The following video might take a moment to load:
Nearly one year after President Donald Trump took office, @FrankLuntz asked a group of his voters what they think of his first year and if they would vote for him again.
— VICE News (@vicenews) January 19, 2018
This is what they told him.
See more tonight on our special, America First, on @HBO at 7:30PM EST pic.twitter.com/xtialWLQG4
"The best president we ever had?" God help us.
ReplyDeleteIt does inspire chills, Owen. I was especially disappointed with the nurse and the teacher.
DeleteI recently posted about a Foreign Policy article that argued that the Russian hacking of the US election was so effective, when the same thing largely fizzled when tried in Germany, France and elsewhere, comes down to America no longer having a basic factual consensus. Each tribe, on some matters more than two, bring their own facts to the table, the perfect recipe for paranoia, distrust and conspiracy theories. People flock to social media to connect with their alternative reality of choice, unwittingly offering themselves up as susceptible minds for manipulation.
ReplyDeleteTo those still grounded in facts, Trump is recognized as lying incessantly. To his base what he says is true and, when he does lie, he's just fudging a bit and it's irrelevant. A year in and he's still lying just as much as ever. Why? Because it works - well enough to prevail.
If America is a fertile ground for what really constitutes targeted brainwashing, how can the country survive? As the FP article noted, the outcome of the election was secondary to the hackers. What mattered was that they succeeded in sowing chaos. Getting Trump into the White House was just the icing on the cake.
Abraham Lincoln warned that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Where stands America today?
I admit that I hold little hope for the U.S., Mound. Things are indeed grim, and the fact that 'false reality' can be so easily manufactured and accepted is disturbing beyond words.
Delete.. there seems to be a collective America cognitive failure.. a collapse of fundamental 'thinking' .. an inability to think. At times I wonder if too many Americans have no access to credible 'measuring sticks'.. or are sufferening from extended exposure to lead poisoning. It seems ridiculous to give credit to gaseous thugs like Donald Trump & the GOP, based on how you hate Hillary and the Democrats. That vacant, lights are on but nobody home 'thinking' portrays zero common sense.. and no credible 'measuring sticks' during the failed process.
ReplyDeleteA number of people have asked why I even care.. I reply that as a Canadian, I am also a North American. My back yard includes the Great Lakes, the St Lawrence & Niagara rivers, the migratory flyways, prevailing winds, the overall environment, habitat, species.. so my answer is I have to care.. and take care.. when my southern neighbors don't care.. and indeed have shown they are destructive and/or dangerous.. to my country, to my family or to my community
You have hit upon the awesome destructive power that the U.S. wields in the world, Sal. Almost any other country we could just shrug about, but not our neigbours to the south as they surrender reason to passionate intensity.
Delete