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Donald Trump's Gen Z popularity plunges
(www.newsweek.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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I listened in on a conversation between two young male Kroger union members before the election (the store is unionized so maybe that was an assumption, it's a right to work state...)
They both agreed they were voting for Trump. I can't speak to their unspoken motivations but what I can tell you is they absolutely voted on vibes and didn't have a goddamn clue what was coming for them.
I don't know what brain rotted the Gen Z boys in a way that didn't work on the Gen Z girls but I can tell you it wasn't fake, those kids are not alright.
Maybe this will be Gen Z's Afghanistan and Iraq, the events that push them left against Republican abuse, but I'm not sure they'll have a chance when they're getting a steady diet of algorithmic propaganda.
its nothing to do with brainrot, its the same shit that makes your dad the single dumbest person you've ever seen whenever he speaks on politics.
People have done things where they start with a clean VM and set up something like Youtube, watching the most innocuous of things. Doesn't take too long before they start getting the red pill shit.
That doesn't happen with broadcast media. You don't start off watching, say, C-SPAN or PBS, and next thing you know you are getting shown Nazi propaganda.
you have to consciously consume it though, as a consumer of information and media, you hold a responsibility to ensure that what you're consuming is both good, and factually accurate. If you aren't doing that, that's your fault.
People can argue all they want about content algorithms pushing this content, it's because it's good content, that's why its fucking propaganda. It wouldn't be if it didn't.
You really don't have to consciously consume it. You can literally leave auto-play on YouTube and it will steadily pull you down the rabbit hole. These people aren't logging in to
nazi.comand ravenously looking for content (at least most aren't).It's served directly to them in mainstream platforms, prepared exactly how they like it. And they're the first generation to be bombarded by this algorithmic targeting for their entire lives.
Should adults still be responsible for what they consume and analyzing it critically? Of course. But given we're in unprecedented territory and this is (at most) their second time voting in a presidential cycle, I'll give them a mulligan.
maybe if you have degenerative brain damage, or are asleep, otherwise yes, you are making the conscious choice to watch nazis talk about nazi things for 3 hours, that's literally something you consciously engage with simply by listening to, or even looking at.
This is why it's so important to be conscious of the media you're consuming, in the same way it's important to be conscious about the products you're buying and the services you're using.
look bro, all i'm saying is that you don't accidentally become a nazi, if i gave you a knife, and told you to murder somebody, and walked away, you wouldn't do that, you would probably call the police on me because that's really fucking weird.
No, they're making a conscious choice to use the platform. The content itself is whatever pops up and looks entertaining.
If the algorthim shows you 2 center-right videos, 3 hard-right videos, and one nazi rant then are you choosing to be a nazi by watching the center right ones?
Its never actually 3 hours of nazi things. Its an otherwise entertaining video making some off color jokes. It's a streamer going on one politically dubious rant in a 6 hour stream. It's a weekly podcast talking to "interesting" people; some benign, some funny, some actual problems... It's about normalizing the conversation and the ideas. Nobody is getting handed a knife.
Yeah, there are some people take the red pill and actively go down the conspiracy rabbit hole and watch nazi shit. But I'm not gonna go out of my way to crucify people who have shitty ideas in their head at some point, there are lots of people that have stories of escaping the funnel.
Because at the end of the day a vote is just voicing an opinion to most people.
"I was told tariffs aren't a bad idea"... "Musk has points that there might be wasteful spending"... "Well Rogan endorsed him haha"...
If they were told they're getting drafted to invade Greenland before they voted, they look at you the same way as the knife guy.
you still need to physically and mentally engage with it in some fashion, otherwise it's literally not being consumed at all, the only possible exception to this is being asleep, which isn't particularly well understood.
if you watch the center right videos, you are choosing to consume the center right leaning content, given that you are a content consumer equipped with the standard human feature of a functioning brain and sense. It would only be logical that if you were to see the nazi content in the corner and go "OOH NAZI CONTENT!" you're probably leaning nazi already, and if you see it and go "oh good, nazi content" you're probably not.
Even if you are slowly subsumed by the nazi content and slowly become a nazi over the course of 4 years, it doesn't matter, you still made the choice, even as slowly as you did, to become a nazi, this is why the ability to recognize where you are, whether or not you've grown as a person, and what you should do about it is a good thing to be engaging with from time to time, otherwise you risk becoming a serial killer, or other various bad things.
you should be conscious and aware of these things, these things are the reason that people get killed, you cannot simply ignore it and pretend they don't exist, you must be aware of them, and try to be as conscious of them as you physically and mentally can. If you are not able to be conscious of these things, you are simply not fit to consume content, because clearly, you are just willing to assume the position of whoever is yapping currently, and therefore, offer no functional utility to the rest of humanity.
that's entirely understandable, my problem is that people simply aren't aware of it, and yet, still consume the exact same type of problematic, or potentially problematic content, without being aware of what they could be experiencing and then they go "oh boy i sure am glad im not being indoctrinated to be a nazi!" as they're being indoctrinated to some other bullshit actively because they subvert their own concerns. This is a fundamental problem with political media, you simply cannot uncritically consume it, it's not tenable. In the same way that as a lawyer, you can't just clap your hands and go "yeah boss i got this one ez pz, done twenty of these before today." and expect everything to go well. You simply NEED to do your due diligence. You cannot afford the lack of due diligence, it's potential destruction is simply too great.
and that's the problem, a vote is not "voicing an opinion" it's giving your piece on who you think should be running the country, and how. But people do not understand the consequences of their own actions because they simply aren't conscious of what they consume, and why. And this is why we're where we are now, with republicans that think the democrats literally tried to steal an election, even though zero proof has been presented.
People don't understand the gravity of politics, and they don't understand the importance of their action, both of these in combination has lead to the "marketization" of politics into a form of content not dissimilar from reality TV, the simplest solution here is for you to be conscious about the content you're consuming, it's pitfalls, potential pitfalls, and the other content in existence around it, unfortunately most people consume this content with about 1 active braincell, obviously, not meeting these requirements.
and the problem is that these statements go from "well, there is some truth in these statements, as there is in an any statement, however these paint an entirely misleading and inaccurate picture" to "well duhh the government is inefficient, obviously we need to cull the entire fucking thing!" That's the difference between what i have a problem with, and what you're proposing. You are quite literally given every opportunity in the world to be conscious at ANY point in the content consumption pipeline, and yet people CHOOSE not to be. WHY?
i'm sure they would, and i believe this to be the case, however they don't even get past the "read the words written on the paper" stage of comprehending a written work, before they completely ingest it and homogenize it into their viewpoint and worldview, they are quite literally sticking an IV of poison straight into their bloodstream, by choice.
the question i ask, is why? What's the reason?
I won't lie, I don't think we'll ever totally agree. I'm getting the gist that we fundamentally have a different understanding of the human race.
You're holding people to your own standards, which is admirable because you clearly have your head on straight. I just view people as generally more base and malleable. Animals that react to the stimulus they're given and environment they're put in.
It's why propaganda can work with simple repetition; it's why ancient cultures and atrocities feel so alien; it's why there's a natural evolutionary drift toward tribalism.
From that: this is a generation being left behind educationally, economically, and socially. They know their quality of life is regressing but don't know why. They're an audience searching for clear answers.
They're also the only humans in history to spend more of their formative adolescence on screen time than on other traditional activities.
So they're starting on the back foot and getting unprecedented exposure to privately operated, centralized media sources. It follows that whoever owns those platforms (or pays enough) can selectively amplify any narrative they want to great effect.
It would have been just as feasible to push their politics to the left as right. If you look at who operates these platforms you'll find, unsurprisingly, its right wing media moguls. The capitalists with the capital and mechanisms to spread their gospel have done so.
So at the end of the day I think it is reasonable to scold a person who you know should have better media literacy. I just don't think it makes any sense to extend that to an entire voting block. Its more productive to direct that effort toward the root of the problem, the people pushing the content.
that's unlikely, and that's fine, i'm mostly just here to share my position.
100%, i have a higher standard for the average general populous, than most people do, but i simply believe that we cannot function as a society if we are below that threshold, and given recent global events, and the trend towards politics becoming worse and worse, i feel highly justified, and think you would be on a long uphill argument against that point.
You're correct about your conception of humans as animal, this is 100% why we act the way that we do, and why we're susceptible to these problems, we've engineered our way out of these problems however, now only to fall into the hole we've just dug with no way out? I don't believe that. I think any single person owes themselves at least some level of autonomy, and critical thinking alongside intelligence, to at the very least break through that problem barrier, otherwise you're at a "eating shit contaminated drinking water and dying from any number of given ailments" level of behaviorism. Other people, and i assume you would argue that we should protect people from doing this to themselves, but i think especially given the recent timeline, that this is simply impossible, you cannot do that, it will never work. Fixing it of course, is a bigger problem. But that's not why im here, i'm here to providing commentary in the hopes that it changes peoples outlook on life, and how they view their position in the world.
you make an interesting point about the generational divide in upbringing, though it's worth noting that, this is not particularly new, since the industrial revolution at least, and it affects more than the young, the primary age group being targetted by the kind of stuff i like to work against, is people in their 50-70 age range, people who have been around for along time, remember "when it was better" and are mentally, not as engaged as they once were, starting to coast into retirement, if not in retirement already.
In fact, if you look at the younger age ranges, it's quite heavily split between the sides, it doesn't seem to be a hugely generational issue until you get older, where it skews conservative, which is an established trend, and a rather obtuse one i would argue.
you're 100% right about the media narrative, and the media environment, however i would like to counter it with two points, for one thing, it only works because people are WILLING to consume it. If people aren't, it will never be successful, this is obviously not the case, as these companies rake in millions of dollars on the regular. And two, i don't think you can simply "regulate" this issue out, humans have an innate tendency toward the unknown, the taboo, and the bizarre, there are probably studies on the effects of restricting access to certain materials and the effects on the consumption of these materials in the general populous. It leads to a sort of self fulfilling prophecy of "the ELITES dont want YOU to see THIS" because they quite literally, do not want you to see it, because it's not productive, but again, people are stupid, and will consume whatever slop they get presented. Evidently, it should follow that if this fact suddenly becomes true, things will only get worse.
You either have to convince the public that this shit is fake and not real, move them to another source of media naturally (literally how?) or simply forcibly remove it, and then i guess crack down on consumption and distribution of that media ad infinitum? There isn't exactly a good solution here, unless you take the most optimal approach of "culling the problematic individuals" which is of course, deeply unpopular, but you may be able to justify it, ethically and morally. That's ultimately what im getting at here. You very quickly begin to approach a sort of event horizon of non truths, and i think we've passed that point, or at least passed the point of no return, and im not sure we're capable of returning. Maybe it is, but i truly do not think we can recover, at least before something drastic happens.
Perhaps we should refer to this as the KTI razor, lmao.
If it's a human failing then no, it should be regulated against to prevent abuse.
there are definitely arguments to regulate against it, i'm not here to make those arguments, or argue against it, i'm just here to argue that you as an individual person have a right to hold yourself responsible for the media you consume, it's not difficult, it's taught to you in high school, assuming you can read and write, if you went to college, great, you literally do that the entire time you're there, that's the one thing you should be doing.
If you don't and you work in a blue collar job, it probably requires similar attention from you in the same manner, just apply it universally.
I realize that I, as an individual can make choices and am responsible for those choices. I'm not here to talk about that today, I'm only referring to the fact that when a natural human failing is set upon by money men with the intention of exploitation it is only regulation or destruction that will end that exploitation.
or like, you could educate people, because for as long as these failings exist, they will be exploited, and the best preventative measure, is one that cannot be subverted.
Cold War brain rot?
political propaganda and uncritically consuming information will turn you into a sheep faster than dressing up as one.
I mean, that's what I call brain rot, but fair enough. Most people use it to mean saying skibidi too much.
skibidi toilet is a form of brain rot. That's why it's called brain rot.
Hate to say this but there are a lot of young white men who feel unheard and unseen. Trump and the right wing podcasting network really resonates with them.
The reality is society is so much better now than it was in 1995 or 2005 but many young white men feel left out because the advantages they once held are disappearing.
It used to be a that the only right person for the job was a white man or another white man. They didn't have to compete with other races or genders cuz the game was rigged to only take them seriously. Now, having to fairly compete against women and PoC, a lot of the less capable folk are tapping out and saying "no let's go back to the old way" because they were more competitive back then.
Yeah and it can be really frustrating because some of their complaints are valid and reasonable, some are understandable but taken to bad places, and others are insane and/or evil. Like, yes there is a serious issue with loneliness and lack of community, but no it isn't feminism or immigrants to blame, and for some of them it's that they're agonizingly unpleasant to be around and mentally unstable.
A lot of it is all that "manosphere" grievance propaganda shit -- reels them right in.
It's been that way for a while, Gen Z boys aren't the first to fall for it. 10 years ago it was gamergate, and before that there was talk radio like Rush Limbaugh rambling on about "feminazis."
That's been "conservatives" best recruitment tool for years. And it generally works up until the boys realize they're serious about the "no masturbation" rule. Although by that point they've generally already got them hooked on other propaganda.
Yeah the left and the right both have a sexually conservative faction and in my experience pointing to the other's has long been an effective tactic for recruiting young men.
The people that constructed the hate radio machine that takes a daily dump in the skull of millions of magazombies would have loooooved to have something like The Algorithm at their disposal.
When you look at the damage they managed to do with decades of the Poutrage Industrial Complex they had with radio/cable, just imagine the shitshow they will manage with decades more of The Algorithm...
There was a pipeline of radicalization to the right that specifically targeted young men starting with young millennials. In my day it was gamergate, these days it's tate