Friend Infected With Right Wing Brain Worms - What to Do?

And Rhonda Byrne, as I've been saying for years.

xp

DJI posted this to uspol and I found it to be an interesting counterpoint (thread):

Let me explain something to those of you who didn't grow up around violently abusive white supremacists.

*They absolutely do not believe their own bullshit*, but it's useful for them to pretend they do.

— Lili Saintcrow (@lilithsaintcrow) January 7, 2021

This is the best explanation i've seen of why it might be happening, where it came from, etc. Unsurprisingly the top comments are full of people who came back to watch it again after last week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44

I said my take on a conspiracy theory thread: alienation and feelings of powerlessness and paranoia (experts, govt, trad media can't be trusted) brought on by living in an incredibly complex modern world

I don't think its anything to do with the modern world (unless we mean going back to the enlightenment). I think of it as more a reaction to education, an antipathy to measuring things, a disdain for city folks, to things learned in books and not from hands

This isn't anything recent

(I think this applies more to brainworms more so than consipratorial thinking. Though there's overlap I don't think they are the same)

things learned in books and not from hands

Not necessarily. Plenty of conspiracy theorists are very well read (perhaps less so in the US, however).

Yes, agree, that is true, brainworms and conspiracists aren't the same thing, but they overlap in certain ways

i think the main appeal of Q is as coping mechanism, to prevent disillusionment, when the trump presidency didnt actually result in a complete overthrow of the existing society and the reign of justice on earth which people were hoping for. we know all the damage that trump has done to the "others" (undocumented immigrants most notably), but that's not enough for a lot of his supporters. essentially america is the same country it was in 2016: he didn't reopen the factories and coal mines, he didn't stop immigration or revert america to a whiter past, popular culture has if anything gotten more liberal and more geared towards representation, BLM protests increased in size and intensity, the hated liberal elites are still thriving, obama and clinton making money hand over fist on media deals, democrats winning elections, etc.. basically every grievance that existed before trump was elected still exists and for some people pretending that actually secretly trump is waging sacred warfare on the the satanic forces of darkness suits them more than reality.

Yup

But why did they put their faith in a celebrity grotesque to transform the nation?

Because they want to be him? idk

The whole trump story has been bizarre from the start and Q is perhaps the most sinister chapter of all. The sheer weirdness is overwhelming, the unreality, like something from a nightmare. I don’t know if there is a path back to reality for these people or not but it’s very important that this is contained in some way.

And Rhonda Byrne, as I've been saying for years.

xp

― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 January 2021 19:51 (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

You fuckin take that back

It had to come out sooner or later, deems. You've known this all along.

But why did they put their faith in a celebrity grotesque to transform the nation?

Because you think he is grotesque

The magical thinking stuff goes back to norman vincent peale, the preacher at the church Trump attended growing up. Maybe the underlying illness behind all this—I mean America—is the notion that one is special and deserves to have their fantasies realized. You can’t really be an ethical human being if you’re a narcissist.

The lesson I'm taking away from this is that if you promise something, no matter what it is or how improbable it is that you or anyone else would be able to deliver it, there will be people who will believe you, because they want to. Trump could reach an unusual number of people with his promises because he had massive celebrity and the carefully constructed public image of an authority figure who could get things done.

I reckon that looking for a cause or looking for "the person" who triggers this stuff is misguided and there's too much of it in your questions treesh.

You're more than smart enough to know that trump doesnt rise to attention let alone power in an unsick society. A society with the symptoms displayed by the US since at least the tea party gained traction finds their trump, the more grotesque an example of a rejection of what a leader should be in the accepted incumbent regime that the malcontent rump are disaffected with the better

xp anvil otm

Trumps being hoisted in mockery of ordinary progress is mere evidence of his own inadequacy

Because you think he is grotesque

― anvil, Tuesday, January 12, 2021 3:40 PM (twenty seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean he is literally a grotesque, a cartoon, a self-parody. I feel like he knew this back when he was inventing his public persona in the 80s.

the notion that one is special and deserves to have their fantasies realized

This is a huge one, yeah. I don't think Trump-style fascism would work as well in more collectivist countries. Another kind of grifter is (and was) needed.

Maybe the underlying illness behind all this—I mean America—is the notion that one is special and deserves to have their fantasies realized. You can’t really be an ethical human being if you’re a narcissist.

Yes! 100% OTM

This isn't anything recent

Right,conspiracy theories aren't anything recent, but they sure seem to have recently grown in popularity. I think a lot of that is due to the internet, but the psychologist in me suspects the sense of powerlessness and ignorance, the feeling of being such a small thing in a big, uncaring complex modern world is driving it to some degree as well. The nature of the conspiracies lead me to think this ie nearly all involve explaining the true nature, controlling forces, and plot of global human society/economy. I This isn't anything recent def may be wrong!

I mean he is literally a grotesque, a cartoon, a self-parody. I feel like he knew this back when he was inventing his public persona in the 80s.

You look down on them, you look down on him.

You think you're saying "why do they think he is one of them he's rich he doesn't care about them"

You're actually saying "he is one of them".

No there is certainly something to this. I think the internet also collapses space and time in a way that is really disorienting to people. Metanarratives about how it all works can feel more real to people than the world in front of them, their communities, their families (if they’re lucky enough to have them).

Why am I the avatar of elite disdain all of a sudden? I agree that his followers like trump because they believe he is hated by the same people who hate them—the snobs. But i try not to be part of that.

I mean he is literally a grotesque, a cartoon, a self-parody.

So was Mussolini.

Conspiracy theorists also share a dystopian view of the ultimate endpoint of human nature that is deeply corrosive to whatever version of a soul one might believe in, and ofc taken to extremes is a self-fulfilling prophecy

Never mind that, have you checked the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland lately?

(xp)

Absolutely. This is a bitter vision of the world—the redemption promised by the storm isn’t a gentle one, there’s no redemption there

Xp

What’s really crazy is that many of them are longing for an america they never lived in. According to the q theory kennedy was the last “real” american president before the takeover of the cabal. The woman who was shot this weekend was born over two decades after kennedy’s assassination—the america she wants to restore is just a myth to her, like eden, all she’s known is the “fallen world” in her view

You reject a world that doesn't suit you if you have no other coping tools i guess

Anyone here heard about this "plandemic" the fake news dreamed up? Every time they want to cow the sheeple they up the daily death toll by 20%. It's all just big numbers and then even bigger numbers. No truth in it is what I hear people are saying.

longing for an america they never lived in.

myths of a golden era in the past have been around since the Garden of Eden

Seriously, that's the least 'crazy' thing about QAnon.

Yeah but there have been better and worse answers to the question of how to get back there. This is a worse one.

It's much easier to believe that the past was a golden a era if you weren't alive for it. Or if you were a child (with a decent childhood). It's no coincidence that the "good old days" of the 50s were when boomers were kids.

I used to think these reactionaries could be flipped by a Bernie type who emphasized a return to the “american dream” of prosperity, opportunity and stability. (Which never really existed, but in the decades of the postwar boom felt more attainable for white blue collar workers). Such a message need not be divisive or racist or mystical or even nostalgic—it could be tailored to an inclusive vision of a new working class that was disproportionally black and latino and more in service Industries than industrial jobs.

But now i think these people aren’t interested at all in material stability. They want transcendence, meaning, all the things one shouldn’t look for in politics, which is why racial grievance is more interesting to them than like shoring yo social security for a new generation. It’s very fucked and it honestly seems like this is a nation of spoiled children.

Millennials, my cohort, are open to social democracy as seen in the rise of the squad and others. The future lies with them but they’re always going to have to fight these people it seems—I don’t think we can ever have a unifying class politics.

I don't think we should expect millennials to maintain their core beliefs over the next few decades.

I don’t see us turning right unless we actually acquire savings and assetts

Maybe this kind of Q Anon fantasyland right, I guess. No one is immune because it’s not related to material reality.

Don't jinx it… a couple of decades is a long time.

xp yes, that's what I had in mind.

If that stuff grows though the country is fucked.

You'd be amazed trís a mhic but ppl do, yknow

do they want transcendence or do they want whiteness which does give them significant material / psychological benefits

I still think a leftish national populism could "work" on some of these people if it ever managed to cut through the noise but it couldn't ever not be racist (see: UK 2015-2020) because in order to be inclusive of such a heterogenous working class it would have to downplay (reproduce) the divisions that exist within the class and across (unquestionable) national borders

this is very much a problem within millennial socialism which is sadly still the most convincing alternative to this mess (liberals seem to believe in absolutely nothing these days)

Millennials, my cohort, are open to social democracy as seen in the rise of the squad

This framing irritates me because half the Squad (Pressley, Tlaib) are Gen X, who were previously thought to be the generation who would usher in a wave of progressive change and well... we are now here

Well, idk

Point taken. As is left’s. I think the key thing is for the left to act locally a put people in local government where they can work with constituencies united by geography as well as class interest. Starting at the top with a national candidate didn’t work—it fractured due to these competing interests. The left didn’t have any real roots. That’s my theory anyway