Great thread. I have several examples and I'm not even that politically vocal with friends/family.
My best friend in high school and throughout college. He was the Laurel to my Hardy. He was there at every major milestone of my adolescence and early adulthood. He was always moderately liberal but he was a chill, open minded dude and didn't take politics too seriously.
Until Trump ran. I'd hear him repeat every lie mainstream media told about him and follow every "breaking news" imminent collapse of his campaign. I've always been skeptical of cable news and he would blow up when I would question any of the "facts" he would repeat after hearing them from Anderson Cooper or Maddow or Bill Mahar. I avoided heated debates with him and just laughed off the things he would repeat from Tv.
I figured after the 2016 election things would calm down. Then every conversation we had devolved into him going off on Trump or some bullshit about the Mueller investigation. I couldn't believe how many nuanced details he knew about this entire Russian conspiracy story. It was non-stop all the time I couldn't even talk about the weather anymore without hearing about Trump. I saw a happy, carefree guy who used to be hilarious turn into a dour, self-important communist within a year.
He eventually stopped responding to my texts after I made mild rebuttals to his Trump hatred. I told him a mutual friend's mother had passed away last month and didn't get a response, so I'm over it. A lifelong friendship lost because people on TV told him he should hate anyone with different opinions.
One more example - my cousin, who used to be a staunch conservative and a sensible woman. I see her once every year and noticed how much she changed during the election. During Thanksgiving one year I made a very middle-of-the-road, not-completely-hateful comment about Trump and she screamed at me that I was sexist, racist and misogynistic at the top of her lungs. She used to be very pro-America and last time I saw her she went off on George Washington for owning slaves lol. She also used to have a sense of humor but now it seems I can't joke with her at all. We still talk but much less now. I think much less of her because she gave up her healthy, traditional values to worship people on CNN who lie to her.
These two people both watched a lot of TV and that was a major factor in their ideological change. It's scary how both their personalities changed for the worse in the exact same way. It's like media companies have perfected a way to mind-fuck large segments of the population with a combination of story telling, constant "breaking news" drama, us vs. them divisions and quick, high-energy sound bytes.
The NPC meme is so real.
My best friend in high school and throughout college. He was the Laurel to my Hardy. He was there at every major milestone of my adolescence and early adulthood. He was always moderately liberal but he was a chill, open minded dude and didn't take politics too seriously.
Until Trump ran. I'd hear him repeat every lie mainstream media told about him and follow every "breaking news" imminent collapse of his campaign. I've always been skeptical of cable news and he would blow up when I would question any of the "facts" he would repeat after hearing them from Anderson Cooper or Maddow or Bill Mahar. I avoided heated debates with him and just laughed off the things he would repeat from Tv.
I figured after the 2016 election things would calm down. Then every conversation we had devolved into him going off on Trump or some bullshit about the Mueller investigation. I couldn't believe how many nuanced details he knew about this entire Russian conspiracy story. It was non-stop all the time I couldn't even talk about the weather anymore without hearing about Trump. I saw a happy, carefree guy who used to be hilarious turn into a dour, self-important communist within a year.
He eventually stopped responding to my texts after I made mild rebuttals to his Trump hatred. I told him a mutual friend's mother had passed away last month and didn't get a response, so I'm over it. A lifelong friendship lost because people on TV told him he should hate anyone with different opinions.
One more example - my cousin, who used to be a staunch conservative and a sensible woman. I see her once every year and noticed how much she changed during the election. During Thanksgiving one year I made a very middle-of-the-road, not-completely-hateful comment about Trump and she screamed at me that I was sexist, racist and misogynistic at the top of her lungs. She used to be very pro-America and last time I saw her she went off on George Washington for owning slaves lol. She also used to have a sense of humor but now it seems I can't joke with her at all. We still talk but much less now. I think much less of her because she gave up her healthy, traditional values to worship people on CNN who lie to her.
These two people both watched a lot of TV and that was a major factor in their ideological change. It's scary how both their personalities changed for the worse in the exact same way. It's like media companies have perfected a way to mind-fuck large segments of the population with a combination of story telling, constant "breaking news" drama, us vs. them divisions and quick, high-energy sound bytes.
The NPC meme is so real.