Lets see what is behind the weak MAGA brain shall we
We have a Media that toots lies in unison.
We have a big tech that sensors and leads folks on a leash to a common thought.
We have a Corporate Elite that want us all to believe in wokeness.
We of course have a Govt that ignores the violent left but wants to crush the peaceful right. They also want you to concede that you are a racist if you do not follow their vision. And of course they want to censor freedom af thought and speech. We cant have the little people hearing different points of view now can we.
So it would seem to me the cynicism of the weak MAGA brain is truly intellectually justified. They are cynical by experience. Of course some go a bit over the edge but that is what happens when folks are told to ignore reality. Told to ignore the man behind the curtain. Told that they should not believe their own lying eyes.
But you want them to suspend that which they see with their own eyes. If they do not then they are weak MAGA brains. Of course you refuse to recognize that there must be some hidden hand driving the narrative. But I think you do recognize it, but you are fully part of helping to drive that home narrative. You must try to shame them away from the self evident truths of where we are at. Why do you do that? Because you are not an honest person. JMHO
There is some good bit of truth to the things you identify, though I'd argue, as I long did with my left wing friends, that corporate bias is non-ideological in general, and really just goes where it sees market opportunity. I have yet to come across actual people in corporate America, outside of tech, who believe any of this. I'd also question how much freedom of thought and speech are limited at this point. I mean read the Porta John for God's sake. In any truly restricted nation, a large group of heavily armed people would not really be allowed to share what is, at best, information "dangerous" to the regime, and at worst, complete and utter bullshit. Or maybe switch best and worst.
I think another place you are slightly wrong is to act like this is a change in media. The media has always been like this. It was like this in the 50s, the 60s etc. The biggest difference is that back then, people accepted folks like Cronkite as "truth tellers" and didn't understand they were left wing activists. So again, I'd argue that this has gotten better over time. Not that the media has, but that the rise of independent sources of news, which all almost exclusively trace their way back to Rush Limbaugh and his revolution, has made us much freer and much more knowledgeable. So yeah, the media sucks, but it is better to know that than to just accept what they feed you.
But the existence of bad actors does not lead me to believe that everything bad that happens is because somebody is behind the curtain, pulling strings. I think these bad things create hurdles, but also opportunities. As you even mention, most of these things aren't hiding behind the curtain, they are waving their dicks in our faces. You can either assume there is more behind the curtain, or you can deal with the dicks. My sense is that it has become easier to assume the Wizard than to work hard against what we see. Going back to Rush Limbaugh, I really have a hard time imaging him looking at all of this and just deciding the game was fixed, let's start complaining and stop trying since it isn't fair and we can't have what we want.
I will say that the final issue you bring up, the one about disparate treatment of left and right wing rioters is extremely troubling. It seems to be an issue both localized in big cities, and on a federal level. I don't see it happening everywhere, but it is absolutely awful. I don't know that a country can actually withstand that long term. I will say this, though, to try to bring it together with the rest of what I believe and have written. I think the BLM/Floyd rioters should be in jail. I also think the 1/6 rioters should be in jail. I think the peaceful folks from both events should not be in jail, as peaceful protest is a right. I do think it is weak Maga mind to start blaming the FBI for making people riot. It may be a shit tactic of the FBI, but if you riot, you are a rioter. Like everybody's parents said about jumping off a bridge if your friends did first. I feel the same way about those who got caught up in the BLM riots because Antifas were rioting. You riot, go straight to jail. It used to be a particularity of conservatives that when our kind did bad shit, we didn't try to excuse them for it, while liberals would always excuse their miscreants because of the hard lives due to color, race, poverty etc. They just didn't have control over their lives. If you can't say no to an undercover FBI agent, assuming those stories have validity, straight to jail in my world.
Not sure you will find that more honest, but there you go. To paraphrase the great Avon Barksdale, if it true, we fight on that truth, and if it's a lie, we fight on that lie. That is my perspective. You always have to keep moving forward, you never just give up because the bad, powerful people are making things hard. That's American history. That is why generation after generation went from immigrant in the ghettos to prosperous Americans. That virtuous cycle has ended for most member groups of the professional victim class, and conservatives should not become another member.
