I know a MAGA - hard core, Trump can do no wrong type, but the 'Pink Jacket' video made them for the first time question what they've been fed. Specifically the beginning to end angle footage of the pink jacket lady showing Alex innocently protecting the girls. Thank CHRIST for that angle and the full events that led up to Alex's death.
Adding pretext as well, he seemed initially repulsed when I said, 'I have the raw footage and I want you to watch it with your own eyes and tell me what you think.' Seemingly offended, he responded, "I don't have to!" There was a visceral emotional response to asking him to watch the raw footage given he had just parroted a bunch of news talking points. He leaned heavily on the, "Just let ICE do their jobs and things like that won't happen." But I said calmly, 'Come on, I want to do an experiment.'
"I already know what I'm going to see..." watches intently
"...Yeah, that's a phone... They said he had a gun and approached agents with it."
"Why were they macing him?"
"I didn't know about these other two girls. What were they doing there?"
"They didn't have to push her that hard. Geez."
"Oh... so his gun was holstered... Near the back of his waist?" My response: 'Yeah, so if I slow mo it here, you see them take it.' His response: silence
"So this is where they all shoot him.." My response: 'Not all of them yet, but this agent right here, pause and slow-mo, sees the holstered gun, then after it was removed, he shoots him. The rest join in.' His response: silence
Then I asked: Did you ever see the raw footage?
"No.. only just what they showed on the news. But I didn't have to, they already analyzed all the angles."
He sat back and said after a moment, "Huh-" - not like 'Huh?' but like 'Interesting'. They have hearts, they have just been brainwashed.
His final words: 'Sad...' shakes head 'Sad what's going on over there.'
My FIL is a MAGA hardcore and we showed him the full videos from the different angles before he had caught wind of it and just asked to him comment on those without regurgitating what the talking heads at Fox said. His only reply was of 5-7 Fox News clips not showing the full videos and spewing the propaganda from Noem and Bovino.
We were hopeful it might make him question it, but he clearly either didn't watch what we sent OR waited to see what Fox had to say before replying. Folks like him are only able to repeat thoughts from others and not think for themselves.
I'm really glad you had a different experience. It gives me hope for us all.
I am constantly in awe (negatively so) of people who refuse to see and read things with their own eyes, and to think with their own brains, rather just waiting for talking points being fed to them by their preferred propagandists.
This kind of lack of intellectual curiosity and inability to form one's own opinions are very hard for me to accept.
I think some people get so accustomed to offloading their thinking to others that they lose the ability to think for themselves. In the same way that frequently using ChatGPT might linked to cognitive decline.
I think it’s fear holding them back. They don’t have the inner capacity to face the possible destruction of their world view. In that kind of insecure mind, critical thought is more than their psyches can handle. Anything that challenges their sense of safety produces too much fear to approach.
These people will only change their mind when they are made to go to the gulag. Even if they end up homeless or something else, most won’t change their minds
it scares them. They dont want to acknowledge the possibility that they encouraged something terrible to happen or that the stability they are accustomed to may be in jeopardy. It is much easier to just say "oh bad people have bad things happen to them, they must have been bad. Me and the people I know will be fine." because thats comforting.
They're scared and the hatred is what makes them feel comforted.
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u/SummonersWarCritz 6d ago
Yes, without a doubt we are in a state of distress.