This article exhibits well but ignores the glue that I think holds rural whites with Trump. I would comment because I come from a rural poor county and I have many old ex-friends and semi-estranged relatives who are just like the people in the article.1/n wapo.st/seventhcommand…
As the article shows, notably without criticism: a large number of rural whites believe one batshit crazy thing after another after another. The craziness encompasses beliefs about blacks, about latinos, about muslims, about gays, about immigrants, whether documented or not, 2/n
about science, about history (oh my god on what all they say about slavery), about Clinton, about Obama, about any Democrat, about everything the government does, about other countries, and so on and so on. As a result, they are going to stay with Trump, no matter what lies 3/n
he tells, no matter what jackass thing he does, not because they have lost all sense of morality but because they honestly believe that the alternative would be worse. Having made that choice, they are going find ways to rationalize putting three-year olds in cages or Trump's 4/n
siding with a murderer and clear national enemy over our own intelligence services. So their glue to Trump is the crazy stuff they believe. Where do they get it? I think the main answer is Facebook. I have seen it happen over and over - friends and relatives who would normally be
an innocuous "low-information citizen" get on Facebook for the cute family and friend stuff, but they don't have the education or breadth of life experience to defend themselves against their new feed, and soon they are reposting a fake picture of Putin pulling Obama's tie or 5/n
an article from a white supremacist conspiracy news site or the latest rendition of a decades-old false story about Pepsi cans, feeding the narrative that Christians are under attack. And when they do so they get the rush of likes and reposts and short agreeing comments, so they
feel their batshit crazy belief surely must be right, and they keep an eye out for the next outrageous thing to repost.
A lot of people blame Fox News, but what I see happens with people who were never really watchers of news but do wake up and check their Facebook. Anyway,
A lot of people blame Fox News, but what I see happens with people who were never really watchers of news but do wake up and check their Facebook. Anyway,
as bad as Fox News often is (er, Uranium One, Seth Rich), many of the things these people come to believe are demonstrably more crazy than even Fox can show.
So here is my suggestion. As painful as these things are, when you see something that is not true from an old friend or relative on Facebook, simply state that it is not true. Don't expend any of your own emotional energy on it, but don't let it go without comment. No, you are
not going to convince them with an argument on Facebook - that does not happen. Just say it is factually wrong. This slows them down, makes them have to try to support their facts (I have actually had relatives delete their posts), makes them expend their emotional energy. Lies
are inevitable, but they can be made less easy.
