It's because they are trusting their own Left-Wing authorities more than the primary source material, or direct information. They consume all of their information from Left-wing secondary sources, and then just repeat it as if they were told something that was true. Mix that in with the general consensus that all of their available institutional sources are Left wing, and they think they get a diversity of opinions, when in reality all they are doing is having neurotic debates between one Leftist and another.
I've actually argued with Leftists who have told me something to the akin to: "Bolshevism, Menchavikism, Marxist-Leninism, Maoism, and Stalinism are wildly different." They see nuance in their very small Overton Window, and everything outside of that is "Fascist".
So, Useful Idiots are being controlled by two fallacies: Appeal to Authority and Appeal to Consensus. Since they don't want to risk social alienation, moral condemnation, or cognitive dissonance, they just isolate themselves from other perspectives because it's so easy to think you're informed and everyone else is getting their information from "unreliable and non-authoritative sources".
The narrative is so strong sometimes, that it supplants their own data. I actually had to argue with someone who told me that the Covid injections prevented infection, and he handed me an MSNBC source. The piece framed the information that way in it's wording, but it explicitly stated the opposite. I showed them their own source which said that the injections don't even claim to prevent infection, that the CDC explicitly states that you can still get infected, and that the scientific study that he showed me proved my point (it's only "effective" for a few months before you get exposed to a new strain, and all it does is reduce viral load by 30%).
They aren't even reading their own data, they are just absorbing narrative and rhetoric. And it's rhetoric that's getting more and more extreme.
I think they do respond to information but only the intellectuals, and only with long periods of exposure.
I think the real trick is that they are cowards. They use collectivism to secure themselves both emotionally and intellectually. Some of the strongest blowback I've got online from Leftists is through shoving the consequences in their face like a dog shitting on the floor and completely rejecting their assertions about empathy and care. I encourage them to take a much more malicious position, one that is the one they actually hold behind the mask they wear. I encourage them to expound on their violent revenge fantasies that they hold, and it really does tend to freak them out.
The basic counter-arguments are:
Your policies destroyed people. Not just harmed, but killed & ruined lives
You don't give a shit about the consequences of your actions
You only want to be told you're a good person
You're actually a savage who likes seeing people destroyed. I know you do, you tell us all the time.
Do you feel like a hero yet?
I've basically put Leftists completely on the back-foot by doing that. Normally something like, "N-n-n-no one says that!" comes back at me, and then I just start listing off how many times they let the mask slip and say something abominable.
I've done that with lockdowns, Ashley Babbit, and CRT using Charlottesville as an example.
The CRT one basically caused the guy to shut down because I pointed out the only time that any white person can be anti-racist is when they fucking die. Specifically, I pointed out that the white woman they were martyring was by their own standards: "another dumb, racist, white bitch until she was ground up under the wheels of a mustang. Then and only then, after her heart stopped beating, could she be considered 'not racist' "
I've not tried this with friends and family, but it seems to set people back on-line. This is also, when it comes to the lockdowns, I bring up the fact that two people in Victoria, Australia self-immolated in protest.
It's because they are trusting their own Left-Wing authorities more than the primary source material, or direct information. They consume all of their information from Left-wing secondary sources, and then just repeat it as if they were told something that was true. Mix that in with the general consensus that all of their available institutional sources are Left wing, and they think they get a diversity of opinions, when in reality all they are doing is having neurotic debates between one Leftist and another.
I've actually argued with Leftists who have told me something to the akin to: "Bolshevism, Menchavikism, Marxist-Leninism, Maoism, and Stalinism are wildly different." They see nuance in their very small Overton Window, and everything outside of that is "Fascist".
So, Useful Idiots are being controlled by two fallacies: Appeal to Authority and Appeal to Consensus. Since they don't want to risk social alienation, moral condemnation, or cognitive dissonance, they just isolate themselves from other perspectives because it's so easy to think you're informed and everyone else is getting their information from "unreliable and non-authoritative sources".
The narrative is so strong sometimes, that it supplants their own data. I actually had to argue with someone who told me that the Covid injections prevented infection, and he handed me an MSNBC source. The piece framed the information that way in it's wording, but it explicitly stated the opposite. I showed them their own source which said that the injections don't even claim to prevent infection, that the CDC explicitly states that you can still get infected, and that the scientific study that he showed me proved my point (it's only "effective" for a few months before you get exposed to a new strain, and all it does is reduce viral load by 30%).
They aren't even reading their own data, they are just absorbing narrative and rhetoric. And it's rhetoric that's getting more and more extreme.
I think they do respond to information but only the intellectuals, and only with long periods of exposure.
I think the real trick is that they are cowards. They use collectivism to secure themselves both emotionally and intellectually. Some of the strongest blowback I've got online from Leftists is through shoving the consequences in their face like a dog shitting on the floor and completely rejecting their assertions about empathy and care. I encourage them to take a much more malicious position, one that is the one they actually hold behind the mask they wear. I encourage them to expound on their violent revenge fantasies that they hold, and it really does tend to freak them out.
The basic counter-arguments are:
I've basically put Leftists completely on the back-foot by doing that. Normally something like, "N-n-n-no one says that!" comes back at me, and then I just start listing off how many times they let the mask slip and say something abominable.
I've done that with lockdowns, Ashley Babbit, and CRT using Charlottesville as an example.
The CRT one basically caused the guy to shut down because I pointed out the only time that any white person can be anti-racist is when they fucking die. Specifically, I pointed out that the white woman they were martyring was by their own standards: "another dumb, racist, white bitch until she was ground up under the wheels of a mustang. Then and only then, after her heart stopped beating, could she be considered 'not racist' "
I've not tried this with friends and family, but it seems to set people back on-line. This is also, when it comes to the lockdowns, I bring up the fact that two people in Victoria, Australia self-immolated in protest.