After arriving in the United States from Somalia back in 2009, Fiqy never expected to be contacted by a major political campaign—yet Trump’s team reached out, asking him to help energize Somali-American voters before the election.
He took on the task with pride. But now, as a sweeping ICE operation targets Somali communities across the Twin Cities—and after hearing the president repeat harsh, blanket remarks about Somalis—Fiqy says his support has collapsed.
Not defending the idiots, but I think social media played a far significant role in brainwashing people than we realise. The stupid social media algorithms corral them to seeing only certain contents and distort their world view. I wonder what social media showed to the non-white people to even support Trump. I hava poc colleagues who seemed to trivialise and have casual approach to Trump, with one stating “some of the things he says makes sense.” I wonder what those things “makes sense” from poc point of view. Even before Trump 2.0 came, I have disliked him for being fascist-adjacent. Now, that the mask is off, people thought that he’d stay with his far-right adjacent policies in his first term, and they lived to regret fucking around and finding out.
sounds like you are defending them. it wasn’t as if Trump was being coy about it. He created a muslim ban. He said “They are eating the pets.”
All this stuff he said in public, live on TV. Using social media as a source of news just shows you are dumb.
The number of people of tuning in to TV are decreasing as time goes. Social media is the new source of information, which sounds paradoxical because you aren’t getting news if the information is curated and corralled depending on your browsing activity. And dismissing the role of social media sounds exactly like what I said in my initial comment that people underestimate its role in polarisation.
if a lot of people started voting by flipping a coin the fact a lot of people do it doesn’t change that it’s a dumb process.
I am not saying social media isn’t used. i am saying that isn’t an excuse for saying “we didn’t know we were shooting ourselves in the foot.” Watch the debates, watch the press confrences, listen to him live whenever he speaks. Trump doesn’t hide his hatred for minorities and foreigners. If you go on social media and are told different then you deserve what you get.
Tell that to people, not to me. And there is a reason as to why there is a push to regulate social media precisely because of algorithms sheep-herding people.
People are already inundated and tired by the hecticness of modern life. They have to think about rent, or mortgage, putting food on the table, and their bills, and their family. They don’t have time to do the necessary research. This fact is exploited by powers-that-be and the more tired a person is, the more susceptible they are to psychological manipulation. They go home tired and want to unwind by scrolling he social media or watch TV to kill time. They are tired, they don’t have time to do due research, and they are easily manipulated. The people are merely exploited. While yes, people deserve what they get for voting against their interest, they are exploited. Would you lay blame squarely to trafficked immigrants who agreed to work undocumented and paid less than the minimum wage because of their predicament, despite already being well known that undocumented work never turns out well?