November New Media; The End of the World

[kungfuwaynewho]

TV
167. The Walking Dead - 7x03 - “The Cell.”  11-6.
168. The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story - 1x01 - “From the Ashes of Tragedy.”  11-8.
169. The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story - 1x02 - “The Run of His Life.”  11-8.
170. The Walking Dead - 7x04 - “Service.”  11-13.
171. Brooklyn Nine-Nine - 4x06 - “Monster in the Closet.”  11-18.
172. Bob’s Burgers - 7x04 - “They Serve Horses, Don’t They?”  11-18.
173. The Last Man on Earth - 2x16 - “Falling Slowly.”  11-18.
174. The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story - 1x03 - “The Dream Team.”  11-19.
175. Bob’s Burgers - 7x05 - “Larger Brother, Where Fart Thou?”  11-20.
176. The Walking Dead - 7x05 - “Go Getters.”  11-20.
177. Bob’s Burgers - 7x06 - “The Quirkducers.”  11-21.
178. The Last Man on Earth - 2x17 - “Smart and Stupid.”  11-23.
179. The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story - 1x04 - “100 Percent Not Guilty.”  11-24.
180. The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story - 1x05 - “The Race Card.”  11-24.
181. The Last Man on Earth - 2x18 - “30 Years of Science Down the Tubes.” 11-25.
182. Brooklyn Nine-Nine - 4x07 - “Mr. Santiago.”  11-26.
183. The Last Man on Earth - 3x01 - “General Breast Theme With Cobras.”  11-26.
184. Brooklyn Nine-Nine - 4x08 - “Skyfire Cycle.”  11-30.

Movies
23. Hamilton’s America (2016).  11-2.
24. The Legend of Tarzan (2016).  11-17.
25. Doctor Strange (2016).  11-20.

Books
21. The Sunset Gang, Warren Adler.  11-14.
22. Mind War, Douglas E. Richards.  11-19.

I've thought up a hundred different LJ posts the last three weeks, but haven't been able to make myself actually sit down and type anything up.  I managed 15k words this NaNo, almost all written prior to November 9th.  Day to day, I'll find myself doing okay, then remembering that there's a black hole on the horizon, ready to swallow us all whole.  Expect to see TV watching continue to go up and up for me, as I retreat into the warm comfort of escapism.

Comments

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

I feel like I should quickly add that I don't blame individual civilian Republicans for this, if this comes off as particularly vitriolic. (I am made of vitriol these days, tho.) I can be disappointed and frustrated that so many people voted for That Man, but honestly? They were brainwashed. That is my sincere belief. Close to thirty years of right-wing propaganda echo chambers, sowing an ever-thickening fog of distrust of any other media source. You can't convince me that any "passionate dislike" of Hillary could come from anything else, because that lady is boring. She's the definition of a policy wonk. But when you have crazies literally shooting up pizza parlors because of the fake news they get from their extreme right-wing propaganda news sites, you have to ask how informed these people really are, you know?

[cath822.livejournal.com]

Ha! I mean, okay, I know that you used to refer to yourself as Republican, but I also knew that you're feminist and educated and support gay marriage and things like that, so I figured you probably didn't like Trumpster Fire. I think the last time we talked politics was 2008, probably during the whole Sarah Palin thing. If anything, I kind of had you pegged as a moderate libertarian, but I knew we hadn't discussed it in a while and I really didn't give it much thought.

The thing is, I have many friends and family members who are Republican. Some of them fall into the category of "people with whom I disagree, but can have a civil, fact-based conversation with," and you definitely fell into that category. (Also, most of them think Trump is a dangerous maniac.) The others are just brainwashed ideologues who live in a horrific echo chamber of misinformation and hate speech, and those tended to be the people who supported Trump. I've pretty much cut most of those people out of my life (or, really, just Facebook, because that was the only place I "saw" them), although a couple of them are in my extended family, so I'll just be avoiding the topic over Christmas.

Honestly, while I've been politically active (voting, donating, calling my representative, etc.), I've kind of avoided talking politics with entire groups of people. Like, I can be pretty sure my colleagues in my department of immigrants, foreign language teachers, and humanities Ph.Ds are liberal, but I live in a red state, my students largely come from the South, and I was a pretty active member of the church back when I was in Michigan, so I probably know quite a few Trump supporters. And even if I had started the conversation, maybe I could have swayed a couple of reluctant supporters, but I don't know that it would have been worth it.

The thing is, and the reason I even brought it up, I don't think this election was about Democrats versus Republicans. It was about sane, informed people battling misinformation and half-truths. My mom, for example, is extremely liberal, and she was all about Bernie Sanders. (So was I, for the record, but he lost the primary, so back to reality, oops, there goes gravity.) However, she went into a total Facebook meltdown, posting 30-40 times a day over the course of months about the DNC rigging the election and how Bernie was the only one who could save us, and Hillary is a dangerous lying war-hawk. She was sharing and posting a lot of the same crap that the Trump supporters were, like the PizzaGate stuff. I mean, not specifically that, but she definitely shared that "Hillary defended a child rapist and then laughed about it" story more than once. And this is a person who used to tell her sister to check Snopes before posting stories. She's alienated a lot of people, and after pleading with her several times to stop regurgitating this shit to our friends and family, I finally just blocked her.

Anyway, it's really terrifying. The whole rise of the alt-right and how they're emboldening hate crimes, discrediting the press, and now have a narcissistic spokesperson who likes anyone who praises him and won't speak out against the KKK, but will tweet about SNL (a show he *hosted*) every week? God. It's pretty fucking grim.