There was a post on the last threasd I wanted to reply to:
Trump ended the meeting by telling Zelensky that this will make great television.
That’s who holds the nuclear button now. A failed reality tv star who still thinks he is on a tv show.
I think there's something significant to understand about this - Trump is more concerned with ratings than sincerity. He and Vance were playing to the crowd. That may lack any morals but currently it's working for them. The questions Vance threw as Zelensky and which he wasn't given a chance to answer - Vance didn't care about the answers. He was playing to the gallery with a load of far right nonsense.
And this is where Trump's powerbase is - not through traditional politics but mobilising people through social media. Now he's got Musk on board he owns the public square - or a large part of it.
I'm starting to wonder if social media is seriously dangerous - every day we're feeding more data into a system that, increasingly, is owned by people who want power and control. And they are learning more all the time about how to manipulate us.
Having worked in marketing I know three things to be true -
- You can manipulate groups of people to do what you want (e.g. buy your products / vote a certain way) if you understand the group and what influences them.
- Most people don't like to admit they are influenced by anything other than their own free will - certainly not marketing or social media
- The longer people choose to pretend they're not influenced by adverts and online content, the easier it is for those who wish to manipulate us to just get on with it
We're moving from a world where we had a personal sphere where our friends and family had the biggest influence on us, to one where those who wish to influence us from afar have our wrapt attention for several hours every day - if we're online.
I'm feeling pretty depressed about it tbh as although I understand this, I still don't want to get rid of my social media. I know I'm being bewitched by pretty things, yet still...