortable talking about. That seems to be a new immutable fact of American politics.
The end result of all of this is that we’re lurching ever closer to full-blown fascism. If the two sides can’t debate anything — can’t even agree on what is real, what is factual — then your democratic politics is dead and you’ve got one foot in autocracy.
There’s no cure for this. We’re past the Event Horizon when it comes to the existential choice of autocracy, civil war or military junta. Good luck.
