• shalafi@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s because he’s gay and homosexuality is a moral choice. Did that piss you off? Read on…

    Credit where due, the Republicans knocked it out the park with the whole, “Anyone non-cis is an active pedophile or grooming a target!”

    They kinda got fucked using gays as a wedge issue. Worked in its time, but once gays started coming out the closet en masse, and we collectively realized they were nothing to be afraid of, meh, the hate fell off the charts. Losing this issue was alarming as hell! Best they could do was drop gay rights in the culture-war bucket. Liberals and conservatives alike found the water rather tepid.

    Now I don’t think there was any sort of organized, cartoonish, “evil master plan”, but conservatives saw they were getting attention with the groomer talk, and it snowballed, fast. Target reacquired! And man, what a perfect target. Go after a minority that the rest of us can’t emotionally relate to, even given zero problems with homosexuality, and who could be anybody!

    To back up the truck, remember they went after trans folks to begin this new pogrom. An even tinier minority! And those people are grooming your kids into changing into something else, just like they did to themselves! Think of the children! LOL, it’s some Invasion of the Body Snatchers kinda paranoia.

    Seeing some outrage on social media? ROLL WITH IT. No grandiose, back room, cigar smoking plan required. Conservatives simply roll with what works. Backed into a demographic corner, necessity is truly the mother of invention.

    This is all so easy if you frame non-cis people as having made a choice. Now you can point your finger and legitimately call them bad guys. This is Fascism 101. Minorities, out groups, focus of hatred, both powerful and weak, all that.

    Liberals: “But, but, but… Facts and reason and ethics and morals are on our side!!!”

    What if I told you; Emotions sell, facts do not. Sales 101, first day of class, before lunch kinda instruction.

    Not going to appeal to the, “I’m old, therefore wiser than you.” boolshit. But I’ve watched all this unfold over 5 decades. It really is this plain.

    I don’t know the answer, but Jesus, look at the tweets in the story. We’re not winning hearts and minds by being logical, moral or right.

    • Now I don’t think there was any sort of organized, cartoonish, “evil master plan”, but conservatives saw they were getting attention with the groomer talk, and it snowballed, fast.

      There’s at least a tacit conspiracy between the right and Russian oligarchs to amplify this sort of messaging. It’s why Elon bought Twitter and unbanned all the hate mongers.