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IRS employee who voted for Trump doesn't learn his lesson and is fired
this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face
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Maybe, but it’s inconceivable that not understanding more about Trump is simple ignorance. The one thing the guy has always been good at is grabbing headlines. How can you possibly live through decades of headlines, a prior term in the Oval Office, all those campaign rallies, all sorts of chaos and outrage, and still be ignorant?
Because there's an entire alternate reality built by right wing news sources that exist specifically to create confusion and spread misinformation.
It used to be a joke that Fox News was so unaligned with reality. It's less funny now that there is an entire media ecosystem that supports this alternate reality.
This is why you see people thinking that Trump is a great businessman. Because according to everything that they see and hear, he is. They were never equipped with the media literacy to counteract the weaponized psychology that's used to target them with political lies and spin.
By the time any individual encounters reality in a way that is undeniable (like the ex-IRS employee) it's too late.
They're just a tiny voice in an ocean of lies. If they try to talk about their experiences on right-wing social media they'll be labeled as a left-wing plant or banned outright. The right-wing media won't cover their story or repeat their concerns. It'll continue repeating the lies and spin like it always has and that person will finally understand Martin Niemöller's poem.
ive tried getting people on here to understand that nixons fall led directly to a trump presidency. it was in his wake that the rich knew controlling the media was paramount, and subsequently the creation of fox news and its ecosystem.
but its common for users here to only see the human that pushed the trump button as willfully ignorant instead of the brainwashed pawns they are.
So what now, they bear no responsibility just due to being brainwashed? Then I have a bridge to sell you: there are no criminals, everyone is innocent. Why? Because most of the time our brain makes a decision before we even become conscious of it. So mr. judge, I did not kill an old lady, it's just my brain. Surely you can't give me a sentence for something I did not do willfully?
no, no one is saying that at all. the world is not as black and white as you are implying. you sound like youre 12 and have zero understanding of the human condition.
can we hold voters accountable for electing a fascist? yep. can we understand how they came to be in that position so we can prevent it? you betcha. the interplay of emotion, intellect and responsibility is not a zero sum game.
except that I am three times that age, having spend at least last twelve years looking exactly at how emotion and intellect work and how to make all this play well
and what I see on lemmy is this: every time someone shows well-deserved anger at idiots who made this terror happen(make no mistake, just because we can sit relatively comfortable and just argue on internet, many people experience their lives getting torn apart), there comes someone with the you-cant-just-blame-them attitude, and all that does it "don't be mad at them, chill"
Well, no. How they came to be this way? Exactly this is how: they. came. to be this way. Same way neither of us did: making choices. Now is not the time to sit and think of how education and whatnot should have been. Now is the time to act.
Yeah actually what is up with Lemmy users and shirking personal responsibility? It's really weird!
Hm. Do I sense sarcasm here or am I just being paranoid?
Acting in ignorance is exactly how we got here in the first place.
If you think that acting means attacking the people wearing red hats on social media then you don't understand what is happening, what the sides are and what is at stake.
You're advocating for fighting the other fools while the con man runs away with both of your money.
Ah, now comes the best part: assuming what I did not say and answering that. Because what can someone with silly 12-year-old worldview know, right?
And now more to the point
Spoilers: one can say that ignorance is main source of all trouble, but that gets us nowhere right now. We got here by not making people capable of handling life in all its depth. Without people who are developed and balanced no amount of fancy laws, traditions and whatnot will keep things from progressing in ugly directions
And what if I do not think that? Part of reason being that even if today I drop dead all those filthy-ignorant-idiots (and I am so bright and righteous, of course. Sarcasm, obviously), tomorrow same idiotic things will be done by other people
Short answer of a tired man: please, quote me doing so.
Longer answer of someone still caring about at least something: I am advocating against "oh, poor things, they got brainwashed/caught in information bubbles/whatever, things are more complicated blah-blah". Things are complicated well beyond anyone's imagination (I am talking in general here. try finding someone who understands a blade of grass totally, on all levels and in all transactions it is being a part of). First things first: fix the damn thing. Again - no, I am not saying "You, people I have never met, go against armed men and die because I say you should". I am saying "do what best you can, leave all this things-are-complicated horseshit. It never ends"