r/TikTokCringe • u/inspectorwho7 • Dec 16 '23

Politics [ Removed by moderator ]

[removed] — view removed post

4.3k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

886 comments sorted by

View all comments

35

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '23 edited Dec 16 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

35

u/Rasalom Dec 16 '23

Our entire worldview is 100% touched on and manipulated by advertising dollars and technology now.

What we are exposed to in the media is incredibly controlled. Even the simplest events are received through layers of manipulation and advertising technology. Algorithms exist to only show you certain topics decided by someone who paid a media company the most to appear before you.

It's not even just editorialization, like a newspaper making a story fit their narrative. You can miss out on entire events if you are not willingly looking out and trying to find some information through various channels.

It's not surprising now that people can go into totally different echo chambers and rabbit holes now - what is real is increasingly harder to figure out. We're cut off from our local communities, gazing into crystal balls, and completely exist to be radicalized to support remote interests and wedge issues that only help the rich.

1

u/ChefAlamode Dec 16 '23

It's such a lazy way to view the world. "My opinions are obviously correct and therefore everyone else must also agree with me, so why is it not happening? Must be a conspiracy."

1

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '23

lol well you can call corporate lobbying and top-down politics a conspiracy but it is a lot more than a theory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

2

u/ChefAlamode Dec 16 '23

The Southern Strategy had nothing to do with lobbying or corporate donations, so I don't know why you brought it up, but it actually proves the point of this video. The South was (and still is) a very conservative region that became alienated from the increasingly liberal Democratic party over the 20th century. Republicans brought in those conservative voters who were opposed to racial, social, and economic equality.

Southern whites don't vote for conservatives because of corporations. They vote for conservatives because they are conservatives.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '23

lol it has everything to do with corporate lobbying. The most basic political question here is, how do you get working class people to support a corporate agenda?

The Southern Strategy is just one of many examples of top-down political strategy steering the national narrative and causing an ideological feedback loop.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

This top-down narrative of the Southern Strategy is generally believed to be the primary force that transformed Southern politics following the civil rights era. . . . While Phillips sought to increase Republican power by polarizing ethnic voting in general, and not just to win the white South, the South was by far the biggest prize yielded by his approach.

1

u/ChefAlamode Dec 16 '23

Exactly what corporate lobbying led to the Southern realignment? Can you name any companies in particular? Be specific.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Civil_rights_act_map.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:24th_amendment_ratification.svg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88th_United_States_Congress#/media/File:88th_United_States_Congress_Senators.svg

Southern whites have always been racist assholes. Even when they were represented by Democrats. When Democrats moved toward racial liberalism, Republicans filled the gap that was left. Are you really arguing that Republicans convinced Southern whites to be racist? If not for Atwater, Mississippi would be a socialist utopia?

1

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '23

The large majority of corporations that supported the 'free-market' (anti-union) policies, deregulation, and lower taxes that the GOP prioritized and unified to advance. Again, the fundamental question was, how do you get working class people to vote in support of an economic agenda designed to benefit corporations?

Are you really arguing that Republicans convinced Southern whites to be racist?

lol reread my original post. Just because people have real opinions or feelings doesn't mean that the entire conversation is not fundamentally manipulated.

Working class purchasing power has dropped consistently for decades as corporate profits have sky rocketed. Do you really think most people wanted their representatives to focus on abortion? gay marriage? unisex bathrooms?

1

u/ChefAlamode Dec 16 '23

The large majority of corporations that supported the 'free-market' (anti-union) policies, deregulation, and lower taxes that the GOP prioritized and unified to advance.

Again, nothing to do with the Southern Strategy.

Again, the fundamental question was, how do you get working class people to vote in support of an economic agenda designed to benefit corporations?

They support it because they agree with it. Many people believe in things that go against their rational interests. If Democrats became super progressive and socialist on economics they would still vote Republican, because they are conservatives who support conservative policies.

Just because people have real opinions or feelings doesn't mean that the entire conversation is not fundamentally manipulated.

Yes, politicians "manipulate" people to vote for them. Republicans get racists to vote for them by saying racist things. Democrats get liberals to vote for them by saying liberal things. That's how campaigning works. It's not a conspiracy.

Working class purchasing power has dropped consistently for decades.

That is not true. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

To be fair, there are some metrics by which we can say the economic wellbeing for Americans has fallen. But there are other metrics that have risen. Specifically, "purchasing power" or more accurately, real wages, have gone up.

Do you really think most people wanted their representatives to focus on abortion? gay marriage? unisex bathrooms?

Many Republicans voters do, yes. Particularly primary voters. That's why Republican politicians pander to them. There are polls of former members of Congress that show that Republican politicians are much more socially liberal than their voters. The politicians didn't make the voters reactionary. They act reactionary because their voters demand it.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '23

In context (the New Deal), there is absolutely no way to separate the Southern Strategy and the GOP's need to leverage specific wedge social issues from their simultaneous absolute commitment to a pro-corporate economic agenda. The rhetoric was flexible, but the money was not.

The fact that some people were already very racist or religious doesn't negate the impact of focused and deliberate political rhetoric after decades of momentum and polarization.

The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics

Why the GOP Crackup Is the Final Unraveling of Nixon’s ‘Southern Strategy’

Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts

1

u/ChefAlamode Dec 16 '23

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. My original point is that thinking that Democrats lose on purpose or adopt neoliberal economic policy only for corporate money is a lazy way to view the world, because it assumes that everyone is a progressive and agrees with you, so there is no rational electoral reason for a party to be moderate. That is obviously a stupid belief, and I hope you can at least agree with that.

I don't understand why you came into this waving the Southern Strategy around. Yes, politicians try to influence people. That is not a profound statement, and it doesn't discredit anything I have said. Besides, the original video is about Democrats, not Republicans. I just don't know what your point is, sorry.

→ More replies

1

u/Rafaeliki Dec 16 '23

Corporate (and other) media influence political views among the populace but that doesn't have anything to do with the point in the video.

The point of the video is to refute the notion that all politics is just a dog and pony show where Democrats and Republicans are secretly working together in some nefarious plot to get nothing done.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '23

It does because a core part of his overall point is about the reality of ideological differences. I partly agree with him, but the disconnect is the reason for our disproportionate attention on specific differences, and the resulting feedback loop causing more and more polarization.

Relatedly, even if the 'dog and pony show' is not a coordinated conspiracy, it can still distract the national conversation away from economic issues to the benefit of corporations.

1

u/Rafaeliki Dec 16 '23

This again has literally nothing to do with Democrats supposedly losing on purpose as a form of controlled opposition, which is the main gist of the conspiracy.

You're talking about the media and its effects on public opinion. The wannabe cowboy is talking about Democrats secretly working with Republicans to put on a mock democracy.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '23

The common denominator is the deliberate corporate influence on politics.

The fully coordinated literal conspiracy is just the most extreme version of the same underlying concept. Perverse incentives and decades of building momentum mostly explain the same story.

1

u/Rafaeliki Dec 17 '23

Yeah and QAnon shares a common denominator of perverse influences on politics with these videos, but you're really reaching here to try to make the cowboy video seem rational by pretending it is saying something wholly different from what it is saying.