Reading comments about the DC occupation on other platforms is instructive as hell as the right tries to hand wave away using the military and the full force of the federal law enforcement apparatus on ordinary US citizens just going about their lives. This is thermonuclear cognitive dissonance.
do you get the sense that real people are espousing these views or bots/operatives?
I think these are real people. I think the truth is so elusive in this country and the news media, such that most people live in isolated microclimates of reality that they can’t cope with counterfactual data at all.
also, the truth is so ugly, who would choose to believe it?
Or they actually support it, as many of my MAGA neighbors do. Yes, they’re living in an alternate reality, but many of them are in favor of authoritarian tactics as long as it’s in support of their societal goals. If Dems did it they’d be screaming foul.
And to think this all would've been prevented had she just promised to stop genociding Palestine.
The first explanation seems to be that there’s some sort of special type of crime in DC run by cartels that can only be put down by overwhelming force, and that real DC residents are secretly begging for the army to release them like hostages.
The second seems to be that Trump protecting police, because DC is the “most dangerous city in the US” and that this isa template to move on to other cities in order of dangerousness. DC is not even in the top 30 major cities in terms of crime, most are republican cities in deep red states.
Another is focused on the definition of “insurrection” that now apparently justifies this response, which elides the fact that no one is setting fire to anything or invading government buildings but instead are sometimes sleeping on benches because they’re homeless.
They believe the protesters are all “paid” as usual, but one interesting note is how suddenly the right is now also acknowledging how aware they are of the racial makeup of DC, and therefore arguing the fact that some protests are disproportionately white means they must be paid and this is proof.
I think part of why they think protestors are paid is because they have no idea how people organize. And more importantly, they don’t understand how/why people CARE about other people in the world. Empathy does not compute with their worldview. THEY would have to be paid to care, so that must be it.
Also easier to say it is a vast conspiracy than ever entertaining the idea that they could be wrong about something.
It’s out of town GOP reps not used to diversity and noise in cities. All the brown people and women who look you right in the eyes!!
This is what the Civil Rights Movement did. They were deliberately peaceful, dressed in their Sunday best. so as to give apologists such extreme cognitive dissonance at the violence that they could be made apathetic towards the institution of segregation. It was pure psychological warfare.
This is why, contrary to what many believe, videos where bystanders are asking ICE “why are you doing this?” Making them look like sadistic freaks, is far more effective than someone screaming at them that they should kill themselves.
Anyone who hears that type of shit will automatically get defensive, and view both aggressor and victim as threats. They can tell themselves, “I don’t have to worry, so long as I don’t insult them or curse them out.” Showing them attacking someone merely for asking questions destroys that comfort.
You want people on the sidelines to feel that no one is safe. That good citizens like them can no longer guarantee safety, so long as Trump remains in office. That’s how you turn apathetic people against this administration.
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At every turn they'll find a way to rationalize the cruelty. They're little to no hope of reaching them on any human level.
This post and its comments are surreal… oldnfo.org/2025/08/10/l...
X is on a completely different universe
It’s not just Twitter but yeah, it’s fucking horrendous.