People can be easily brainwashed. For example, many have been convinced that an invisible man lives in the sky, or that a changing climate is an existential threat; if it’s said enough times by authority figures with no countervailing message. Even with the presence of a competing idea, one with superior logic & merit, once the indoctrination window is past, there is no changing anyone’s mind. That’s why elections are always so even; no matter what happens to either side, however much good or terrible, it won’t change anything. This is certainly a huge weakness of democracy, possibly a fatal one, and something the propagandists understand; getting their message across during the formative period; for children that would be public school, or adults, that would be their introduction to a new concept. The Left has recognized this basic fact for decades, while the Right remains blindly docile while it happens to their own kids.
That’s because the Right believes in live & left live, at least as long as it’s not pushed into their faces. However, the base emotions of envy, resentment, exploitation & narcissism, something the Left is susceptible to, keeps them from simply minding their own business, rather than proselytizing their message to vulnerable listeners, utilizing propaganda to mold & control the public zeitgeist. At first glace, it seems all bad, but there is a difficult conundrum because only brainwashing can suppress people from acting on their base emotions, so it’s not something that can be ignored. The Right must fight propaganda with propaganda.
