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In reply to the discussion: If Trump is acquitted, this will become the number one question. [View all]calguy
(5,335 posts)I've seen and experienced it first hand. I met my longest and one of my best friends while we served in the military together 50 years ago. We were both ultra liberal at that time and all thru the 70's. Then something changed. When Reagan eliminated the Fairness Doctrine right wingers were suddenly free to slander their political rivals on the airways with no fear of any reprisal. The richest of the rich, now flush with extra cash from Reagan's massive tax cuts, they began to build an elaborate propaganda system called talk radio of which Rush Limbaugh was one of the first.
My ultra liberal friend, a carpenter by trade, began to be fed a daily dose of right wing lies everyday over the radio blasting away at the jobsite. Over the course of several years and thousands of hours of exposure to the right wing lies, his thinking gradually changed and he doesn't even know it. Today he is as hard core GOP as they come. Fox news on 24/7 in the house and Limbaugh/Hannity crap in the car.
Yet, he'll tell you with total honesty that he's still a liberal. He believes that he is, but just can't support this or that specific issue so he's being voting straight GOP since the mid 80's and all the while he'll tell you that deep in his heart he's a liberal.
This is the problem we face and I'm not sure, over the long run, we have the resources to overcome the odds.
I sure hope I'm wrong.