Tom Sullivan has a good piece up at https://digbysblog.net/ . He is recounting Robert Draper’s accounts of millions of people so thoroughly sure of their knowledge. In an account of one woman he writes, paraphrasing, ‘they had done their own research; their friends had been there on Jan 6 and there was no riot.’ The now typical fantasies that are believed by millions of gullible haters on the right.
In the piece Draper writes:
I wish I knew what it would take for her and millions of her MAGA compatriots to one day be disabused of their shared delusions…”
Tom Sullivan closes with this remark:
You are living through a mass insanity history will record.
I disagree with Tom on this. What we are living through is in fact the greatest mass propaganda exercise conducted in the history of our nation, greater than the “Sadam has WMD” bullshit, and approaching the Joseph Goebbels level.
It is not insanity.
It is a culmination of decades old effort by those men who control, i.e. fund, the Republican Party for their financial benefit. It has been extremely well planned with respect to communications and persuasion of a well targeted audience. (Powell Memo)
It is not insanity. It has been an ongoing assault against our corporate media. It created hate radio and generated an audience of tens of millions through grievance and hate, and of course, twisted patriotism. Billions of ad revenue dollars made possible the audiences for, primarily, Fox News, but now also countless other outlets, such as Info Wars and so many others. It almost seems as there is a limitless offerings for those drawn to this messaging, messages that would fan their grievances, grow their hatred of the libs, and create the enemies for the aggrieved to focus their outrage on.
It is not insanity.
In the end it is about money.
The precursors of today’s Republicans were spoon fed what were lumped together as “social issues” and referred to in the media as “divisive” politics. What visible during those days, and what should be obvious in hindsight, are that these hot button socially divisive issues paired Republicans against Democrats for the specific purpose of negating discussions of rich’s looting of the Federal Government through their political power. Our pollical discourse, and our political media coverage, chose to make these social issues the dominant themes of their coverage. The still do today.
And here we are.
But the rich have gotten richer. The middle class has been collapsing. The poor have all but been ignored. The influence of the richest Americans on the makeup of state and national offices has been beyond profound, but largely ignored for decades. Ignored to the point where Republicans can openly plot to use the states to overturn the will of the voters – end democracy as we know it, and that story gets no traction. The media have collectively ignored this story while, in effect, the rich have bought the Supreme Court and much of the justice systems used in regulating by enforcing laws.
So again, it is not insanity.
Those millions of Republicans believing these blatant lies are a product of the decades old efforts of the rich. It has successfully shielded the rich from scrutiny of their access to and use of power through their, in effect, control of the American government.
That “But Fedderman…” is our collective media’s chosen BIG STORY for days shortly before possibly the single most important election in our nation’s history is but another failure, albeit a deliberate failure, by America’s corporate media in order to protect the rich. The most glaring example is corporate profiteering’s driving of inflation being given ZERO coverage in right wing media, and near zero by the mainstream corporate media.
America’s richest have invested billions to be able to control our government and our laws. Their return on investment has been many TRILLIONS of dollars, and funding the use of hate and lies in America has been the most profitable investment in the history of the world. America’s richest do not give a shit about the fate of our nation.
The insanity has been allowing things to get to this point when their goal has been on display for decades.