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Propaganda, Online Communities, and Violence [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-09-15

We avoid the feeling of cognitive dissonance like the plague because that is how we evolved, that is how we stayed alive. But the flight or fight response that kept us alive didn't evolve with our technology. We experience autonomically the impulse to scroll past something (flight) or click comment and tell them why they are wrong (fight). You have to understand this about yourself as you try to find your safe space, as you navigate the political turmoil: It feels good to feel completely right and to see others as completely wrong, and it causes discomfort to engage in ideas we don’t want to believe. That’s why people share completely false memes without a second thought or twinge of conscience. It feels so good to be affirmed by a community of like-minded peers, to win approval by going hard against a common enemy. But if you are feeling those feelings of self-righteous anger, that smugness that you are better than those other people, you are probably being propagandized and manipulated.

We avoid the feeling of cognitive dissonance like the plague because that is how we evolved, that is how we stayed alive. But the flight or fight response that kept us alive didn't evolve with our technology. We experience autonomically the impulse to scroll past something (flight) or click comment and tell them why they are wrong (fight). You have to understand this about yourself as you try to find your safe space, as you navigate the political turmoil: It feels good to feel completely right and to see others as completely wrong, and it causes discomfort to engage in ideas we don’t want to believe. That’s why people share completely false memes without a second thought or twinge of conscience. It feels so good to be affirmed by a community of like-minded peers, to win approval by going hard against a common enemy. But if you are feeling those feelings of self-righteous anger, that smugness that you are better than those other people, you are probably being propagandized and manipulated.

When I was a kid, I think it was still possible to change. I inherited a very republican worldview I would eventually grow beyond. I was able to because I was exposed to different points of view, and there was enough time in the slow boredom of life to ruminate and cogitate. But now the internet has us cocooned into our information silos...and misinformation silos and malinformation silos. (It is important to know the distinctions and recognize what you are up against.) We don’t have time and space to be alone anymore. People who will reinforce our beliefs are always a few inches away on our phones, and algorithms steer us further and further away from new ideas.

When I was a kid, I think it was still possible to change. I inherited a very republican worldview I would eventually grow beyond. I was able to because I was exposed to different points of view, and there was enough time in the slow boredom of life to ruminate and cogitate. But now the internet has us cocooned into our information silos...and misinformation silos and malinformation silos. (It is important to know the distinctions and recognize what you are up against.) We don’t have time and space to be alone anymore. People who will reinforce our beliefs are always a few inches away on our phones, and algorithms steer us further and further away from new ideas.

We don't know why this guy shot Charlie Kirk. We can speculate, we can listen to the voices in our online communities and get all hyped up about what MIGHT be true, or we can wait for official sources. And even if we wait, official sources are beholden to the same biases we are, from one direction or another. "Official sources" are the ones in the hours after the murder who were saying "They" killed Charlie Kirk, meaning liberals. As if I, for wanting affordable healthcare and acknowledgement of global warming, am responsible for political violence. The narrative that the rightwing tried to build immediately is that this was an antifa trans kid and all political violence is born by the left. That's propaganda. That's distortion. That's TRYING to stoke division and leverage political power. You can't NOT see that, even if you don't want to.

We don't know why this guy shot Charlie Kirk. We can speculate, we can listen to the voices in our online communities and get all hyped up about what MIGHT be true, or we can wait for official sources. And even if we wait, official sources are beholden to the same biases we are, from one direction or another. "Official sources" are the ones in the hours after the murder who were saying "They" killed Charlie Kirk, meaning liberals. As if I, for wanting affordable healthcare and acknowledgement of global warming, am responsible for political violence. The narrative that the rightwing tried to build immediately is that this was an antifa trans kid and all political violence is born by the left. That's propaganda. That's distortion. That's TRYING to stoke division and leverage political power. You can't NOT see that, even if you don't want to.

After that assertion, people who felt targeted came up with other narratives: the shell casing carvings were meme-culture christian-nationalist fascist rhetoric. And that's a compelling story with some decent evidence behind it. But we still don't know. So then the rightwing came back with stories of a trans partner, and the accusation roared back to life because, for their side, there was a clear bad guy again.

It's exhausting to watch people try to keep finding reasons why they are right and the other guy is wrong. And it is SO easy to find that justification for whatever darkness your heart truly desires. It's hard to know the truth. I mean, I know factually which side has mainstreamed more hateful rhetoric, and the side that has committed more acts of political violence in my lifetime, is pretty clear. But even if I show them the facts point blank, the propaganda cuts through all the noise of real life and reinforces their belief. In the end, whatever the truth is, if we ever actually get it, will be ignored by the people who want to ignore it, and they will feel just fine in their cozy online communities.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/15/2343738/-The-Avoidance-of-Cognitive-Dissonance-Online-Communities-And-Violence?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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