There’s a tendency in this heated political climate to simply reject people who are saying false things and to write off conspiracy theorists writ large.
But as the US approaches the third straight election in which misinformation — and the fight against it — is expected to play a role, it’s important to understand what’s driving people who don’t believe in US elections.
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I talked to O’Sullivan about the documentary, in which he has some frank and disarming talks with people about what has shaken their belief in the US. But he paints an alarming picture about the rise of fringe movements in the country.
Our conversation, conducted by phone and edited for length, is below:
WOLF: What were you trying to accomplish with this project?
O’SULLIVAN: So much of mainstream American politics now is being infected and affected by what is happening on what was once considered the real fringes — fringe platforms, fringe personalities.
And I think really what we want to do in this show is illustrate how these personalities may be pushing falsehoods, but they’re no longer fringe. This is all happening right now. And it is having a big effect on our democracy.
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I’m only saying this because your post is about education and you also did it twice.
But its spelled citizen.
Thanks!
Unless you’re a republican. Then please, get rid of school requirements. Put education in the responsibility of the parent. Reduce teaching wages and extra curricular activities.
One of the things I learned in sociology class in a Department of Defense high school in the 80s was educated people are easier to propagandize.
I’d go look look it up in Safari and come back to this message with links but whatever this client app is on iOS with the mouse icon will not save the state of my work and I’ll never find this conversation again .
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Oh no, a dude was a product of his time, but as society got better he changed with society for the better, THE HORROR.
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Nonono, don’t settle for the lesser evil… Cthulhu 2024.
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Counterpoint, not celebrating when someone changes for the better encourages shitty people to just STAY shitty people, and I could argue THAT is why we end up having to vote for lesser evils. You have to be 100% on the right side of history right from the moment you are born or else fuck you for the rest of time I guess
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Is he not restoring the LGBTQ protections that the previous president removed? Which part of that is doubling down on him being wrong in the past? Attacking everyone who doesnt fully agree with you doesnt change ANYONES minds, and in fact makes you more enemies, thus putting whichever cause you fight for further behind
I don’t know for sure, but I think maybe they are downvoting you because pointing out that sort of thing about Biden right now when there’s a very good possibility Trump could win is not very helpful.
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I don’t have your crystal ball, so I’d rather chances not be taken at the moment.
You can submit a message and then edit it from your profile page
It’s probably true, in some contexts.
If you are a foreign government? Or internal powers wanting to enact an authoritarian and religious regime that hurts the peoples it’s trying to convince? Then probably not. Educated people are going to be harder to turn against their own interests.
A DoD high school?
Yep. because they have a false sense of what they know.
Esp the people who are educated at BA level… when you get to MA/PhD it gets different, but you can’t expect most folks to ever attain that level of education. Because it’s only in graduate work that you realize how little any of us really knows and how much work (a lifetime) it takes to be an expert of a very tiny slice of the world.
That’s not true at all.
Plenty of the highest educated people in American are pushing this nonsense. Why? Because it makes them money. Crazy bullshit sells penis pills.
Education has nothing to do with it. If anything being super well-educated makes you overconfidence and more likely to fall for this shit.
What makes people not likely to fall for it? Skepticism. That’s what. Our education system is built making corporate drones, and the people who succeed at being yes men are most likely to get the best grades and the jobs.
I agree with parts of you post, like the educational system not creating people that think critical, but rather swallow whatever is thrown at them.
But well educated people are absolutely not more likely to fall for bullshit like penis pills. The same way a kid is far easier to manipulate compared to an adult for the same reason.
What’s really interesting is how much I agree with some people on the far right. We are angry at the conditions our society has created. We are affected by the same inequalities, lack of infrastructure, and there is no safety net in case something happens to us. It just gets insane when we see how different our solutions are.
The problem is that even though we share so many of the same problems with the far right they try to solve those problems by doubling down on them. Need food and basic housing? They make social services harder to get and cut the existing ones. Need medical care? Reject Medicaid expansion and try to get rid of the ACA. No retirement money? Go after social security and make you wait longer to get it.
Why, because someone else might get the money that didn’t “earn it” by some arbitrary metric? Or maybe they have darker skin? Or have a drug problem? Or are homeless? So the right would rather hurt themeselves so long as it hurts the people they don’t like more.
You know I’ve started to get the impression that the impoverished part of the right-wing electorate has long given up on looking for a solution that could really improve their lives. Instead, they want the government to create a new underclass of people made up of immigrants, leftists and criminals that they can look down on.
they want the government to
create a newbring back the old underclass of people made up of immigrants, leftists and criminalsFtfy
They do enjoy punching down, it seems.
So this has been the inspiration for my reaching across the aisle approach.
You can’t convince them by calling them idiots. You need to go on their social media and instead of fighting their wrong posts, just hint and gently point them in the class conscience posts.
They are getting there, the issue now is although they do believe power hungry people want to control things. They just think it’s done via committee instead of wealth.
It takes more effort for me to convince a group of people with talking then just buying things out.
Read the Naomi Klein book Doppelganger
Join our campaign to free this pitiful creature! Details inside.
I used to get so high and read this ish. Good times!
What you may not know is that this paper, along with the National Enquirer, were the result of the efforts of Gene Pope.
A guy whose job immediately before buying up and transforming the Enquirer was in the CIA’s psychological warfare division.
This was around the time the CIA was upset with national coverage of UFOs. Suddenly stories about them were appearing alongside “Elvis lives” or Bat Boy, and no reputable news would touch UFO stories with a 10’ pole.
That explains my current mental state.
When people talk about the “fringe”, don’t forget how far we have drifted.
Data does not actually support the idea that politics are shifting right:
The term is named after the American policy analyst Joseph Overton, who proposed that an idea’s political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians’ individual preferences. … The Overton window is an approach to identifying the ideas that define the spectrum of acceptability of governmental policies. It says politicians can act only within the acceptable range. Shifting the Overton window involves proponents of policies outside the window persuading the public to expand the window.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
Data does not actually support the idea that politics are shifting right:
The title of your article is literally:
America More Liberal than 50 Years Ago—But Change Not Reflected in Its Politics
Okay but playing devil’s advocate, that could just mean politics stayed the same as people moved left.
Granted, but, begging the question… does that mean rightward pressure has been exerted on the overton window such that people’s attempts to move it leftward have been frustrated?
If I’m understanding the Overton window correctly, it’s the range of ideas that would be politically feasible without immediately getting voted out of office… So rightward pressure would mean society at large moving to the right. Since we know society at large has moved left, I think I’d have to argue that the window only works if we live somewhere that what society wants actually matters. Due to mapping and other shenanigans I don’t think the window means anything today. In a direct democracy I think we’d see a very progressive society develop. We live in an oligarchy though, so all that matters is what the rich want, and they want us fighting each other over trans people and guns and abortion rather than fighting them over economics.
Not a bad article, but I wish they wouldn’t use politically neutral language like fringe or polarisation or even just conspiracy theorist, as if the issues aren’t almost exclusively happening on one side of politics. Call a spade a spade already.
If you are concerned with the quality of candidates of Republicans, consider working towards passing electoral reform in your state. Maybe these conservatives aren’t happy with the republicans or democrats and would like to vote for some other conservative political party.
Getting rid of First Past The Post voting would allow these people to choose a more moderate conservative, while still counting their vote if their preference didn’t win.
Good for the goose, but may not be good for the gander.
speak for yourself, i see so much of it in my former ‘leftist’ friends. especially the ‘woke’ ones who think anyone who doesn’t have enough BLM stickers is a facist.
least to say when i said BLM signs are slacktivism, they went ape-shit on me. lol
The interview is with a person that made a documentary called MisinfoNation: The Trump Faithful. It said it was airing on CNN tonight, but I don’t have cable. It doesn’t look like it’s available anywhere online. Dammit.
What happened in the US is the exact playbook of Putin in the last 20 years. The road to dictatorship
I would’ve been so on the side of those who want government reform or little government around, if their solutions to the problems weren’t so batshit and attacking so many strawmen and inflicting the rights of others who aren’t them.
That is where the singular problem of this lies.
And orbiting around one soulless individual and an equally as soulless political party is absolutely not the way to go about it either.
Some?
I’d argue it’s most. Granted, people’s level of delusion varies, but esp among the younger kids who are tik-tok addicts, there is a marked decline in their ability to realize there is a world outside of their experience and what they are being told on tik-tok.
What baffles me is the intolerance of disagreement. When I was in college the main thing I learned was the limits of what I know, how much I don’t know, and to tolerate others POV and to investigate the facts and see beyond biased narratives and recognize those biases…
Today it seems all people learn is ‘i am right, because i feel i am right, and nobody can tell me otherwise’. and people are more and more extreme in their views and more willing to dehumanize others for the smallest of disagreements. IRL and on the internet.
My views are liberal, but I’m open to conservative ideas. This was not controversial in the 2000s, and most of the early 2010s, but post Trump/tiktok, even my own former friends on the left have whole-heartedly adopted the ‘I am a victim and my feelings are all that matters’ mentality, and just live in these social media hug boxes where every little think they do is a HUGE achievement, and any mistake they make is never their fault. Meanwhile, they bitch and bitch about how unfair and unhappy their lives are if only rich white guys would just give them their money it would all be better. They have zero interest in building anything inclusive or meaningful in their communities, unless you define community as ‘only people who look, speak, and think exactly like I do’. Everything is a catchphrase, and no subtling is allowed. ‘ACAB’… well I have family who are cops… sorry if I’m not on board with the mentality that ACAB, but I 100% recognize the need for police reform… but that viewpoint is ‘toxic’ now. You can’t recognize cops as people.
It’s truly dark. I’ve also seen it firsthand with people i’ve know for several years now, watching them slowly become angry nutbags whose joy in life is enforcing social confomrity into whatever fiefdom they are a part of. And I am just sort of peacing out now, because I no longer want to be involved in communities and groups full of narcissistic twits and angry miserable people whose only joy in life is shitting on others who are different than them.
Somebody that fits this description (excluding ACAB) won the Presidency. Self promoting and selfish desires. The “greed is good” era has continued pushing a selfish culture over community driven goals. This is especially true in the large media organizations and social media. Media makes decisions for profits and selfish goals over community engagement, education, and cohesiveness.
But, there are many counter examples in the actual community. The community driven people just make less noise online. I volunteer with college kids and the generosity and desire for community building is really impressive. I would not find this online but in real life it is very evident. But no one makes money selling things to people who care about others more than themselves. So advertising and social media cater to the selfish side of people so that is what we see more often.
Yeah. Sadly any community org that started out great I have been a part of always lets money get in the way… and then it all becomes about ‘image’ and social conformity and such.
I recently left a community garden group I helped build because they won some grant and decided they needed to get more grants and more money and the best way to do that was to become a group that ‘helps marginalized peoples’ and hence… if you are white you should leave because you aren’t helping our ‘brand’. They changed all the photos on the social media/website to women and minorities, despite the fact 70% of the people doing the actual work were white male folks… but since that doesn’t fit the ‘brand’ they need to get more money… it’s just a self-defeating process and what was a inclusive group is now exclusive. Despite the flat irony that the racial makeup of our group was spot on with the that of the city (70% white) it’s not decided that no, your skin color is what matters.
Greed ruins everything.
Helping marginalized peoples? Dear god, what horrors will they think of next?
England also thought they were ‘helping’ marginalized people when they colonized Africa/India.
You’re right, a garden group helping marginalized people is no different from Europeans colonizing Africa. Why didn’t I see it that way before?
Because you don’t pay attention to how social power and identity are used as weapons today, just as it was during colonialism.
People haven’t changed very much, we are no more ‘enlightened’ today than we were 400 years ago. We’re just have a lot more words to pretend we are superior.
Just got to love how you get downvoted. Essentially exactly doing what you complain about.
“Some”?
Yup, some. Interact with the public on a regular basis and you’ll see that most people aren’t crazy, but some certainly are.
I do interact with the public, it’s literally my job. That said it’s not just “some”. How many Trump cultists are there again? Last I checked they are enough to tie Biden in the polls almost. Not really “some”.
What do you think some means?
right? i live in a the most left leaning state in the country practically, and I still see Trump stuff every single day when I leave the house. They are everywhere. 33% of state residents voted for him. That isn’t some. that’s 1/3 people.
Misinformation has been around before the written word and while many are pointing the finger at the Internet for making it worse, I am not convinced it has. I mean all bought trickle down economics before the Internet for example.
Trickle down economics, as a theory, has been around well over 100 years, and it’s never been believed in by everybody. Hell, a presidential candidate gave a speech against the idea in 1896
You’re correct about misinformation having been around forever, but access to and ease to create misinformation is greater than ever before thanks to the Internet.
the internet also lets propagandists and propaganda consumers find each other in speed, volume, and frequency, in a way that unprecedented.
and the sad fact that is many many many people spend most of their waking hours consuming internet content these days. at least, anyone under 40. The only people I know who watch TV or read papers are all over 50. Hell, just finding anyone under 40 who reads a magazine or some other long-format type of information is incredibly rare. Why read The Economist when you can just subscribe to their tiktok feed?
People read magazines and newspapers before the Internet and before that it was town criers and word of mouth that spread misinformation. I really sense that misinformation has really not changed…just how it is consumed has.
I wonder, how were town criers paid?
Is a good question. I asked ChatGPT and it said “ Town criers were often paid by the local government or the community they served. Their compensation varied depending on the time period and location. In some cases, town criers received a regular salary, while in others, they might be paid per message delivered. Additionally, they sometimes received extra benefits, such as clothing or housing, as part of their compensation. The job of a town crier was considered important for public communication, especially before the widespread availability of printed media, so communities ensured they were reasonably compensated to keep the information flowing.” Seems like a reasonable answer that other sources seem to corroborate.
Probably paid by the wealthy class and I am sure they would stay on message if they wanted to keep their job.
Right, paid by the local government which was probably some kind of aristocracy.
I wonder if individual business owners could pay for messages like ads in the newspaper. “Buy bread at Baker Joe’s!”
Also I wonder if they were literate at times when most people weren’t. So the message could be written down so they don’t forget it. I’d guess if you were literate you’d have more lucrative job opportunities. So that might make this kind of a decent job?
I’ve been alive both before and after the internet and it’s DRASTICALLY worse now.
I too have be alive before and after the Internet and it just seems like misinformation just moved mediums. Not like newspapers and magazines were not spreading misinformation before. I feel the more we point the finger a the Internet as the cause the more we are not recognizing it has always been with us back to town criers and word of mouth into the deep past. It is always been here and is not going anywhere. How we deal with it is what changes.
Of course the Internet has made it worse. It did so initially by giving a platform to hucksters, fascists and frauds that let them find like minded people that otherwise would not have convalesced around them.
Social media optimized this process, and now algorithms design entire custom made echo chambers that reinforce and amplify the outrageous because it profitable to do so, as rage and violence keep people on the platform, churning though ads.
Youre right that capitalism, the unending profit motive that must increase is the true source of the damage, but the internet has been a powerful engine in its conquest of truth for profit.
I really cannot agree as misinformation was prevalent in newspapers and magazines before the Internet and before that you better believe the town crier was spreading the word of those in power too, many of the same people you described. Echo chambers in person versus online are still just echo chambers.
The difference is the town crier could only speak to everyone near enough to hear. Now he can speak to anyone around the world with an Internet connection. And there are millions of town criers.
There is no evidence that it is worse than past communication mediums unless you have a link to a paper that shows this. The real point I am making is that misinformation has been something humans have been susceptible to since before recorded time regardless of the medium. Many are focusing on the Internet as the issue, but the focus should be on us…the people as misinformation is nothing new. Time we really address it, starting with education.
You have forgotten the feedback and psychological magnification of technology. Written word was just put out there. Focus groups became more prominent with TV ads. The internet provided a whole new set of tools like algorithms and data analysis to study and more effectively sway people’s thinking. Putin has developed a whole new type of hybrid warfare using cyber technology.
There really is no evidence that the current mediums of misinformation are any worse than previous mediums. It has been an issue for a long time and while I agree that algorithms and such can amply, previous mediums has their amplifiers too, but we never really acknowledged. There is however lots of evidence that humans are susceptible to misinformation so while we cannot control misinformation, we can better educate on how to manage better.
I mean all bought trickle down economics before the Internet for example.
Nope. The media just wanted you to think that. They constantly showed archconservative politicians peddling the nonsense and never showed anybody questioning it. Then the internet came along and most people said “of course it doesn’t work very well lol”. And suddenly everybody realized that most people never believed it.
All? Hardly. They called it ‘voodoo economics’ back in the 80s for a reason.
