Black Aziz Anansi [In Exile]What do you think it will take to effectively defeat fascism in the United States?
NMgal@BlackAzizAnansi But seriously. Racism is America's original sin, so that's a fundamental, but... I think back to a few decades ago when, though USA had serious problems with bigotry, we were at least moving toward a society where overt racism, misogyny, antisemitism, etc. were publicly shamed. Then the reactionaries got their shit together , and ramped up their pushback. What did they do that was so effective that we ended up where we are today, on the verge of a fascist takeover?
@BlackAzizAnansi The number one thread I see is propaganda: relentless, coordinated, targeted. Pushing an alternative "American dream," an alternative narrative building on the underlying individualism and suspicion of collective action to completely trash any notion of promoting the general welfare, of the value of the commons. Once that was accomplished with right-wing media (Fox, hate radio, crazy uncle email forwards), they hit the jackpot with the rise of social media and microtargeting.
Cardboard Robot@NMgal @BlackAzizAnansi Propaganda has always been the true weapon and very few took it seriously on the left. They'd role their eyes and laugh about Fox but I saw what it did to family members, it changed them fundamentally, to their core.
@CardboardRobot Man, it's horrible. Like, as a Black person I've always known there's been some degree of racism with a lot of white adults, but I've seen so many folks who seemed like somewhat decent folks just go from casually ignorant to flat out raving and out of their minds.
@CardboardRobot @BlackAzizAnansi Yes, it's completely horrifying what Fox does to people. The hermetically sealed information ecosystem makes it impossible to penetrate with facts. But what happened to their ability to reason? All I can think is that the shit make you stupid. Weed got nothing on FoxNews and InfoWars yadda