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Anyone who hasn't read Kill all Normies by Angela Nagle, buy a copy (and ignore the name, it's anti-Trump). It's written about the first Trump election but seems more relevant now than in 2017.
The Right was able to weaponize online spaces far better than the Left, against all conventional wisdom that the Dems were the party of the young people and the Repubs for the older ones.
Great, now I'm at the point of the post election grief cycle where I'm getting a bunch of books to try to figure out what happened. I remember this phase from 2016. Thanks for the recommendation for my list!
It's convenient that they're already all written because we're repeating history.
It's really short, I read the entire thing last night, but it probes into the right-wing online space deeper than any other scholarly resource I've read.
Also note that a lot of leftist YouTubers have either retired or moved to Nebula, a platform where their videos are harder to reach. Guess who didn't paywalled their videos! Your crappy gaming streamers creating reaction videos to crappy right-wing grifters whining about "masculinity in gaming" and how some video game women aren't fuckable enough for them.
I agree, but it doesn't help that YouTube rewards low effort daily posts and if someone spends a week making a video as opposed to quick 10 minute rants about "the woke in gaming", they won't get as much attention by the things YouTube put in place.
There are leftist content creators that make things that put some Ken Burns documentaries to shame. Engaging, well edited, comedic, time spent crafting the points that educate and joke. Sometimes they get focused in attention, often times they don't.
Meanwhile TrumpFan1488 can make more "The DEI in this game will make it go broke! Women ruined Star Wars!" posts every day, and YouTube pays them more and more for constant engagement with the site. YouTube doesn't care if its costs IQ points to host, they need that ad money!
Nebula at least pays people who put out quality content. I am curious how many people stopped watching when Nebula was a thing for some content creators. I'm a broke bitch, so streaming service didn't exactly engage me. I did however still watch when those exclusives when to YouTube.
Most Nebula creators that I'm familiar with still also upload to YouTube. They just post to Nebula first, like a timed exclusive. The truly Nebula exclusive stuff is almost universally stuff that wouldn't work on YouTube anyway.
I hear Hamas is modeling their insurgency after the vietnamese, so I'm reading Kill Anything That Moves about how the US prosecuted counter insurgency operation in vietnam, and why and how they won.
We should probably all start reading and prepping about how to keep safe under unsafe regimes.
Does anyone have another Kill the ______ book recommendation so I can complete the trifecta?
Killing Hope, by William Blum.
Unaffordable higher education, lifetime debt, unaffordably housing, no real chance of owning a proper house, no prospect of employment which might pay for a comfortable life, a life their parents and especially their grandparents afforded easily.
Gee I wonder why young people are so pissed off.
Yup and electing Trump will definitely make that better. Good luck with that.
Don't get me wrong, you want to watch the world that's unfair to you burn? That's fine by me, I'll bring the chocolates and marshmallows, just don't want to hear the youngins complain about the heat.
I dont know that that is even what his supporters want. Like half my co-workers vocally support him, and they seem to legitimately believe that he will just wave his magic wand or whatever and make gas and electricity and groceries cheaper, and make crime go away, and that then all the democrats will admit he wasnt so bad after all. Im not even sure what is worse, disillusioned anger being directed in completely counterproductive places, or whatever sheer delusion believing every promise in his word salad is
Why are you surprised that Trump voters are mentally defective?
Because these same people I know act pretty normal, even reasonable, whenever Trump isn't the matter at hand. It's like Trump comes up and suddenly a switch comes on in their brain and they're cheering for him like a football team. It's bizarre and surreal and infuriating to see them act that way about a man that makes me fear for my life and that of people I care about.
and make crime go away
And what crime, anyway? Just what measurements are these people looking at, anyway? Crime has been trending down for decades. It's like these people live in an alternate reality - crime keeps going down, the economy is way, way up under Biden, and the low-info and donnie himself proclaim it's the Great Depression or something.
Especially since the fucking asshole CEO of BlackRock that is buying all the homes to have us rent forever is one of the top 10 Trump donors... Any hope of homeownership in my lifetime is completely gone.
This. I get people are angry but they need to step back and look at this for what to was. It was a bad Democrat campaign, from a party that is out of touch with voters. I don't blame Harris for this, I think she was a decent candidate given an impossible task.
The Dems did not contest Biden running despite obvious health concerns, then let him hold on til the bitter end dismissing all concerns, then had a coronation for Harris. Not very democratic and yet they made this election about democracy. And then they focused on abortion, as the main issue.
Yet voters concerns in the exit polls were clear - the number one issue was the economy. The dems failed to sell their message on the economy, they let Trump control the topic.
Why then vote for the guy who will kill any chance of having any sort of non post apocalyptic future ever again?
I'd imagine a certain percentage just want to do it as punishment. If they have to suffer and feel hopeless, everyone else can too. My guess is the biggest percentage, though, just have no idea what is going on and what any of this means.
Yeah, Gen Z had better not talk about the lack of housing or how hard it is to make a living again after this. Whatever happens, you all made your bed and you best hope that you're getting what you voted for.
We need a lot of stickers that say "Trump 2024 - You Did This" put it on gas pumps, in front of stores, hospitals...
Honestly they'll probably provide massive subsidies to the oil companies to lower the price of gas while preserving the 2017 tax cuts and proposing more for rich people while Gen Z'ers will lose their college forgiveness but get a very temporary, very low tax cut.
Basically democrats are losing: the youth, minorities, and the working class. They're gaining among white college-educated. They're also mildly gaining among women, but they were already the party of choice for non-white women. Crazy to see the democrats becoming the party of white privilege.
When the initial disbelief wears off a little it becomes more clear that the democrats are not a very good alternative for people. If they were they should have won this by a landslide. Their current path seems like a dead end and they need some new thoughts.
Yeah, any gen z that voted for fascism definitely deserves a good leg breaking while the fascist is in office so they can see how badly they fucked up when they aren't allowed medical treatment because they can't afford it.
I've been sus about people proclaiming that somehow certain "generations" (we all would do well to remember that the idea of "generations" is a rather suspect one: https://www.vox.com/2016/3/21/11277726/millennials-adam-conover) were somehow just inherently better, more savvy and media aware than their elders. There is no reason to believe that just because you were on the 'net since you were a baby, and had smart phones nearly your entire life that you are somehow immune to all logical fallacies inherent in such things.
I for one am not buying it. If anything, boomers, Gen X, and millennials have set up platforms and have been influencing people in the Gen Z age range (as well as Gen Alpha) to buy into totally toxic, moronic and just plain wrong things. Someone is watching all that algorithmic content, and it's not all Gen-X or boomers or even all Gen Y.
Whether it's to buy into qanon/pizzagate bullshit, or buy into tankie narratives about "genocide joe" so that they either flat out vote for a dirtbag like the convicted felon, or vote third party, or sit at home, all of those outcomes help the Republicans. If the Republicans can capture these people young, they'll have them consumers for life - just like other brands strive to do.
I've been saying this for a long time. Before Trump even. The left could not rely on liberal youth defaultism forever. I hate being right.
What really drove it home the direness was nobody else has been seeing it. Culturally younger people are just different some how. I mean every generation has its idiosyncrasies but people just couldn't get past that idea. Sounded like I was speaking in tongues to them I'm sure.
I could not put my finger on it. It's not the current slate of political issues like housing or whatever. It predates this. I used to chalk it up to internet skull fucking kids minds in ways the older generations cannot grasp.
I had hoped the political mega minds would be able to hone in on these things. Turns out they're all fucking clueless. Just winging it.
Yes. It's shit like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson and Youtube and Facebook and Tiktok and so much more...boomers had their parents yelling at them about the "boob tube", but the algorithmic skew is soooo much more insidious than even the worst television could have hoped to be.
It's rather common to point this out these days, but people talk about experiments where you spin up a new VM (use Proxmox or what have you, or maybe use a container even), and just click into Youtube and let it run its course....and they get pushed toward right wing content eventually.
I sure do wish that Gen Y, Gen Z, Gen-A and whatever is coming next are somehow smarter, immune to the usual emotional strings that are pulled, know how to spot logical fallacies better than anyone that came before, are more auto didactic, and actually know how to "do your own research" more than anyone that came before....but my cynical self knows that is just wishful thinking. Without a stellar liberal education, they'll be just as prone to the manipulation as any other set of people.
Everything has to be a meme. Lower taxes, healthcare, or racism isn't exciting. Couches, weird, eating pets and out of context outbursts get way more engagement. Mostly, because people have given up.
They fucked themselves. Trump will absolutely further the killing of the planet with reckless abandon.
Apparently young Americans don't want a future.
I'm sure they do. Shame they chose poorly.
I'm gunna suggest that left wing voters probably wanted a left wing party. Pretty obvious that the Dems hate progressives and young LW people want progressives