people have been programmed, on a massive scale, to react emotionally to certain learned key phrases and terms. when this automatic emotional reaction occurs, all logical processing ceases immediately, and the person you're talking to either immediately leaves the conversation (if you're lucky) or starts emotionally, verbally attacking you as though your non-conforming line of thought is a pathogen and their overreacting response is an antibody swarm. you're a strawman caricature of everything evil and wrong if you question basic learned political orthodoxy, even if you make it clear you're approaching the topic with an open mind.
TV and social media "debates" between politicians are 100% posturing, signaling, and rhetoric without any substance, and almost nobody can see it, everyone thinks their guy won.
it's as though we've forgotten how to think for ourselves and have opinions and stances that lay outside dogmatic groupthink. I even know a few people who think of themselves as "free thinkers" who nevertheless hitch their proverbial cart to some political eceleb personality's proverbial horse, buying into everything they say, wholesale.
people want to be told what to think, not how to think, as it's much easier that way.
TV and social media "debates" between politicians are 100% posturing, signaling, and rhetoric without any substance, and almost nobody can see it, everyone thinks their guy won.
it's as though we've forgotten how to think for ourselves and have opinions and stances that lay outside dogmatic groupthink. I even know a few people who think of themselves as "free thinkers" who nevertheless hitch their proverbial cart to some political eceleb personality's proverbial horse, buying into everything they say, wholesale.
people want to be told what to think, not how to think, as it's much easier that way.