3 ms·

A certain segment of republicans has been primed for decades now to accept haphazardly put together straw men and run with it as a push back against progressive

A certain segment of republicans has been primed for decades now to accept haphazardly put together straw men and run with it as a push back against progressive culture. Unfortunately this sort of thinking applied to anything but the political sphere can be devastating.

krapp 7y ago
>Unfortunately this sort of thinking applied to anything but the political sphere can be devastating. It's wrecked the political sphere pretty badly, too, ever since they memed a president into office.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  That's an inaccurate and narrow view of the President's source of votes. Trump was widely known and popular with his supporters before the "memes".
  - krapp 7y ago
    He was considered a joke candidate, and not only by the mainstream media. He was a has-been celebrity host of a reality show best known for playing parodies of himself on TV and for his obnoxious attitude. His quotability and memeability got him far more media coverage both in the mainstream and online than any of his colleagues, and one of the most devastating hits to Hillary Clinton's campaign was the result of well-poisoning efforts by his online supporters to push a viral conspiracy theory and implicate her in vague wrongdoings through the email leaks. Her own campaign even stated those efforts proved impossible to recover from. It may be true that the "memes" weren't entirely responsible but I would disagree that their effect wasn't significant.
downerending 7y ago
I think "segment" is the right word here--I'm not sure political affiliation isn't almost entirely orthogonal to one's take on the pandemic. Doomers, for example, are generally thought to be very right wing, and I read an early opinion piece in the NYT about the virus written by an obvious progressive that was essentially "stop worrying so much about it".

3 ms·

A certain segment of republicans has been primed for decades now to accept haphazardly put together straw men and run with it as a push back against progressive

by trianglem 7y ago

krapp 7y ago
>Unfortunately this sort of thinking applied to anything but the political sphere can be devastating. It's wrecked the political sphere pretty badly, too, ever since they memed a president into office.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  That's an inaccurate and narrow view of the President's source of votes. Trump was widely known and popular with his supporters before the "memes".
  - krapp 7y ago
    He was considered a joke candidate, and not only by the mainstream media. He was a has-been celebrity host of a reality show best known for playing parodies of himself on TV and for his obnoxious attitude. His quotability and memeability got him far more media coverage both in the mainstream and online than any of his colleagues, and one of the most devastating hits to Hillary Clinton's campaign was the result of well-poisoning efforts by his online supporters to push a viral conspiracy theory and implicate her in vague wrongdoings through the email leaks. Her own campaign even stated those efforts proved impossible to recover from. It may be true that the "memes" weren't entirely responsible but I would disagree that their effect wasn't significant.
downerending 7y ago
I think "segment" is the right word here--I'm not sure political affiliation isn't almost entirely orthogonal to one's take on the pandemic. Doomers, for example, are generally thought to be very right wing, and I read an early opinion piece in the NYT about the virus written by an obvious progressive that was essentially "stop worrying so much about it".