It is beyond baffling how there are still low-motivation and low-information voters to convince to come out to vote.
The de-programming of the Trumpists is a 50-50. We watched the doc on Haether Stainer and had some great converstaions with her...but one of her defendants got the memo and the other one is fucking clueless.
Thanks for linking to the New Yorker video. It was a really good look into the some of the issues that we're up against.
I have been making an effort to understand why so many people that I know are still supporting Trump. I recently read some writing by Diane Benscoter. In her 20s, Benscoter got involved with the Unification Church (aka the "Moonies"). What Benscoter points out is that many of the people who get involved with cults, do so because
they believe they are doing something good. In Benscoter's case, she was a Christian and she was opposed to the Vietnam war. The Moon church inducted many of its members by telling them that Rev Moon was the second coming of Jesus and that by devoting themselves to the works of the Church, they were helping to save mankind. While Benscoter was living a Christ-like life of poverty, she visits the palatial mansion of Rev Moon and rationalizes that because Moon is Christ incarnated, this opulent wealth is justified (the Unification Church is believed to have a net worth of nearly $1 billion).
The theme gets repeated in all of these recent examples: QAnon members believe that they are saving children, anti-abortion zealots believe that they are preventing a murder, the "Stop the Steal" crowd believe they are saving Democracy, the MAGA devotees believe that they are "making America great again". In the New Yorker video, there are two extreme examples of the same phenomenon: Heather believes that her work as a public defender is doing the good works mentioned in the Talmud ("Whoever saves a single life is considered by scripture to have saved the whole world.") while her clients believe that they were at the Capitol on Jan 6th to save America from a stolen election.
If anything should scare us about the MAGA crowd it is that they are not having self-reflection that leads them to contrition and to repent.
Peter Navarro went to prison on the conviction that he was doing the right thing by refusing to testify in front of Congress and when he got out of prison, what did he do? He showed up at the Republican Convention and doubled down on his intent to continue pursuing his case.
Steve Bannon went to prison for the same reason as Navarro. When he got out of prison, what did he do? He went back to podcasting and spreading disinformation to get Trump elected.
Heather's client Jack Griffith (aka Liberty Dragon) pleaded guilty to a federal charges but he still says he believes the election was stolen and he is still doing social media where he brags about his role in the MAGA movement. While reviewing the government's court filings, he points to pictures of himself in the Capitol on Jan 6th, saying "That's your boy!". Of note, Griffith was not a registered voter when he joined the Jan 6th riot. At one point, he says that he has no friends; his friends are all on social media.
We do need to rethink the definition of "low information voter". While there are people who meet the definition of the traditional low information voter, voters who don't follow the news and don't do deep dives into politics, there's another group of low information voters who appear to be getting a lot of information, but
they are not getting the full picture.
Because the media is now very partisan, someone can be watching Fox News, RT or NewsMax, outlets that have become propaganda arms for the far right. When someone goes to YouTube or Facebook, algorithms reconfigure their news feeds and their recommendations to feed them more content that matches what they have search for. The algorithms create bias based upon their view history, not only on those platforms but also on Google and other sites that share cookies. It may appear that these voters are getting information, however the information that algorithms are feeding them are highly biased and do not represent a complete set of facts.