There was a struggle session about this a while back but I 100% agree. Just like how we don’t excuse cops & troops for joining up because of all encompassing propaganda, we have to hold people accountable for their awful actions and opinions to some degree, even in the context of the western propaganda torment nexus.
There's a pretty big difference between working as a cop or troop and passively consuming news. Living and doing something every day vs. stuff on a screen that you may not even be that interested in, and certainly have no influence over.
There's a difference between passively consuming news and actively lapping up every gallon of slop they dump in front of you without even a moments pause.
Sure, and online you see much more of the latter. But most people aren't reading every legacy media article the can find and doing weird NAFO twitter shit. Think of how many people have no interest in sports, or follow some sports only passively, and think of how you wouldn't know that by hanging out in online spaces for fans to discuss sports all year.
Yes but people still live and exist in the real world. They can still see what's going on around them. Someone else brought up 9/11 and that's a great example, you didn't have to be that tuned in to see the bullshit going on there. People should have learned their lesson from that, but they didn't, they choose not to because even with things getting worse it's still better to be in the imperial core and most Americans don't want to question what's keeping them in the core.
I don't live in Ukraine or Israel. After 9/11 I didn't go to Afghanistan or Iraq. All the bullshit I saw was through the media.
Most people care about (in rough order):
Family, friends, the people close to them
Their preferred recreation
Work, school, and whatever non-recreation stuff they have to do to support themselves
Stuff that they aren't immediately interested in, but is close
Stuff that they aren't immediately interested in, but is farther away
Stuff they actively dislike engaging with
The top three take up the vast majority of time and attention, and U.S. foreign policy is five or six for most people. It's not a priority, which is exactly why those in charge can get away with so much bullshit.
I see this sentiment get spread around a lot but anecdotally idk if it's all that true anymore, especially not with younger people. Everyone is more online these days, and I constantly hear coworkers and customers at my job chatting about shit I'm surprised they even know about. Some Zoomer cashier was discussing BRICS with a customer, and this is just a normie ass lower middle class punk. Also fyi his take on it's was god awful. My boomer retire dad knows what NAFO is. Maybe it a byproduct of living in the DC metro area, but it does seem like I see more and more people dropping hot takes about countries they can't find on a fucking map these days and most of them are brainwormed to fuck. Awful politics abound on tiktok and reddit and the normies seem to be engaging with it.
you really are underestimating how little people care about politics.
Someone would need to follow the news obsessively enough to notice inconsistencies in the narrative while most people are reading a headline once or twice a month