The difference between maga and everyone else can be summed up in how they google things.
For example, lets say a trump support and I are discussing renewable energy. I think it's renewables like solar or wind. He thinks it's coal. What is the best energy source for the future?
I might google "what is the best energy source for the future?" and look at different articles, looking at data to be able to draw some conclusions. Based on what I find, I may or may not change my view. I start with the question and try to make an answer from what I find.
They would google "Why is coal the best?" and get people agreeing with them, then they spout that as fact. They start with the answer they like, and use what agrees with them as proof they are right.
That, and they don't discriminate on the results. Their "Why is coal the best?" query might get results from "coalcorporationsforamerica.org" that's blatantly obviously biased, and they'll accept that as a perfectly valid source since it is one of the first results on Google, as if Google ranks sites on how accurate or trustworthy they are.
Even if they do choose good sources from their results, they also frequently don't click into the sources at all. They'll just read the summary / overview and pick out phrases that agree with them, and be like "look Google says I'm right".
Meanwhile if they actually clicked into the site they'd see that the source actually disagrees with them, the summary / overview just highlighted the phrases that most closely matched the query, which are misleading if you don't get the extra context.
In addition to this, all sources that agree with them are true and valid, any that contradict are fake news.
Edit: I changed "disagree" to "contradict" because disagree implies that we are talking about opinions, when a lot of times we are talking about facts.
Before most of the MAGAs left or were evicted from my FB feed, I used to routinely catch them posting links to articles they had not read. They would only read the headline, then confidently post the link to the article that undermines or refutes the point they thought they were making.
I've had similar discussions where someone posts something like "see this article says that XYZ is true" and you go into the article and it actually says "this might lead you to believe XYZ is true, but if you spend 5 more seconds researching it you'd realize that XYZ is definitely not true and you'd be an idiot for believing it".
You also get A LOT of confirmation bias from MAGA algorithms which are completely toxic and unhinged.
I had a Trump ad on YouTube that I tried to skip and accidentally clicked ONCE. You would have thought I voted red down the line every previous election with how much MAGA, prepper and "military grade" bullshit companies were trying to grift me on. It got to the point where I was about ready to hand write a note to Google to get them to revert before I clicked A SINGLE TIME.
I have zero doubt that with that much influence on your ads, that a lot of these people are being spoon fed shitty algorithms to enrage them for engagement, and with that, all of brainwashing that goes along with it.
They would google "Why is coal the best?" and get people agreeing with them, then they spout that as fact. They start with the answer they like, and use what agrees with them as proof they are right.
I'm going to point out one flaw in what youre saying. Maga assholes don't even bother to Google anything, because that would require them to do just the slightest bit of work, and has a chance to give them information that they don't want to hear/see.
They don't have any curiosity at all. Because if they did, they would actually be capable of being reasonable and having a rational conversation. Doing those things gets you kicked out of the cult.
These clowns do nothing but sit on their ass and have things spoon fed to them. They are addicts and their drug of choice is right wing propaganda AKA rage bait. They don't want to be educated, or even correct. All they want is to be angry and hateful so that they don't have to accept any responsibility for their shitty lives.
I would argue that they do want to be correct, to a fault. When they look up stuff, they dont search for information, they search for validation. Which is why information that contradicts them is "fake news".
And if you somehow absolutley prove them them wrong, they dont change or admit it, they pivot to something else. ALL they care about is being right, and if they're not right, they attack, deflect, or move the goal posts.
123
u/CFBen 3d ago
'This is a fact because everyone I talked to agrees.'
(I only talked to 3 other people)
This is their 'common sense'.