Brainwashing the electorate

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David Strom, HotAir:

I am deeply worried that the compressed election cycle will allow the mainstream media and the brainwashing complex which includes Big Tech and social media to carry Kamala Harris to victory on their backs.

Kamala herself is a mental midget with no political skills to speak of, but she has behind her a brainwashing machine with decades of experience and trillions of dollars of infrastructure behind it. 

But Kamala's political skills or her electoral prospects are not my focus here: there is one advantage to the compressed timeline, and that is the need for the brainwashing machine to drop all subtlety and use all its tricks in one massive push. We can see the machine work in a way that has been more difficult before. 

Trump’s a coward

(I noticed this trope appearing in at least one reader’s comment even on this bitty blog — it’s all pervasiveL FWIW)

Yesterday (and presumably today) the new brainwashing line is that Trump is "afraid" to debate Kamala. The claim is everywhere, and you might think that it is so absurd as to not be worth considering. 

But that isn't the point at all. Both of these lines of attack and their constant repetition are designed to undermine the advantages Republicans have--Democrats are undeniably weird, and Trump is undeniably courageous. The goal is to program these facts out of the brains of people who pay attention casually and don't think deeply about the issues. 

Trump is afraid of nothing. He walks into the most hostile environments in the world with a smile on his face and a determination to win. 

The last time Trump debated a Democrat, the victim had to leave the field utterly defeated. Biden was mortally wounded. Then Trump got shot and stood up in defiance. Then he went to the Black Journalists Association to get ripped, when Kamala demurred because she won't take a single question from anybody, even friendly journalists. 

But by repeating "afraid"--and the word is everywhere right now from the Establishment--the idea is planted in people's minds in a way that precludes analysis. Nobody is thinking about these issues deeply. It's just in the air. 

For most people, politics are about vibes, not reasoned analysis. We outsource the analysis to others and choose based on a general feeling. 

Brainwashing is all about shaping those vibes and framing how people think about issues. The frame determines so much. 

Not too long ago, Kamala's bizarre inability to speak intelligently or not cackle in an irritating manner was universally seen as a political weakness; today, we are told that her idiocy is charming, her cackling is joyful, and that she is the new Jack Kennedy in Kamalot.