Far Out Theory About Magats

[gab13by13]

I know them because I live among them, they live in fear, they keep loaded guns in their houses.

We know that the area of the brain that triggers the fight or flight response is more pronounced in “conservatives.”
Is it possible that Fox News and right wing social media with their 24/7 fear mongering are creating a PTSD-like malady in Magats? PTSD can be caused by many sources, why not Fox News and right wing social media?

Maybe I am way off base but maybe that’s why they fall for so many conspiracy theories?

[Otto_Harper]

1. This sounds very plausible to me

The next question is whether this was the result of specific KGB research and a specific program put into place to implement the conditioning over time.

[Stargazer99]

20. I cannot encourage the general public ENOUGH to seriously think about this

gas lighting by the KGB

[Scrivener7]

2. A new kind of Manchurian Candidate...

[Harker]

23. Yes.

Brainwashing on a massive scale.

"Why don't you pass the time by watching a little Fox news?", the modern republican't replacement for solitaire.

[Beartracks]

35. The Manchurian Party. n/t

[enough]

3. No doubt about it.

[Kid Berwyn]

4. Weaponized speech, check.

Guns galore, check.

No one can ever do anything, check.

[Probatim]

42. And idiots - it's all targeted to idiots.

[Wuddles440]

5. That's really not a...

"far out theory", but actually one of the primary pillars of the right wing/authoritarian machine. And one that's been utilized with great success throughout history both here and abroad. A fearful citizenry is one that can be easily manipulated and controlled.

[Arthur_Frain]

18. Came here to say this.

nt

[randr]

6. They are the "Un Woke"

[SouthernDem4ever]

33. I like that and will use it from now on

if some douchebag repug uses the term "woke" I'll just respond with "as opposed to unwoke?"

[Karadeniz]

7. You're on the right track, but people need to expand brain definition to Mind. Brain alone doesn't

explain near death experiences, out of body experiences... all the things that show consciousness extends beyond biology. A great place to start expanding one's understanding is Hogan's Your Eternal Self.

[Sympthsical]

8. I think America in general has an anxiety problem

And I think the media has a large hand in contributing to it because that anxiety plays a role in gluing people to the news.

I think if you checked news consumption vs. an objective sense of what is going on in our country, you'd find the more news consumed correlates with increased fear, anxiety, and depression and a more distorted view of what people are like. And I think it would be pretty decently spread across the Right and the Left.

We're anxious messes, too. According to the most anxiety-ridden predictions, I'm supposed to be in a FEMA camp for gay men by now, everyone is literally Hitler, and genocide is around the corner. But I think with a news cycle that runs as quickly as ours, people just kind of forget they pushed the panic button 15 minutes ago as they reach to press another one.

I sometimes think I'm more chill about things than most people I encounter in political spaces precisely because I am not consuming the sheer amount of media they are. Absolutely no cable news. Articles scanned and laterally read for information - not opinion. Almost no news sourced from from social media.

Helps that I'm a progressive Democrat who also isn't very partisan. I just don't care or think, "My team is always awesome, while the other team is unmitigated evil." I just don't care about that dialogue. Human beings don't work that way.

[codfisherman]

13. Exactly.

Please don't anyone welcome me to your site. I've been visiting this site for many years. Some days I am horrified by the commentary. While I do not always agree with your opinion Sympthsical; I appreciate your input as one of the very few rational voices here. Please continue to do so, you might just make this a better world.

[gopiscrap]

52. welcome to DU

[Sugarcoated]

17. The information you read is factual

One who reads only right wing "news" gets outraged and fearful from the relentless demonization of cities, black folks, antifa, gays, abortion, etc, and it's almost all lies scaring them silly.

[Sympthsical]

25. I read a lot of things here that are not factual

A lot. Because secondary sources are treated as primary sources. I can't count the number of times I've read something that is claimed to be factual, looked at the article myself, then laterally read over to the primary sources of information, and discovered what is being claimed as factual has no relationship to the information given by the primary source.

Just yesterday there was a NYT opinion piece posted here where I read through it multiple times (because it didn't even make sense within itself) then scooted over to two primary sources that were being cited to discover, "Welp. That author literally just manipulated the sources to claim the opposite of what they were saying."

But the opinion was taken as the factual bit. Not even questioned. The idea the opinion was based on severely faulty reasoning and manipulation of data just didn't come up.

It happens a lot with Twitter sources and pundits. "Here's a piece from Guy I Like Who Agrees With Me." That's not a primary source. That's confirmation bias in eternal action. Where is that person getting their information? Are they perhaps leaving highly salient information out to better serve a narrative they're selling? Did anyone even look before they spread this around?

And the answer is very, very often no. A lot of the time when I find what is being claimed is not what is objectively true, it takes less than 30 seconds of searching ferret it out. The internet is not a labor intensive place.

I wish we had media education in this country. How to read things and verify sourcing. How to filch out the facts from the heaping sack of emotionally manipulative bullshit. But I think it's politically useful for too many people and entities that we don't know how to do that. They like that we just accept what is directed at us. And most people do it.

[SouthernDem4ever]

38. They do it for the money

Commercialism has taken over media and they are fighting for the almighty click-dollar. I do find some journalists still out there who try to find the truth and speak it to power, but they are getting muffled by the rest of the chatter. DU is a place for many things. Verified news, unverified news and lots of opinion, and in my case a lot of venting. I have watched the this whole system of news evolve from the 1960's to today and the public is much more misinformed with multiple outlets than it was when there were only a few and local newspapers. The big money influence likes it that way as they get away with many more ways to hijack our economy for their own gain and power. That is something no one can dispute. So speaking for myself, as a person with less than modest means, DU is the only place I can go for shelter from the total weirdness that permeates our political system today as I don't have the means to take it all on publicly.

[GusBob]

46. Wow, great posts, you get it

Thank you. Yes the media creates the "breaking news-stay tuned for updates" to capture eyes (and sell tires and laundry detergent)

and social media creates the " click-bait gimme all your attention, like if you agree, post if you crave likes" atmospheres.

happens here too: just recently with the shooting there were several "ITS A MAGAT!" posts one got dozens of recs (which begs the question none dare ask: is it bigoted to post false claims of bigotry?)

remembrance of things past: it used to be on DU if an assertion was made, a common question in reply was: "gotta link to boost it?" Now it seems: "if some random person posted on twitter it must be true, REC!"

take the OP, where I live aint exactly MAGAT (A blue island in a red sea) But just about every household has loaded guns for various reasons; hunting, protection, varmint control. They have them out in the red sea too. Maybe both sides anxieties are more economic based but there hasnt been a mass shooting around here in decades.

[newdayneeded]

9. It was evident in the recent WI senate race

Johnson used "fear the black man" messages in all of his ads.

They'd show a steet riots, armed robbers, a scared old women shaking in her house, all with a pic of Mandela Barnes right after each scene. it was almost criminal the level of racism Johnson went to. Then at the end of each of his ads he show a Still pic of Mandela with his head jutted upward in the "uppity" look.

It still boils my blood that they would have had to plan, talk about, and agree to all of those visuals as a tactic. I guarantee you the N word was used in those right wing think tank ad meetings.

[Beartracks]

37. The N-word can be spelled out visually, without using actual letters.

Think Tank: "How can we use the N-word without using the N-word?"

Result: That ad.

===========

[usonian]

10. It's not far out. The GQP is a cult.

Programmed to fear by RW media, using the usual tools, principally racism. "Outrage du hour" keeps its ADHD on fire.

[Cracklin Charlie]

11. Yes

Since their beginning. Fox knows exactly what they are doing.

[raging moderate]

12. Yes. They are called "Reactionaries" for several reasons.

They react with mindless fear to everything. They want everything to stay as it was, in their fantasied past. One of them once told me, with barely disguised anger, "I'll tell you what, this is NOT the America I grew up in!" (But it WAS the America I grew up in, with Abolitionist ancestors who also worked to close those "Indian Schools" and a childhood episode in which Mexican immigrants helped my impoverished mother, my little brother, and me).

[CrispyQ]

14. In case you didn't catch it,

there's a thread this morning w/an article about CTs & how to deprogram American idiocracy.

https://democraticunderground.com/100217585267

[gab13by13]

15. I wondered about this

Because I know someone who was abused as a child and now that he is grown he has PTSD, and that is hard to get over.

[Walleye]

16. Yes. How else could you explain hysteria about "the border"

Nobody I know I have heard of has had their lives personally negatively affected by immigrants or refugees. Yet to hear the right wing tell it, we are being invaded by hostile country

[summer_in_TX]

50. My sister and her husband owned a large piece of land

in South Texas near Brackettville and Del Rio. They built their own home out there, lovely, seemingly peaceful.

But several times gangs or coyotes and their cargo who were running from border patrol busted through the fence and onto their property. Between drug cartels, coyotes, and border patrol chasing them, their acreage was not safe at all.

Eventually they decided to sell it and move further from the border. They're still on lots of land but things are far safer and more peaceful where they are now near Medina.

My sister and her husband are staunch Dems, not anti-immigrant at all.

Not all of the would-be immigrants coming across the border are good people fleeing political oppression, gang activity, or dire poverty. Some are in drug cartels or are profiting from human trafficking.

[Walleye]

51. No I can certainly understand people who live in the middle of this crime wave

But I don’t see how it affects people in Utah or Iowa who are always complaining about it.

[vlyons]

19. My theory is about the damage done by Christianty and especially RW evangelicals

For thousands of years the established Church has told people to accept Christian dogma on faith. Don't bother using reason and analysis. The Church is also intolerant, demonizing non-Christians, and even different types of Christians.

So if as a little kid, you grow up hearing "believe what we tell you," "our way is the only right way," and "anyone who isn't committed to our way without question is an enemy, who will destroy our way of life (our privilege)" -- if that's what you are taught, then you have been primed for the RW echo chamber of fear and hate-mongering."

[ancianita]

21. No, it's not. You're onto them.

Which is better than wasting effort to "cure" their media groomed cognitive condition.

They've got low grade fight or flight adrenaline addiction and cortisone elevation.

[IronLionZion]

22. Heavily armed and paranoid, what could go wrong?

Fear makes them susceptible to conspiracy theories since they don't trust officials. They're sure people are lying to them.

But Qanon does draw from a diverse group of people, even minorities and women. Ashley Babbitt voted for Obama back in the day. She was the one shot for breaching the Capitol. The shaman with horns was an environmental activist concerned with climate change. Even Kari Lake voted for Obama.

[HardPort]

24. I mean, if you think that two penguins walked 10,000 miles from Antarctica to hop on an ark ...

You're liable to fall for anything.

[gab13by13]

26. No way, they swam. 🐥

[hadEnuf]

27. I have often wondered if Fox News employs a certain professional grade psychology

in their broadcasting to bring out the paranoid and delusional responses from the MAGATs and their other rubes. It's really akin to a form of brainwashing.

The GOP has tried to pull similar shit like this before. Who knows how far it has gone since then?


[link:https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/students/pop/12CNDELECT.html|


You may be on to something.

[TheRickles]

28. The process has been described as a form of group hypnosis, called "mass formation".

Here is the key book - "The Psychology of Totalitarianism", by Mattias Desmet. I'm sure a summary article is available elsewhere online:

https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Totalitarianism-Mattias-Desmet/dp/1645021726/ref=sr_1_3?crid=12KL4IK193T7E&keywords=mass+formation+psychosis+mattias+desmet&qid=1674578237&sprefix=desmets%2C+mass%2Caps%2C96&sr=8-3

[republianmushroom]

29. like it

[kimbutgar]

30. I read years ago this method they used is called neurolingustic programming

The CIA developed these techniques to brain wash people after seeing how the Germans also indoctrinated its citizens to hate Jews and support Hitler.

Fox and right wing media did the same things by lying and repeating the talking points that programmed people to think and act against their best interests and more for corporate interests,

I saw it myself with friends who I thought were sane and after watching Fox started spouting Fox talking points like they were the truth and they were the smartest people in the room.

[slumcamper]

32. Correct! They "feed" paranoia and the result is predictable. Sinister entities.

[OMGWTF]

34. THIS! THIS! THIS!

There's going to be a Spanish language Fux News network starting soon. The Rethugs already advertise on Spanish language radio and it's having an effect. Dems need to do the same. Today!

[certainot]

40. roger stone told in new yorker that he used talk radio incl spanish stations to stop 2000 recount in

fla.

it's not just advertising and it's been going on for 35 years. dems are getting their asses continuously kicked by a few hundred rw and russian think tank-coordinated blowhards on 1500 radio stations. and their dysfunction now may have a lot to do with limbaugh's death and now lack of his unifying and rationalizing

all dems have to do is start using AI to digitize it so the lying can be quantified and exposed and linked to US democratic disfunction and lack of reform and trumper/teabag/dittohead commonalities.

that would cost a lot less than advertising

[GB_RN]

36. It Is A Fact That...

In general, “conservative” brains have a larger amygdala, and are thus more susceptible to fear and anger than liberals. This has been thoroughly documented in fMRI* studies.

*Functional MRI

[gab13by13]

39. How about the hypothalamus?

[GB_RN]

49. The Hypothalamus...

Is involved in the autonomic nervous system. It coordinates both the autonomic nervous system and the activity of the pituitary, controlling body temperature, thirst, hunger, and other homeostatic systems, and is involved in sleep and emotional activity. However, the amygdala are (there is one lobe on each side of the brain) much more involved in emotional responses, particularly fear and anger.

[Jakes Progress]

41. Sounds plausible. I still go with Cipolla's 5 Laws.

That is that they are stupid. Not stupid in the colloquial sense, but stupid as a condition. Here is the basic tenet of his concept:

https://qz.com/967554/the-five-universal-laws-of-human-stupidity

From the article: "Stupid people, Carlo M. Cipolla explained, share several identifying traits: they are abundant, they are irrational, and they cause problems for others without apparent benefit to themselves, thereby lowering society’s total well-being. There are no defenses against stupidity, argued the Italian-born professor, who died in 2000. The only way a society can avoid being crushed by the burden of its idiots is if the non-stupid work even harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren."

Cipolla wasn't the first to write about this. The existential theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote essentially the same ideas from his cell in a Nazi prison during WWII.

I kind of think the stupid have always been with us, that it is something these people are born with - maybe/maybe not hereditary. But our society has made it more likely that their numbers increase. As Cipolla says - our greatest existential threat.

[ificandream]

43. It makes perfect sense that the more dread and fear slimeballs like Fox dig up ...

... only encourages more of this crap. It's like a dog chasing its tail. They reap what they sow. The problem is that what they dig up goes beyond their borders and can have an effect on the rest of us if we don't ignore it. Stuff like the ludicrous M&M and X-BOX paranoias should stay in their tribe but doesn't. Part of it is the fact it gets publicized, which in this day and age isn't going to not happen, but then the almost endless discussion. We need to slam this stuff and make them look like the stupid idiots they are. Dropping the subject and humiliating them as much as we can would be a big help, though thanks to Trump, nothing gets ignored or dropped if they find a hook to keep things going.

[wendyb-NC]

44. I think you're right

It is at least contributing to the maga meme, and delusional perspective. I think it's a cult fed by conservative media, lies, lies, and

more lies by the cult leaders, spear carriers and anoint.

Good Theory. Thank you, for posting it.

[Caliman73]

45. It is pretty well known in Social Psychology...

That fear and "emotional over arousal" create a more pliable constituency. People seek ways to mitigate the psychic pain caused by constantly being activated.

The strongman promises to alleviate fears and when they fail, they blame it on the "other". That is the system under which all authoritarians, but particularly Right Wing systems operate. Fox and Right Wing media does their part to propagate that situation in their followers.

[CaptainTruth]

47. Exactly. People who are afraid are more easily manipulated by messaging.

It's now the standard GOP messaging playbook.

"X is a threat, be very afraid of X! Only we can save you from X!"

X has been many things over the years, they just keep changing it to fuel new fears. Grooming, drag shows, CRT, MS-13, socialism (a classic), caravans of immigrants, open borders, heck, you can go all the way back to WMDs in Iraq, & even further than that.

The right doesn't have policies, all they have is messaging.

[FakeNoose]

48. Which came first - the chicken or the egg?

That's another way of saying that maybe Faux Noise didn't create the paranoia. Maybe Faux is marketing those fears to people that were already paranoid, or at least halfway there. They keep watching Faux to get the next fix, and to validate their fears.

Same thing with hate radio, brought to us by Rush Limbaugh. The people who are obsessed with such things are triggered by fears and the media plays their triggers constantly. The rest of us are normally repulsed by such obvious displays of hate-mongering. That's why we are so disgusted with Faux Noise.

If someone lives in a home, or works in an office, where Faux Noise is on all day long, would those passive listeners eventually become MAGAts? I'm not sure, but I wouldn't think so.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

53. Long before Cambridge Analytica, advertisers used FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) for sales.