4mo ago

Rachel Maddow is easily one of the most effective propagandists of the 21st century

She got half of Burgerland to think that everything they don't like is Russian propaganda, that the evil Russians helped Trump steal the 2016 election, Russia Russia Russia, it's the ultimate thought-terminating cliche now. And even in the face of cold, hard evidence to the contrary (ie: Mueller report, off the top of my head) Libs just stomp their feet and insist that it's still RUSSIAAAAA!!!!!1

I guess Bill O'Riely would be the Republican equivalent of her, but his oafishness and toxic masculinity got the best of him and he ~~ended up losing everything~~ got a multi-million dollar severance package from Fox News and then faded into irrelevancy.

Seriously though, I can't think of anybody that could rival Maddow in terms of how effectively she brainwashed tens of millions of Burgerlanders into believing an absolute, absurd fantasy. You can't have anything that resembles a level-headed discussion with any Lib anymore, largely due to her influence (and others of course, but I feel like she's the most prominent figure in this regard).

Can you think of anyone that could rival her impact? Who else would be in the same league of propagandists in this day?

EDIT: Obviously I forgot to mention Tucker Carlson, but he also got kicked off Fox lol

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I heard from my mom last night that Putin directed Iran to tell Hamas to do the 10/7 attack. It was calculated to divide the US so we would be less effective in supporting Ukraine. This led to me yelling for two hours, which I don't feel good about, but I'm tired of explaining that when examining the world you have to strive to find plausible explanations for why things are happening, not something as fucking stupid as saying the people of Gaza were perfectly satisfied until a bunch of outside agitators got them stirred up.
Edit: She actually doesn't watch MSNBC. This is NYT brain. She used to be fine with criticizing media that promoted the war in Iraq, but doing that now means you're just like Trump.
- Liberals completely gave up on self crit at some point in the last 6-8 years
  It used to be how they showed they were 'better' than their counterparts, but Trump just broke so many brains
  
  I fully believe a significant amount of libs opposed the Iraq war because it was started by Bush Jr. If it was a Democrat they wouldn't have been against it. Nevermind all the Dems that started it. GOP = bad, Dem = good, and for the parts that overlap, it's bad if GOP is currently in charge and a necessary evil/tolerable inconvenience if the Dems are in charge.
  See also: Children in cages at the border
  
  It's like they've all become demcents but for an institution they have no democratic control over.
- hell yeah
  
  Admins, make this an emote
- I feel like your last sentence there captures something very important about the impact of current discourses pretty much everywhere in the west. And it feels more like something the libs in power prefer then are againts as it creates this hard divide that is kind of difficult to pin down.
  
  As always, completely mystifying class and class conflict makes it impossible for a liberal to tell what the fuck is going on.
  I have had the same conversations for decades, and we're back to ground zero as soon as she watches tv.

I guess Bill O'Riely would be the Republican equivalent of her
Wrong, Bill is the shoulders which Rachel stands on. Every cable news talking head is copying his game. Bill walked so Tucker could run. He's only irrelevant now because he accelerated the american conservative past him.
- I'd even go so far as to say he's a couple rungs down in terms of history. Tucker is standing on Glen Beck who is standing on O'Rielly.
  
  This although Beck was standing on the shoulders of Alex Jones more than O'Reilly

John Stewart was a cheerleader for norms and civility from about 2002-2015. He defined what as worthy of ridicule (Kucinich, Chelsea Manning, occupy movement) and ultimately what was worthy of respect .
- What was his problem with Chelsea Manning lmao
  
  I think it was something like "yeah war crimes are bad, but leaking secrets that put service members in danger is unacceptable." It's civility, but with the chain of command.

i feel like it's a mistake to let the face of these operations have too much credit. This is a performance, and it is an editorial team that sets her agenda, it's a crew that manages her image, and it's the network that gives her the platform - the personalities of these people are there for your consumption and an icon you're encouraged to relate to and see as a teacher.
A friendly feminine presence who is there every night to tell you how to be an obedient little liberal
but never forget she's just a performer in an ensemble.
- Yeah this is like saying the New York Times is tricking the working class.

In a proximate tier of liberal smugness, Sam Harris and Bill Maher have done damage.
- Bill and Sam have the ears of actual liberal elite, like ceo's and investors. Rachel has your college educated white collars.
  
  The big Eichmanns and the little Eichmanns.
- They have indeed, but Bill Maher in particular is such an asshole and also a sexist prick that I can't see him having the ear of many (any?) women. Maddow, on the other hand, can appeal too pretty much all Libs.

I remember in 2016 right after the election she was on some talk show and made some word salad like "Well Trump has a lot of policies that want to help only Americans so he's a nationalist. And he has policies that want to make sweeping social change, like a socialist. So he's really a national socialist." And I was nodding along with my lib brain.

It's plausible that Russia preferred Trump to his Democratic rivals, and did a little bit of trolling to fuck with America. But only to the tune of 0.1% of their military budget, not the 20% of GDP it would take to get anywhere near what BlueMAGA keeps accusing.
- Well Kamala's campaign spent over 1 billion dollars and it didn't seem to make any difference
  
  That had to be money laundering.
- My impression is it's less about pushing Trump and more about causing conflict within the US. There were Internet Research Agency(commonly called a troll farm) linked accounts pushing both sides of the COVID stuff, both sides during the BLM protests, etc.
  Dems blaming things on Russian disinformation plays right into that goal, too. If you want to rile up the US populace, make people feel like everyone they disagree with is brainwashed by evil outside forces. Republicans did the same shit with TikTok, blaming China for young leftists, trans people, etc.

I thought people were memeing about how much she blames everything on Russia until I watched a couple of clips of her

Can't think of other examples. Just wanted to say that this happening is horrifying.
- Yeah comrade, I was once accused of “spreading Russian propaganda” for simply sharing an article written by Benjamin Norton (the article had absolutely nothing to do with Russia whatsoever) because he was on a Russia Today podcast once (I guess?).
  Absolutely deranged shit.
  
  I mean, where do you even go from there? It's worse than being a rabid flat earther. That generation that said TV turns brains to mush was right.
  
  yeah but reddit is filled with cia and israeli bots

Ehhhh that's giving her waaaaaaaaaaay too much credit. Not many people watch MSNBC
- Yeah this is insane and would imply Maddow is good at what she does lol there’s not many burgers who give a shit about Russian interference
  
  Ya if there were, Trump probably wouldn't have won lol. Since all the Russia propaganda is generally aimed at the libs, but it still wasn't enough to get them to go out and vote.

Back before I was an ML I knew a few PMC liberal types who listened to Rachel Maddow. Yes, those individuals were the worst humans one could imagine. But what used to shock me was how non-Amerikans would listen for an hour (?) each day about Russian electoral interference.

Red MAGA propaganda - can you believe the libs think they know better than us, rage
Blue MAGA propaganda - we libs know better than them, rage
Synthesis: red libs who know better than everyone how to loot the country by enraging everyone as a distraction

who takes rachel maddow seriously? i dont see why anyone would waste time watching her show. it's not entertaining and not truthful in any way.
- Pretty sure most Libs consider her word to be sacrosanct. Or, at the very least, the "everything that causes cognitive dissonance in my brain is Russian disinformation" worldview.
- Reddit
- My in-laws
- My dad.

I literally don’t know anyone who believes that. Of course, my circle of friends is extremely limited and unrepresentative of the general population, so I could be wrong. But you’re also generalizing half the population of a (assuming here) country you don’t even live in lol.
But yeah Rachel Maddow sucks

She did not get half of burgerland to do anything that's not how the election works.

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