patrick.net

Step 1) "The red pill" - the realization that you are living in a false reality created by constant propaganda, spin, and irrelevant talking points.

Step 2) Being gaslit - being asked to doubt your own perceptions. Here you find out it's impossible to discuss this with almost all friends or family, since they still believe Stephen Colbert has principles, or that Sean Hannity ever gave a damn about telling the truth.

Step 3) Finding out that not all your friends and family having taken "the blue pill" and they cautiously bring up taboo subjects and point out things you've not noticed before like "yeah, I know Trump is a reality television star, but can he be WORSE than Hillary Clinton?"

Step 4) Developing a cogent outlook on the world and realizing it is logical, if you ignore the propaganda. Why do the parties differ only on gay marriage, flag burning, transgendered bathrooms, school prayer - because they don't give a damned about those issues. Why do they care about going to war in Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc - because they do care about those issues.

Step 5) Understanding hypocrisy such as hearing Rachael Maddow cry over separated families at the border, but forgot about the issue once Biden was installed although nothing changed. Realizing that people who complained endlessly about the supposed mental incompetence of Trump, but say nothing about a befuddled senile old man that announced he was running for the senate when he was running for president, who forgot Barack Obama's name, and is reading teleprompters and notes to answer "reporters" "questions".

Step 6) Seeing the hypocrisy everywhere. June 6th was a insurrection, but BLM and Antifa destroying cities for the last 9 months were just "mostly peaceful protests". "White racists" being identified as a "serious threat to the republic" by our "intelligence" agencies. Having an election stolen by Biden amid a completely overhauled election amid video evidence of shenanigans (ballot boxes being pulled from under tables, poll watchers refused entry, windows covered up during the count, sudden surges in the counts over night, after counting supposedly stopped) and being told that's impossible that there were any irregularities, after 4 years of being told "Russia hacked our election". Meeting people who are sincere about these points of view.

Step 7) "The black pill" - being upset that some people who you once thought were intelligent, moral, ethical people are just pawns of propaganda, and they cannot be helped. At this point you realize that you don't get angry in a discussion with somebody about a taboo subject, but they do and they replace reasoning with shouting. At this point, it's almost impossible to be gaslit, but you start to feel you're talking to automatons rather than people. You lose respect for other people's opinions understanding they are just repeating what they've been brainwashed into - they aren't their opinions.

Step 8) Accepting this is the way it is.

Step 9) "The white pill" - Laughing about it all. I can't get angry with somebody that actually believes that "white supremacists" are everywhere, that "liberals" think that a man that voted for the Iraq War and has actually supported every war in the last 5 decades is somehow an improvement over George W. Bush, or that a man that couldn't get 50 people to show up to a campaign event is the most popular presidential candidate in all of US history. I can't even get upset, I can't even think they are stupid. I can only think "wow, propaganda DOES work". Just have to laugh at it.