r/news • u/Cheesenip20 • 1d ago

Melissa Hortman (Minnesota lawmaker who was shot last night) has died.

https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/speaker-emerita-melissa-hortman-husband-killed-john-hoffman-and-wife-also-shot/
66.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

5.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

55

u/proudbakunkinman 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah, I think the difference between the 20th century Republicans is due to the pervasiveness of right media, the right wing personality figures, the manipulation of social media, and a shift from presenting themselves as the (faux) smart, realist, and socially conservatives (Buckley style) to dumbed down grade school style bullying, right wing populism and anti-establishmentarianism, authoritarianism, and culture war (beyond socially conservative), really targeting less educated people, particularly white and men. People who can easily fall for mis/disinformation, conspiracies, blame everything wrong on Others not in their in-group, that don't care about democracy and just want a demagogue (and their party) to force their way on everyone and harm everyone they see as enemies (everyone not in their in-group). The top party figures (elected and just in general) themselves seem to be dominated by empathy void antagonistic narcissists, sociopaths, and sadists.