This is one sample visit to the conservative subreddit. It’s an appalling example of the impact of disinformation. When you need to be reminded of who the enemy is and what they think, visit here. You will see that there is no gratitude or mutual respect, and there never was. There was never any concept of mutual benefit. And now, with Trump leading the cult, there truly is no depth to which they won’t go, and no decisions from Trump that won’t be retroactively justified.

These people are dangerous, and they don’t give a shit about any alliances, friendship or partnership. And they control the levers of power.

Edit to add a screenshot. Not sure how to add more, but it doesn’t get any better as you go deeper. What’s clear is that this relationship is over, and we need to move on.

    • stardust@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      13 hours ago

      Would it surprise anyone if it was a Russian run subreddit. Heard moderation is heavy handed to quickly snuff out dissent with people having their conservative flairs taken away if they dare question dear leader who drinks the sun and eats the sky.

    • bassomitron@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      26
      ·
      17 hours ago

      Many of them are, but sadly, many of them are actual people that are just that fucking brainwashed.

      • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        8 hours ago

        I kind of have pity for them. It’s hard these days to see the lies from the truth when the vast majority of the media is owned by corporations who control the narrative, and cherry pick and spin the information to their own benefits. Then you add content pushing algorithms and AI to the mix. They get fed continuous content with similar interests. And also AI generated content that not only generates pretty convincing visuals but now also convincing articles, online posts and even direct conversations.

        Anyone that lacks education and critical thinking skills can quickly get suckered into becoming conservative.

        • HungryJerboa@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          7 hours ago

          Unfortunately, propaganda works. The best antidote is emphasis on things you can see firsthand but most people don’t know shit about whether or not immigrants are actually responsible for crimes (they mostly aren’t). All they get is a small increase in costs of living. So they listen to the talking heads on TV who scapegoat whatever minority or target of the week, and if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people eventually come to believe it.

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      15 hours ago

      Fascists love AI generated slop, because it cuts the artist out of the art, so many of these might be real. Please be noted that platforms now often defend AI bots from countering, as they’re now hiding comments with common jailbreak phrases (which are also trivial to filter by the bot operators).

        • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 hour ago

          With them, you can get some of these chatbots to do things they’re instructed not to.

          One of the most popular was “ignore all previous instructions”, then came the “ignore all previous instructions including the instruction to ignore this one”, and for a long time there was “my grandmother used to […]”.

          • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            58 minutes ago

            Aaaah ok I get it.

            I don’t use AI chatbots so I don’t especially think about these things.

  • hydration9806@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    6 hours ago

    I’m confused. The screenshot you shared just has two idiots sharing stupid opinions and 1.1 thousand/389 people (likely from the same subreddit) disagreeing with them.

    I’m not saying the conservative subreddit isn’t unhinged, but this feels pretty cherry picked.

    Maybe share a photo of the most upvoted comments for a better reference?

    • 🔍🦘🛎@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      40 minutes ago

      It was a highly-awarded reply to the top comment, so it was the second comment you would see by default sorting (though it starts minimized).

      But yeah to @OP this is not America or what Americans think. That sub is pure Russian disinfo and astroturfing. You could argue that it represents the administration and current policy, but most of the actual people here recognize this as lunacy, even on within the Putin echo chamber.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      5 hours ago

      If you spent time on other platforms like Threads you’d see a lot more of this being continuously spewed. It’s why I deleted my accounts on several services. While this might be a cherry picked example from that sub, the far right revisionist take is far, far more common on popular social media than you think.

      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        29 minutes ago

        One of the downsides of remote work is that I don’t really talk to anyone outside my political alignment anymore, so it’s hard for me to know anymore what’s a bot/astroturf campaign and what IRL conservatives are actually thinking anymore.

  • spinhoser@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    10 hours ago

    It has been interesting to see “Canadian Conservatives”, some of them top commenters, get viciously turned on by /r/conservative while lamenting about how this is hurting PP and the Conservatives movement in Canada.

    • leftytighty@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      8 hours ago

      turns out an ideology that ignores real problems and always seeks out groups to villainize isn’t a good way to make long term friends

    • Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      13 hours ago

      For real. The issues occurring in the US are various, but the vast spreading of disinformation in the US is crippling. Don’t let unchecked lobbying (aka bribing of politicians) occur in your country, don’t let “news organizations” spread false realities.

  • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    4 hours ago

    All of these comments are severely downvoted. What are you every saying here? That one incredibly unpopular opinion represents them all?

    Don’t get me wrong, fuck them all. But this is such a stupid argument for your hate.

    • WraithGear@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      38 minutes ago

      That happens when r/conservative gets to the front page where they are pant’ed/ brigaded.

      They do not reach those numbers on their own, and the most heinous shit is defended by the mods with the same voracity as Reagan

  • crapwittyname@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    12 hours ago

    James O’Brien isn’t my favourite talking head, but I do like his idea of having contempt for the conmen and compassion for the conned. These people have swallowed a lot of big lies and the fault is with the liars.

    • Corvus Nyx@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      5 hours ago

      To some degree, sure. But these are adults with the capability and responsibility to think for themselves. It’s one thing to punch down on someone repeatedly for a mistake or being fooled, and yes, the majority of the fault lies with the deceiver, but these people aren’t stupid either. Trump and the rest of the Republican ilk made it clear what they’re about, and their actions speak louder than their rhetoric. If folks are foolish enough to believe him over and over again, the problem is just as much them as it is him.

    • Kichae@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      8 hours ago

      The con they got suckered into is American Exceptionalism, and it’s not Trumppy that suckered them. He’s a victim of the same brainrot.

      These guys are reveling in it, and I have no sympathy for those that choose “we’re just better than everyone else” as part of their core identity.

    • Zizzy@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      25
      ·
      12 hours ago

      I agree that someone conned deserves compassion. You got tricked into sending someone money? Im sorry, even if it was dumb of you, im angry at the scammer.

      But when you get scammed and the person who scammed you says theyre using your money for atrocious hateful acts, say making someones existence illegal, and you double down and say "well actually theyre right let me send more money, " you do not have any sympathy from me.

      • HungryJerboa@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        7 hours ago

        Nono, let these morons suffer their consequences. I hope they don’t mind learning Russian because they’re going to need it to communicate with their new masters.

      • crapwittyname@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        11 hours ago

        You’re 100% entitled (and right) to feel that way. But there are a lot of lies these people have been fed, often from birth, about for example white supremacy etc. that only education can really erase. Education is withheld by the same liars that profit from the hatred they whip up.
        Now I’m not advocating for the softly, softly approach with them, I’m all for punching Nazis, and it’s ultimately up to the individual what to believe. But these drones aren’t the right target, it’s the monsters that made them that way and hide behind them, the people in power advocating for e.g. religion and ethnonationalism to increase their power and profits. They are the root cause. And their first victims are these ignorant sheep forming a human shield around them. If I were to explain how much contempt I have for those people this would be a massive text wall that probably breaks Lemmy TOS.

        • HasturInYellow@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          14
          ·
          9 hours ago

          I get what you are saying, I do. But just allowing everyone to quietly go back to their lives after doing monstrous things is the reason we are here in the first place. After the first civil war, the south was treated with kid gloves as far as the enemy combatants were concerned and there was very little reconstruction. This was a breeding ground of hate and resentment. None of the issues were resolved in any way. This is essentially the same civil war.

          • HungryJerboa@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            5 hours ago

            Agreed. If America really wants to free itself of toxic bigotry and such an easily exploitable weakness, it needs to detoxify conservative ideology by targeting MAGA and far right voices that benefit Russia.

    • kandoh@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      6 hours ago

      If they were truely conned sure. But most of these guys just thought the pain would be placed on others, not them. They’re fine woth others suffering, but the tears start to flow when they experience anything negative at all.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      3 hours ago

      These people have swallowed a lot of big lies and the fault is with the liars.

      These people are adults and are responsible for their beliefs and actions.

      • crapwittyname@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        2 hours ago

        100%
        The difference is I would leave the door open for them to come back to reason, maybe even give them the benefit of the doubt. But the people purposely manipulating then are, I think, beyond forgiveness.

    • RaskolnikovsAxe@lemmy.caOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      18 hours ago

      Added one. Couldn’t see how to add more. I can appreciate that no one wants to give them traffic. It doesn’t really matter because commenting there is highly restricted even if you have a reddit account in good standing. And the entire subreddit is incredibly fragile - you’ll get permabanned for putting up anything that counters the tsunami of horseshit.

      • Otter@lemmy.caM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        edit-2
        17 hours ago

        Couldn’t see how to add more

        To link multiple images, you can either

        • link to an external gallery in the main post

        • place them in the post body with this format: ![](ImageLink)

        You can do the same in comments. For example if I go

        ![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/Birds_Illustrated_Canada_Goose.jpg/636px-Birds_Illustrated_Canada_Goose.jpg)

        It shows up like this

        It’s also best practice to add alt text in the square brackets:

        ![painting of a goose standing in front of some boats](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/Birds_Illustrated_Canada_Goose.jpg/636px-Birds_Illustrated_Canada_Goose.jpg)

        Some apps and front ends will have a little image icon that can help you upload more images into the post / comment body

  • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    5 hours ago

    That subreddit is nothing more than an echo chamber. If you express an even slightly reasonable view, you get banned.

    The only way for dissenting opinions to be expressed is with the downvote button, and even then most reasonable people avoid going there because it’s so frustrating to read.

  • jonne@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    17 hours ago

    Time to print a bunch of ‘i did that’ stickers with Trump’s face and put them on US gas pumps.

  • thefluffiest@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    31
    ·
    15 hours ago

    Wouldn’t be surprised if this was Made in St. Petersburg™️. And American ‘conservatives’ just lapping it up

    • formulaBonk@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      10 hours ago

      There is so few actual people left in that sub. It’s just ai comments and absolute staggering amount of Astro turfed propaganda

    • azuth@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      11 hours ago

      The talking points might be, that supremacist US attitude is not. It’s been there for decades.

      Its not the Russians or Trump there is big part of the US that is hostile to anybody but their, imagined, version of America and places no real value on others even allies.

      • thefluffiest@feddit.nl
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        8 hours ago

        That’s true, but Russia is also very good at exploiting the enemy’s weaknesses. They don’t invent propaganda whole-cloth, they play on dark sentiments already present and boost them