[tonguez]

There are better ways to win the hearts and minds of the population than authoritarian control of what people see, hear and say. No one likes to be controlled by someone else. Censoring discussion of the issue is only going to make more people assume the election was in fact "fraudulent". Similarly Sam Harris has said in a podcast how laws against Holocaust denial do more to create more Holocaust deniers than they help because they automatically make people assume you have something to hide, even if you don't.

In general, intelligent people feel an intellectual responsibility to question what they are told.

[shrimpx]

> No one likes to be controlled by someone else.

The irony is that millions of the people you’re trying to defend as free-thinkers who can look at any speech and make good choices, are literally controlled by Fox News and Alex Jones propaganda.

Side note: In fact I believe there’s a legal path to suing Tucker Carlson out of existence by proving, with real data, that people really do believe the nonsense. The only reason Carlson is still trumpeting destructive lies from a megaphone is that so far, judges have accepted the argument that “no one in their right mind believes that what Carlson says is true; he’s obviously a satirist.”

[Maursault]

> are literally controlled by Fox News and Alex Jones propaganda.

You think you've got it, and though that may seem obvious I must set you straight even if it scares you as much as it does me: it is the other way around; those are mere reflections ultimately under their control (as much as anyone controls their beliefs).

[shrimpx]

Your parenthetical statement casts a large shadow over the rest of your statement, because yes, control varies, and people with low control (correlates with low education) are precisely the ones who fall prey to cynical propaganda.

[mbg721]

There's this idea that there are millions of mind-numbed conservative zombies out there, blindly following Trump or Tucker Carlson or spokesman x, but I don't see it. What I think is closer to the truth is that there are a ton of angry cultural conservatives who distrust everybody, but begrudgingly watch Carlson because they perceive him as better than the actively-hostile rest-of-the-news. That doesn't necessarily mean they're making good choices, but it's good practice to understand why people make the political choices they do.

[shrimpx]

The theory that a huge percentage of Tucker's audience is watching it knowing full well that Tucker is a full of shit zero-content "satirist" just isn't convincing at all. Unfortunately, though, it has been convincing to some judges but like I said I hope that will change.

That said, I now a bunch of people firsthand who are getting brainwashed on Tucker and Alex Jones. They really do believe the crap.