#Political Division
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
âŚafter the civil war, a few key mistakes were made.
the southâs economy was destroyed because it was reliant on slave labor, and never really fully recovered. And suffering breeds resentment.
On top of this, no one *wants* to believe their ancestors fought for something objectively evil. So the states rights narrative was appealing.
And in trying to heal the divide in America, many confederate leaders were not granted simply mercy in the form of a pardon, but actively given power once more.
And while slavery was dead (outside of prisons, anyway), black Americans were still considered inferior. The Reconciliation era included tremendous violence against black Americans.
In many ways white Americans healed through white supremacy.
Essentially, concessions were made to heal the divide that ultimately failed to address the problem that caused the war in the first placeâwhether anyone other than white men were included in the phrase âall men are created equalâ.
Healing division inevitably includes concessions and compromise, but the way it was done in the aftermath of the civil war was fundamentally flawed because it treated a problem that still existed as if it had been solved. When you let racists back in power, they will do more racist things, whether or not the institution of slavery for African Americans still exists.
When we try to heal from where this country is now, we must learn from that history. People in the south donât deserve for people to see them get hit by a deadly hurricane and hand wave it away as âthey got what they voted forâ, but neither should we allow those who have lead red states down the path of fascism have a say in what healing looks like.
In order to reconcile with one another, we have to be willing to sit down and have conversations with one another like people. There will be people who are not willing to do that, or who will try to take advantage of it, and we can prepare for that.
But we do need to be able to coexist.
We can start with the basics. Do people have enough stability? Can they afford food? Do they have support when they need it?
And then we can talk to them about what they need to address that.
Itâs telling that the main issue people voted for Trump for was the economy. People are suffering, and even though Kamalaâs economic proposal was very good she didnât always do the best job explaining it, especially for those who would need it most who are often not super educated. And ultimately it wasnât enough of a change, and whatâs more, it asked people to be patient and not angry. Trump is able to gain the support he has because he taps into deep suffering and anger and gives it a target.
Kamala didnât give legitimacy to that anger the way they needed.
these are my thoughts on healing the division in America, i suppose. I hope you find them interesting.
**Btw, these thoughts are mainly informed by information from the documentary *Civil War (or Who Do We Think We Are)* and the book *Democracy Awakening* by Heather Cox Richardson, both of which I highly recommend to help grasp a deeper understanding of why America is where it is today.
#us politics#election 2024#kamala harris#donald trump#joe biden#civil rights#civil war#division#political division#healing the nation#facsism#leftist politics#economy#heather cox richardson#civil war or who do we think we are#history#american history
23 notes
¡
View notes
Text
America has legislated itself into competing red, blue versions of education
This is an excellent article in The Washington Post about how our school systems have begun to reflect the political divisions in our nation, with many red states legally banning discussions on racism, sexism, and gender issues, and many blue states legally requiring those kinds of discussions. This is a giftđlink, so anyone can read the entire article, even if the don't subscribe to the Post. Below are some excerpts:
Three-fourths of the nationâs school-aged students are now educated under state-level measures that either require more teaching on issues like race, racism, history, sex and gender, or which sharply limit or fully forbid such lessons, according to a sweeping Post review of thousands of state laws, gubernatorial directives and state school board policies. The restrictive laws alone affect almost half of all Americans aged 5 to 19. [...] The divide is sharply partisan. The vast majority of restrictive laws and policies, close to 9o percent, were enacted in states that voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, The Post found. Meanwhile, almost 80 percent of expansive laws and policies were enacted in states that voted for Joe Biden in 2020.
The explosion of laws regulating school curriculums is unprecedented in U.S. history for its volume and scope, said Jonathan Zimmerman, a University of Pennsylvania professor who studies education history and policy...states have never before stepped in so aggressively to set rules for local schools. [...] [A] nationally representative study from the Rand Corp. released this year found that 65 percent of K-12 teachers report they are limiting instruction on âpolitical and social issues.â âWhat the laws show is that we have extremely significant differences over how we imagine America,â Zimmerman said. [...] In practice, these divisions mean that what a child learns about, say, the role slavery played in the nationâs founding â or the possibility of a person identifying as nonbinary â may come to depend on whether they live in a red or blue state. [...] Almost 40 percent of these laws work by granting parents greater control of the curriculum â stipulating that they must be able to review, object to or remove lesson material, as well as opt out of instruction. [...] Another almost 40 percent of the laws forbid schools from teaching a long list of often-vague concepts related to race, sex or gender.
[...] At the college level, among the measures passed in recent years is a 2021 Oklahoma law that prohibits institutions of higher education from holding âmandatory gender or sexual diversity training or counseling,â as well as any âorientation or requirement that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping.â By contrast, a 2023 California measure says state community college faculty must employ âteaching, learning and professional practicesâ that reflect âanti-racist principles.â
Some experts predicted the politically divergent instruction will lead to a more divided society. âWhen children are being taught very different stories of what America is, that will lead to adults who have a harder time talking to each other,â said Rachel Rosenberg, a Hartwick College assistant professor of education.
#us education#political division#red states#blue states#censorship#racism#sexism#gender issues#the washington post#gift link
64 notes
¡
View notes
Text
#Tags:Building Bridges#Empathy and Progress#facts#life#National Unity#Podcast#Political Division#Political Polarization#serious#Shared Humanity#Social Issues#straight forward#Tragedy and Humanity#Tribalism in Politics#Unity in Crisis#upfront#website
0 notes
Text
On Political Division in the United States of America
or: How the Fuck Did We Get Here?
Something that's struck several of my friends, especially international friends, lately is the stark political divide between the two parties in the United States. While adversarial relations between political parties is nothing new, and indeed present in other countries so far as I understand, the US seems to be increasingly divided along political lines. I think it can be helpful to understand how we have arrived at this state so that there might be a more complete understanding of the nature of our political system. Our discussion begins under the cut. Buckle up folks, it's a long one.
The divide between American political parties began even before the creation of the United States and while that history is fascinating in its own right, we shall concern ourselves with more modern events.
In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected as the 32nd President of the United States. At the time the country was suffering from the Great Depression, one contributing factor of which was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, and Roosevelt had campaigned on a promise of economic relief. During his first 100 days in office he and a Democrat-controlled Congress passed a bevy of legislation to fulfill his promises and establish several new federal agencies with the sole aim of lifting the US out of the depression. While some of the steps taken ultimately failed, Roosevelt's New Deal succeeded in ending the Great Depression even if it was through some means he did not intend. I thoroughly recommend taking a deeper dive into the history of Roosevelt's presidency and the actions taken by Congress, it's an interesting topic and very applicable today.
We begin with Roosevelt as this is now considered to be a period of political realignment, specific to US history this is a time where there is not a clear progressive or conservative party. The party divide is mostly between South and North, Roosevelt allowed the Democrats to win races in Northern states and set the stage for the shift into the parties we see in the United States today.
The finalization of the shift to the modern Democratic and Republican Parties began with the election of Ronald Reagan as the 40th President of the United States in 1980. Reagan ran on a platform of tax cuts and a simultaneous increase in military spending, as well as open criticism of the incumbent president, Jimmy Carter. Reagan won the election of 1980 in a landslide victory, securing 7.5 million more popular votes than Carter and netting 489 of the 538 electoral votes. Reagan had previously run against Gerald Ford in the 1976 primaries, viewing Ford as being insufficiently conservative. Reagan's handy defeat of Carter was arguably the result of his cultivation of the evangelical vote as well as his ability to appeal to the working class by appearing more casual and relatable than Carter. Reagan's victory would not have been so assured had it not been for one more factor, a growing conservative movement in the United States that most closely aligned with traditionally conservative Southern Democrats and conservative Republicans.
To understand this conservative movement we must examine two key pieces of United States history: the Southern Strategy and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Southern Strategy was an electoral strategy that sought to use the deepening racial tensions of the 50's and 60's to the advantage of the Republican Party. The strategy relied on innuendo and references to race without directly stating that was the driving force. The Republican Party ran on platforms that played up the fear of white voters, especially in the South, as the civil rights movement gained traction. The Southern Strategy is the driving force behind the realignment of many white voters, especially Southern white voters, to the Republican Party. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson and was designed to provide more tools to enforce the 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution. The passage of the Voting Rights Act was not widely popular among Southern white voters. Combined these two factors lead to a large wave of conservatism in the United States that bolstered Reagan to his ultimate victory.
As much as this site loves to bash Reagan, I shall continue under the assumption I need to explain his policies. This shall be a high-level overview only and by no means comprehensive nor shall it list every policy he supported. Reagan promoted the idea of laissez-faire economics and pursued deregulation across almost every industry. He championed tax cuts, focusing mostly on the higher tax brackets and insisted the money would "trickle down" through the economy (this has yet to happen). Reagan attempted to cut Social Security and only backed off due to massive public backlash before proceeding to cut funding for nearly every other federal assistance program. Reagan was anti-union and appointed like-minded individuals to the National Labor Relations Board who allowed companies to institute wage and benefit cutbacks resulting in declining union membership. He vocally opposed civil rights and worked alongside his appointees to erode enforcement of civil rights legislation. Under Reagan defense spending ballooned to massive proportions and may have contributed to raising tensions during the Cold War. Reagan initially refused to acknowledge the AIDS epidemic which began in 1981. It was not until 1986 that he appointed Surgeon General C. Everette Koop to write a report on the epidemic, it is reported Reagan never read the report.
This is where we diverge from facts and into opinion.
Reagan's policies reveal a man friendly to conservative evangelicals and the wealthy with little to no regard for the working class and members of marginalized communities. While this is not entirely surprising, nor was it new at the time for conservative presidents, his presidency set the stage for the modern Republican Party. This, naturally, would cause the Democratic Party to define itself purely as being oppositional to these conservative policies. The divide begins to form. The divide we see in modern United States politics is the logical endpoint of these identities. The modern Republican Party is defined entirely by its hate for marginalized communities and drive to continue enriching the wealthy, it has convinced its working class members that they're all future millionaires. Conversely, the modern Democratic Party lacks an individual identity, it derives the entirety of its identity from opposition to Republicans. I suspect the reason so many members of marginalized communities identify with the Democratic Party is because of this opposition, the enemy of my enemy is my friend (please correct me if I'm wrong). Were third parties to be viable options, I have little doubt the Democratic Party would splinter. The fact that only these two parties are viable is the reason for such a large divide, at least among the voters. It is impossible for anyone on either side to understand the justifications of someone on the other, and the oppositional nature of this political system serves only to continuously radicalize members of both parties. Republicans become more and more right-wing while Democrats simply become more and more anti-Republican.
Anti-Republican does not equal left-wing, as I'm sure many will be quick to point out. The Democratic Party has been running to the right for years in an attempt to court the wealthy and a rapidly disappearing moderate vote. While representatives of the Democratic Party may support progressive policies, the principle interest of any political party is to remain in power. This drive to retain power is the reason behind the increasingly divisive rhetoric in the United States, as well as the sprint to the right seen in the Democratic Party.
If you've made it all the way though, congratulations and thank you. I realize I may simply be screaming into the wind, but having a platform with which to post my thoughts and analysis allows me to better structure those thoughts. The ability to articulate my thoughts and feelings on modern politics grants me a weapon to be used in the political arena.
"The greatest danger to a democracy is an uninformed electorate where legislators bow to the demands of the ignorant majority instead of governing based on the best interests of greater society." -Thomas Avant
0 notes
Text
Supporters Rally for Trump and Harris: A Divided Nation Ahead of the 2024 Election
Supporters Gather for Trumpâs Rally in Milwaukee The atmosphere outside Donald Trumpâs rally at Milwaukeeâs Fiserv Arena was electric, with fans eagerly anticipating the former presidentâs arrival. Despite the early hour, smiles abounded, and laughter filled the air, with some attendees even enjoying a beer as they made their way towards the 18,000-seat venue. Many of the Wisconsinites presentâŚ
#Atlanta#civil war#early voting#economic issues#Election 2024#Harris rally#Milwaukee#political division#swing states#Trump rally#voter concerns#womenâs rights
0 notes
Text
Today we face another great civilizational question: How can we create a morally cohesive and politically functional democracy amid radical pluralism and diversity? I donât see any cultural movement akin to the social gospel movement of the 1890s. The libraries groan with books diagnosing our divisions, but where is the new social ideal? Where is the set of values that will motivate people to put down their phones and dedicate their lives to changing the world? Some days I do think the civic revival part of the formula is coming along nicely. Through my work at Weave: The Social Fabric Project, I meet local leaders who are striving to rebuild solidarity and serve the marginalized at the neighborhood level. But so far these kinds of efforts have not been able to reverse the catastrophic decline of social trust. Our nation still lacks the sense of social and psychic safety that would allow us to have productive conversations across partisan difference. We still lack a national creed or a national narrative that would give us common ground among competing belief systems.
By David Brooks
Opinion Columnist
The Election Is Happening Too Soon
Oct. 24, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/opinion/polarization-harris-change.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20241025&instance_id=137765&nl=today%27s-headlinesÂŽi_id=43453557&segment_id=181333&user_id=06f6767785a14352b47f4490384ee56a
0 notes
Text
The Internal Struggle: How American Politics is Becoming its Own Enemy
View On WordPress
#American Politics#Bipartisan#Civic Engagement#Civic Responsibility#Community Involvement#Current Events#Democracy#Elections#Electoral Integrity#Ethical Leadership#Government#Grassroots Movements#Leadership#Media Accountability#Misinformation#National Issues#Partisanship#Policy Debate#Policy Reform#Political Accountability#Political Activism#Political Advocacy.#Political Analysis#Political Awareness#Political Campaigns#Political Climate#Political Corruption#Political Crisis#Political Discourse#Political Division
0 notes
Text
Only empathy can save us now
How can we be sympathetic to those who want to do us harm? Because only empathy will save us from this current crisis.
How can we be sympathetic to those who want to do us harm? Itâs a question we ask ourselves in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump. I attempted to answer this question in a TikTok video about the importance of empathy. But it is a subject that needs to be discussed in paragraphs, not sentences. (And without euphemisms and strange spellings to avoidâŚ
1 note
¡
View note
Text
Also a reminder that congressional shills will seek to divide us for their benefit. Give this man some cheese to go with his vinegar.
Globalist Playbook: projection.
âLook at what theyâre doing, cause I donât want you to see me doing those things.â
âŹď¸âŹď¸âŹď¸âŹď¸âŹď¸âŹď¸âŹď¸
197 notes
¡
View notes
Link
1 note
¡
View note
Text
Guess Narumi isn't getting any paperwork done ÂŻ\_(ă)_/ÂŻ
#Ichikawa reno#narumi gen#narureno#kaiju no.8#kn8#my art#FINGERS IN MOUTH FINGERS IN MOUTH FINGERS IN MOUTH!!!#oh this is a spicy one ksdjfhs#idk man i think they need to send reno to 1st division so narumi can call him to his office for shenanigans#I am such a sucker for how reno is always so polite and respectful#Like i know narumi could start shit in a semi public place and reno would still address him as captain during the whole thing skdjhfsdf#narumi new kink awakenend SKJDHGFKWSHDF#also thank you all you lovely people writing nice tags on my narureno art ueueue#i read them all i see them all i lov u guys ;;; I didn't expect any love on this ship ;__; weeping and sending u all gift baskets
301 notes
¡
View notes
Text
Angie/MaddieđŚâĽâď¸đşđ¸
#globalism#Marxism#all Democrats#90% of Republicans#corrupt#sellouts#DEI#diversity hires#division is all the political establishment has#diversity is not our strength#unity is our strength#the United States is a republic#the refugees and migrants are the invasion#border jumpers#criminals
123 notes
¡
View notes
Text
You're being targeted by disinformation networks that are vastly more effective than you realize. And they're making you more hateful and depressed.
(This essay was originally by u/walkandtalkk and posted to r/GenZ on Reddit two months ago, and I've crossposted here on Tumblr for convenience because it's relevant and well-written.)
TL;DR: You know that Russia and other governments try to manipulate people online. But you almost certainly don't how just how effectively orchestrated influence networks are using social media platforms to make you -- individually-- angry, depressed, and hateful toward each other. Those networks' goal is simple: to cause Americans and other Westerners -- especially young ones -- to give up on social cohesion and to give up on learning the truth, so that Western countries lack the will to stand up to authoritarians and extremists.
And you probably don't realize how well it's working on you.
This is a long post, but I wrote it because this problem is real, and it's much scarier than you think.
How Russian networks fuel racial and gender wars to make Americans fight one another
In September 2018, a video went viral after being posted by In the Now, a social media news channel. It featured a feminist activist pouring bleach on a male subway passenger for manspreading. It got instant attention, with millions of views and wide social media outrage. Reddit users wrote that it had turned them against feminism.
There was one problem: The video was staged. And In the Now, which publicized it, is a subsidiary of RT, formerly Russia Today, the Kremlin TV channel aimed at foreign, English-speaking audiences.
As an MIT study found in 2019, Russia's online influence networks reached 140 million Americans every month -- the majority of U.S. social media users.
Russia began using troll farms a decade ago to incite gender and racial divisions in the United States
In 2013, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a confidante of Vladimir Putin, founded the Internet Research Agency (the IRA) in St. Petersburg. It was the Russian government's first coordinated facility to disrupt U.S. society and politics through social media.
Here's what Prigozhin had to say about the IRA's efforts to disrupt the 2022 election:
"Gentlemen, we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how. During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once."
In 2014, the IRA and other Russian networks began establishing fake U.S. activist groups on social media. By 2015, hundreds of English-speaking young Russians worked at the IRA. Their assignment was to use those false social-media accounts, especially on Facebook and Twitter -- but also on Reddit, Tumblr, 9gag, and other platforms -- to aggressively spread conspiracy theories and mocking, ad hominem arguments that incite American users.
In 2017, U.S. intelligence found that Blacktivist, a Facebook and Twitter group with more followers than the official Black Lives Matter movement, was operated by Russia. Blacktivist regularly attacked America as racist and urged black users to rejected major candidates. On November 2, 2016, just before the 2016 election, Blacktivist's Twitter urged Black Americans: "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it's not a wasted vote."
Russia plays both sides -- on gender, race, and religion
The brilliance of the Russian influence campaign is that it convinces Americans to attack each other, worsening both misandry and misogyny, mutual racial hatred, and extreme antisemitism and Islamophobia. In short, it's not just an effort to boost the right wing; it's an effort to radicalize everybody.
Russia uses its trolling networks to aggressively attack men. According to MIT, in 2019, the most popular Black-oriented Facebook page was the charmingly named "My Baby Daddy Aint Shit." It regularly posts memes attacking Black men and government welfare workers. It serves two purposes: Make poor black women hate men, and goad black men into flame wars.
MIT found that My Baby Daddy is run by a large troll network in Eastern Europe likely financed by Russia.
But Russian influence networks are also also aggressively misogynistic and aggressively anti-LGBT.
On January 23, 2017, just after the first Women's March, the New York Times found that the Internet Research Agency began a coordinated attack on the movement. Per the Times:
More than 4,000 miles away, organizations linked to the Russian government had assigned teams to the Womenâs March. At desks in bland offices in St. Petersburg, using models derived from advertising and public relations, copywriters were testing out social media messages critical of the Womenâs March movement, adopting the personas of fictional Americans.
They posted as Black women critical of white feminism, conservative women who felt excluded, and men who mocked participants as hairy-legged whiners.
But the Russian PR teams realized that one attack worked better than the rest: They accused its co-founder, Arab American Linda Sarsour, of being an antisemite. Over the next 18 months, at least 152 Russian accounts regularly attacked Sarsour. That may not seem like many accounts, but it worked: They drove the Women's March movement into disarray and eventually crippled the organization.
Russia doesn't need a million accounts, or even that many likes or upvotes. It just needs to get enough attention that actual Western users begin amplifying its content.
A former federal prosecutor who investigated the Russian disinformation effort summarized it like this:
It wasnât exclusively about Trump and Clinton anymore. It was deeper and more sinister and more diffuse in its focus on exploiting divisions within society on any number of different levels.
As the New York Times reported in 2022,
There was a routine: Arriving for a shift, [Russian disinformation] workers would scan news outlets on the ideological fringes, far left and far right, mining for extreme content that they could publish and amplify on the platforms, feeding extreme views into mainstream conversations.
China is joining in with AI
[A couple months ago], the New York Times reported on a new disinformation campaign. "Spamouflage" is an effort by China to divide Americans by combining AI with real images of the United States to exacerbate political and social tensions in the U.S. The goal appears to be to cause Americans to lose hope, by promoting exaggerated stories with fabricated photos about homeless violence and the risk of civil war.
As Ladislav Bittman, a former Czechoslovakian secret police operative, explained about Soviet disinformation, the strategy is not to invent something totally fake. Rather, it is to act like an evil doctor who expertly diagnoses the patientâs vulnerabilities and exploits them, âprolongs his illness and speeds him to an early grave instead of curing him.â
The influence networks are vastly more effective than platforms admit
Russia now runs its most sophisticated online influence efforts through a network called Fabrika. Fabrika's operators have bragged that social media platforms catch only 1% of their fake accounts across YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and Telegram, and other platforms.
But how effective are these efforts? By 2020, Facebook's most popular pages for Christian and Black American content were run by Eastern European troll farms tied to the Kremlin. And Russia doesn't just target angry Boomers on Facebook. Russian trolls are enormously active on Twitter. And, even, on Reddit.
It's not just false facts
The term "disinformation" undersells the problem. Because much of Russia's social media activity is not trying to spread fake news. Instead, the goal is to divide and conquer by making Western audiences depressed and extreme.
Sometimes, through brigading and trolling. Other times, by posting hyper-negative or extremist posts or opinions about the U.S. the West over and over, until readers assume that's how most people feel. And sometimes, by using trolls to disrupt threads that advance Western unity.
As the RAND think tank explained, the Russian strategy is volume and repetition, from numerous accounts, to overwhelm real social media users and create the appearance that everyone disagrees with, or even hates, them. And it's not just low-quality bots. Per RAND,
Russian propaganda is produced in incredibly large volumes and is broadcast or otherwise distributed via a large number of channels. ... According to a former paid Russian Internet troll, the trolls are on duty 24 hours a day, in 12-hour shifts, and each has a daily quota of 135 posted comments of at least 200 characters.
What this means for you
You are being targeted by a sophisticated PR campaign meant to make you more resentful, bitter, and depressed. It's not just disinformation; it's also real-life human writers and advanced bot networks working hard to shift the conversation to the most negative and divisive topics and opinions.
It's why some topics seem to go from non-issues to constant controversy and discussion, with no clear reason, across social media platforms. And a lot of those trolls are actual, "professional" writers whose job is to sound real.
So what can you do? To quote WarGames: The only winning move is not to play. The reality is that you cannot distinguish disinformation accounts from real social media users. Unless you know whom you're talking to, there is a genuine chance that the post, tweet, or comment you are reading is an attempt to manipulate you -- politically or emotionally.
Here are some thoughts:
Don't accept facts from social media accounts you don't know. Russian, Chinese, and other manipulation efforts are not uniform. Some will make deranged claims, but others will tell half-truths. Or they'll spin facts about a complicated subject, be it the war in Ukraine or loneliness in young men, to give you a warped view of reality and spread division in the West.
Resist groupthink. A key element of manipulate networks is volume. People are naturally inclined to believe statements that have broad support. When a post gets 5,000 upvotes, it's easy to think the crowd is right. But "the crowd" could be fake accounts, and even if they're not, the brilliance of government manipulation campaigns is that they say things people are already predisposed to think. They'll tell conservative audiences something misleading about a Democrat, or make up a lie about Republicans that catches fire on a liberal server or subreddit.
Don't let social media warp your view of society. This is harder than it seems, but you need to accept that the facts -- and the opinions -- you see across social media are not reliable. If you want the news, do what everyone online says not to: look at serious, mainstream media. It is not always right. Sometimes, it screws up. But social media narratives are heavily manipulated by networks whose job is to ensure you are deceived, angry, and divided.
Edited for typos and clarity. (Tumblr-edited for formatting and to note a sourced article is now older than mentioned in the original post. -LV)
P.S. Apparently, this post was removed several hours ago due to a flood of reports. Thank you to the r/GenZ moderators for re-approving it.
Second edit:
This post is not meant to suggest that r/GenZ is uniquely or especially vulnerable, or to suggest that a lot of challenges people discuss here are not real. It's entirely the opposite: Growing loneliness, political polarization, and increasing social division along gender lines is real. The problem is that disinformation and influence networks expertly, and effectively, hijack those conversations and use those real, serious issues to poison the conversation. This post is not about left or right: Everyone is targeted.
(Further Tumblr notes: since this was posted, there have been several more articles detailing recent discoveries of active disinformation/influence and hacking campaigns by Russia and their allies against several countries and their respective elections, and barely touches on the numerous Tumblr blogs discovered to be troll farms/bad faith actors from pre-2016 through today. This is an ongoing and very real problem, and it's nowhere near over.
A quote from NPR article linked above from 2018 that you might find familiar today: "[A] particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote Killary. We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils. Then we'd surely be better off without voting AT ALL," a post from the account said.")
#propaganda#psyops#disinformation#US politics#election 2024#us elections#YES we have legitimate criticisms of our politicians and systems#but that makes us EVEN MORE susceptible to radicalization. not immune#no not everyone sharing specific opinions are psyops. but some of them are#and we're more likely to eat it up on all sides if it aligns with our beliefs#the division is the point#sound familiar?#voting#rambles#long post
160 notes
¡
View notes
Text
Subconciously, we see an attack on ourselves and our beliefs as a threat and we attempt to block with a counter-stance. But it is not enough to stand on the opposite riverbank, shouting questions, challenging patriarchal white conventions. A counter-stance locks one into a duel of oppressor and oppressed; locked in mortal combat, both are reduced to a common denominator of violence. The counter-stance refutes the dominant culture's views and beliefs, and for this, it is proudly defiant. All reaction is limited by, and dependent on, what it is reacting against. Because the counter-stance stems from a problem with authority - outer as well as inner - it's a step toward liberation from cultural domination. But it is not a way of life. At some point, on our way to a new consciousness, we will have to leave the opposite bank, the split between two mortal combatants somehow healed so that we are on both shores at once and, at once, see through serpent and eagle eyes. Or perhaps we will decide to disengage from the dominant culture, write it off altogether as a lost cause, and cross the border into a wholly new and separate territory. Or we might go another route. The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.
â Gloria Anzaldua, âLa concencia de la mestizaâ
Follow Diary of a Philosopher for more quotes!
#gloria anzaldua#La concencia de la mestiza#quotes#book quotes#studyblr#gradblr#literature quotes#lit quotes#multiculturalism#latine#latin#latam#latin america#dark academia#quote#academia#chaotic academia#philosophy#philosophy quotes#south america#america latina#globalization#polarization#politics#divisions#colonialism#decolonial practices#decolonization#decolonialism#decolonize your mind
57 notes
¡
View notes
Text
Jon Stewart Reflects on American Politics and Media Evolution
Reflecting on Change: Jon Stewart on American Politics The comedian and co-host of âThe Daily Showâ shares insights on the evolution of American politics over the past two decades. Looking back to the Tea Party movement of 2010, we find ourselves in a time when a fresh face joined the ranks of Fox NewsâTucker Carlson. Just two years removed from his stint at MSNBC, Carlsonâs transition was aâŚ
#American politics#Daily Show#Jon Stewart#media evolution#media landscape#polarization#political division#rally for sanity#social media#Tea Party
1 note
¡
View note
Text
Speech Liz Cheney gave at the Utah State Capitol!
~BR~
#kamala harris#tim walz#harris walz 2024#campaigning#policy#2024 presidential election#legislation#united states#hq#politics#democracy#harris walz 2024 campaigning#campaign rally#Utah state capitol#vote blue#liz cheney#utah#salt lake city#faith#division#election 2024#freedom of religion#LDS#lds church
33 notes
¡
View notes