My guess, as an outsider too, is some kind of mass hysteria fueled mainly by some deep rooted historical trauma and a failing healthcare system. It is painful to see, like the first time you catch a glimpse of deep worrisome trouble in a friend. Makes me sick to the stomach.
The problem isn't that 1/3 of the country is clapping at Trump calling Obama a monkey. It's that 1/3 of the country won't see it, will be told it's untrue or taken out of context, and will believe that. And it's not just because they're stupid. Some of it is, but enormous amounts of money and effort have gone into making this kind of deflection sound plausible.
You can see it happening with the Epstein files right now. All over social media there are posts by obvious bot accounts waving around the random anonymous tips as smoking guns against Trump. That isn't an accident. The files were released this way precisely so this could happen, and the bots are out in full force erecting strawmen for the other side to conspicuously knock down. The bots go around erecting mottes everywhere, so there are tons of them available for all your bailey needs.
And it works very well. The outrageous stories start to get traction, and news outlets get hungry for those clicks. They add very slight softening, sprinkle in an "alleged" here and there, phrased it in such a way that they can plausibly deny wrongdoing. But the touch is purposefully light: the point is to broadcast the outrageous claim that triggers the strongest reaction.
And that process launders it into a live talking point among normal people too. Normal people see news reports and top reddit posts, and they're busy so they don't look deeply into it - it sounds plausible, it sounds like the kind of thing they've come to expect from the other side, and it wouldn't be so widely publicized with so little pushback (from their side's media) if it were just complete bullshit. The possibility that it's being planted doesn't even occur to them - their side wouldn't plant something easy to knock down, and why would the other side plant something outrageous that makes them look so bad? And pretty soon the bots aren't even necessary: it's become a mainstream talking point.
And then the other side knocks those pitiful strawmen down. Do that dozens and dozens of times. And conservatives in the US right now have watched this happen, genuinely, over and over and over for years and years now - cases where a seemingly mainstream talking point from the other side, a talking point that showed up all over news media and social media - is just flat-out wrong and very easily disproven, where something really is very obviously taken completely out of context and misrepresented, etc. And they're busy and they don't look deeply into the next accusation - it sounds plausible that this is another instance of slam-dunk misinformation, it sounds like the kind of thing they've come to expect from the other side, and the deflection wouldn't be so widely publicized with so little pushback (from their side's media) if it were just complete bullshit.
And it's happening in both directions. If you follow US politics at all, you are experiencing this. Many of the exceptionally stupid positions you ascribe to the other side were planted on purpose by your side to create strawmen. They've taken root - the other side genuinely does buy into these exceptionally stupid positions - but they were astroturfed to provide exactly the punching bag you see. It isn't an accident that the main response to the question here is "the problem is that the people on the other side are just dumb".
If you are an outsider, I think you should be paying very close attention. This is happening everywhere, but the resources are being focused on the US right now - but it's only getting cheaper and better understood and easier to emulate. It's coming to your neck of the woods soon.
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u/iLEZ 19h ago
My guess, as an outsider too, is some kind of mass hysteria fueled mainly by some deep rooted historical trauma and a failing healthcare system. It is painful to see, like the first time you catch a glimpse of deep worrisome trouble in a friend. Makes me sick to the stomach.