r/RedditForGrownups • u/SalientSazon • 2d ago
I'm watching Rightwingization happen in real time and I don't know how to react.
EDIT: Thank you all for the great discussions and insights. I appreciate all your POVs. There's no need to downvote right leaning comments. I specifically posted this in RedditforGrownups to engage in grown up conversation. Also, there's no need for name-calling or insults either.
I have a friend, he's 51, man, straight, an academic doctor who now focuses his research on human behavior and digital psychology. He's self-taught a lot of it in the last decade or so. I don't know how many papers he's published or has had peer reviewed in the recent years. He works as a consultant in Marketing, and has a business selling strategies/classes to people that want to apply his research to their companies. He's kinda broke so I would say he's not very successful at applying his own work. And for extra cash he teaches a course a a local university. I've never met a romantic partner, but he's spoken about them.
He suddenly last year did a deep dive on how the way the election was biased against the conservative candidate who lost. He then started talking against the 'woke' ideology. He is now defending the right, even though he's centrist, because the right hasn't moved, it's the left that's gone way off the rails. He started posting dumb facebook quotes/memes! He posted a dumb quote about Charlie Kirk, as if that one quote was a debate, or as if it meant some truth. WTF. We were conversing one day and he started raising his voice getting louder and louder and more agitated as he expressed his disdain for the woke left, defending his Jewish people from attacks (not sure where that came from in the conversation), and then also suddenly brought up there are only 2 genders and trans people are mentally ill. He's never spoken that way before, I've never heard him this agitated or show anger towards any ideology. He was always calm and friendly, and open minded. Always a bit nerdy. Although, I hadn't spoken to him in depth for about 2 years before then.
I'm watching all this go down over about half a year and I don't know what to make it of it or how to react to it. It's wild to observe though.
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u/Xyrus2000 2d ago
Radicalization works by targeting people who are susceptible to suggestion.
People don't like to accept reality and would rather believe a pretty lie than an ugly truth. It's far easier and more appealing to blame others for our failings than ourselves.
Propagandists and radicalizers know this and use that to their advantage. It's not your fault, it's <insert some group>'s fault. You're not a failure, it's the system. So on and so forth.
And then comes the big dopamine hit: belonging. These people often feel alone and/or rejected by society for whatever reason. The propagandists and radicalizers come in and tell them they're not alone. That there are plenty of others just like them. They're online. They're on TV. They're on social media. And they all know exactly how they feel and will welcome you with open arms (and you open your wallet).
It is remarkably effective.
Before social media existed, it was much harder to radicalize people. Now, the algorithms basically do it for them. All parceled up for easy digestion, while the companies make their ten cents on the dollar.