The Deceived vs. the Indoctrinated

The American public has been subjected to massive propaganda efforts by both our government and our media for years. It’s important to understand the impact this has on the current presidential campaign.

That starts with understanding the difference between deception and indoctrination.

Those who have been merely deceived may be surprised when the deception is exposed. They may even be angry. But they will change their positions when confronted with facts that contradict them.

The indoctrinated will not.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “indoctrinated” as “accepting a set of beliefs without question, refusing to consider any others.” For the indoctrinated, those beliefs become part of their identity; they will not let go of them, even when faced with contrary evidence or explicit falsehoods.

Millions of Americans have been propagandized to believe that former President Donald Trump is “literally Hitler” and “a threat to our democracy”; that he will “destroy this country” or “start World War III.” You can provide all the proof to the contrary you want; it will not change their minds.

I’ve had conversations with friends and loved ones who profess to be terrified about the possible perils of another Trump presidency. In those, I point out just some of the actual conduct of the Biden administration:

— Imprisoning Americans and depriving them of their constitutional rights to due process

— Collaborating with Big Tech companies to censor truthful information about the 2020 elections, the origins of COVID-19, the United States’ role in funding gain-of-function research at the international virology laboratory in Wuhan, China, the efficacy of drugs like ivermectin in treating COVID-19, and the illness and deaths caused by the mRNA vaccines that were forced upon Americans

— Fabricating allegations of Trump’s “collusion” with Russia in the 2016 election, lying to a federal court to obtain illegal surveillance warrants and spending upwards of $35 million to “investigate” allegations they already knew were false

— Calling sexually explicit and criminal content on Hunter Biden’s laptop “Russian disinformation,” and keeping it from the American public when they knew it was truthful, in order to impact the 2020 presidential election

— Prosecuting Trump for possession of allegedly classified documents but refusing to prosecute President Joe Biden for the same conduct

— Weaponizing the legal system against the administration’s political opponents

— Actively preventing the enactment and enforcement of laws that protect election integrity (for example, requiring identification and proof of citizenship before voting)

— Botching the withdrawal from Afghanistan and leaving thousands of American citizens and Afghani allies behind, as well as billions of dollars in military material and ammunition left for the Taliban

— Two major wars and $175 billion in taxpayer dollars given to Ukraine;

— Allowing approximately 10 million migrants to cross the border illegally in the past three and a half years, flying and busing them all over the country, housing them and given them monthly stipends, all at taxpayer expense

— Choking off our own energy production, sending the costs of fuel — and thus, everything else — skyrocketing, and creating the worst inflation we’ve had in more than 40 years

What reaction do I get? Blink … blink … “But Donald Trump …”

That’s indoctrination.

I’ve heard other attempted explanations. “Well,” the argument goes, “maybe people don’t care because these events primarily affect those with whom they disagree politically.”

But if that were true, they would be irate when confronted with the negative impact on populations they do purport to care about. For example, the illegal importation of millions of migrants has diverted resources away from America’s poor, our homeless, veterans and those dealing with substance abuse and mental illness. The presence of millions of illegal immigrants also inflates housing costs and depresses the job prospects for America’s working poor, including Blacks and single parents. And inflation affects everyone.

It doesn’t matter.

More compelling proof can be found in Democrat voters’ reactions to the events of the past three weeks that uniquely affected them:

First, Biden’s disastrous performance at the first presidential debate on June 27 exposed the ugly reality that their own party and the press had been lying about the president’s declining mental faculties for years. Had Democrat voters known about Biden’s condition in 2020, they could have chosen a different candidate.

It doesn’t matter.

Second, despite Biden’s adamant insistence that he was staying in the race, the Democratic Party forced him out in a de facto palace coup, had him issue a bland statement on X/Twitter and kept him in seclusion for almost a week.

It doesn’t matter.

Third, they just unilaterally substituted a new presidential candidate — Vice President Kamala Harris — without any participation by the party’s voters at all.

And by the way, this is the third time the Democratic Party has played fast and loose with internal electoral processes to install a candidate over the wishes of their voters, who wanted Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2016 and favored a different vice presidential running mate in 2020.

With few notable exceptions (Black Lives Matter and some donors), none of this seems to matter to Democrat voters.

Harris is already out on the stump, and we’re being treated to glowing press coverage featuring cheering crowds, and puff pieces promoting the many “firsts” associated with her impending victory: the first woman president, the first Indian American president, the first Jamaican American president, the first African American president. (OK, Jamaica is not in Africa, but that doesn’t matter, either.)

Republicans need to understand that they are dealing with a population in which a substantial number are completely unreachable, even by the most unassailable arguments. To reach the rest, the focus of Trump’s campaign must be not on irrelevancies like Harris’ former love life or her lack of children, but on her lack of qualifications, her incompetence and the disastrous policies she favors.

The proof of that — at least for those who aren’t indoctrinated — is ample.

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/108801-the-deceived-vs-the-indoctrinated-2024-07-25

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Trump Calls Tech Support

This weekend, a former Manhattan real estate developer and one-time crypto critic will be in Nashville to speak at Bitcoin 2024, the world’s largest bitcoin conference.

As Forbes reports, “Trump will give a 30-minute keynote address Saturday during the conference’s final day, in a speech that will likely attempt to court voters and capitalize on support he has already received from key cryptocurrency figures like the Winklevoss twins” of early Facebook fame.

Times have certainly changed.

Indeed, it would’ve been hard to imagine, just 10 years ago, that a 78-year-old Republican presidential nominee would be beating the hip, cool, trendy party of Barack Obama at its own technology game. But here we are.

“A sea change is underway in the tech industry,” write Robert Bellafiore and Jon Askonas at City Journal. “It is increasingly not just permitted, but downright fashionable, for technologists to reside on the political right. Moments after the Trump assassination attempt, Elon Musk ‘fully endorse[d]’ the former president. In the following days, venture capitalist and PayPal alumnus David Sacks spoke at the Republican National Convention, leading venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz announced their support for Trump, and Trump tapped former venture capitalist J.D. Vance as his running mate. A new Trump super PAC enjoys the backing of Palantir’s Joe Lonsdale, the Winklevoss twins … and Musk himself.”

We might also consider a recent comment from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, he of the infamous infusion of nearly half a billion Zuckerbucks into the 2020 election to help get out the vote in the Democrat-controlled urban areas of the narrowly decided swing states. Perhaps, having seen the error in his ways; and perhaps, having seen the electoral writing on the wall; and perhaps, wanting to hedge his bets should a Republican-controlled Congress in 2025 seek to do away with the Section 230 protections that allow social media sites like Facebook to censor conservative speech while enjoying the legal protections of platforms as opposed to publishers — perhaps, given all these factors, Zuck thought it might be wise to send a shoutout to the assassination-dodging, fist-pumping former and perhaps future president.

“Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life,” said an admiring Zuckerberg recently, adding, “On some level as an American, it’s like hard to not get kind of emotional about that spirit and that fight, and I think that that’s why a lot of people like the guy.”

According to Trump’s brief Bitcoin 2024 speaker bio, he “announced his support for the American Bitcoin industry in May 2024, advocating for financial freedom and the growth of the U.S. Bitcoin industry on the global stage.” That seems to be the message, then: One party regulates and thereby oppresses innovation and entrepreneurship, while the other party deregulates and thereby encourages the same.

But it’s not just financial freedom; it’s also freedom of speech. The Left’s sordid history of suppression has always irked us, and it likely turns off technologists, too. Big Tech’s dirty work on behalf of the Democrats reached its zenith in the election-rigging censorship of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story. But things began to turn in 2022, when Elon Musk purchased Twitter and thereby established a free-speech beachhead on social media.

Today, even the history-rewriting, Harris-protecting, Trump-hating shills at Axios are sounding the Trump-Tech alarm:

A significant chunk of the tech industry’s money and power is lining up behind former President Trump. … Silicon Valley was once solidly Democratic, with just a handful of Republican outliers. Now its red camp is growing and throwing around its weight. … Venture capital billionaires Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz each will make donations to Trump’s re-election effort [and] are following hot on the heels of Elon Musk’s announcement that he would endorse Trump and form a PAC to aid his campaign.

Not to be lost in all this is the Trump campaign’s other tech proponent. While he’s most noted for his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance is not only the first Millennial to appear on a major party’s presidential ticket; the retired Marine and Yale Law grad is also the second venture capitalist to do so, Mitt Romney having been the first.

As Bellafiore and Jon Askonas write: “Republican megadonor and Vance mentor Peter Thiel, of PayPal and Palantir, has long been the exception proving the rule of tech’s alignment with liberalism. Not anymore. The nascent ‘tech bros for Trump’ movement demands an explanation.”

That explanation involves the tech industry doing what it should’ve done long ago: protect its own interests as a growing industry. They continue:

The Trump-Vance ticket has shown a far greater openness to new technologies. Trump can tout a track record of cutting regulations. He has promised to “Make America First in AI” by, among other things, creating “industry-led” agencies to oversee AI development. He will speak at a major Bitcoin conference later this month. For his part, Vance hails from the venture capital scene, reported owning six figures’ worth of Bitcoin in his public financial filings, and has taken a strong public stance in favor of open-source AI.

If Donald Trump retakes the White House, it’ll be in large part because he patiently went to work in the past four years growing the Republican base — whether they be blacks or Hispanics or blue-collar workers or safety-conscious suburban moms.

As for Big Tech’s longtime dalliance with the Democrat Party, perhaps they’ve finally been mugged by reality.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/108815-trump-calls-tech-support-2024-07-26

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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