This thread in particular got to me today
The cognitive dissonance required to think Biden is on some leftist hot streak (ie Dark Brandon) is too fucking immense for me to handle
They get so close to asking the right questions and then some loser comes in and says something like “no you see, Biden crushed the rail strike because he’s on the side of unions” and just repeat the same weak rationalization in 38 other comments (Biden admin supposedly helped ONE of the many rail unions get ONE concession a few months later) and so now we’re supposed to be like “oh shit, Biden is fucking amazing for workers, whelp, off to the voting booths for me! Sign me up for another round of this guy!” completely ignorant of how it is transparently for optics before the next election, before he goes back to actively repressing labor
This is paid astroturfing
I hope so. But I've been on Reddit since before it was worth astroturfing and they've always been like this. They see the world as if it was an episode of West Wing.
I'd definitely prefer astroturfing to real people behaving like that though so I choose to believe.
There's nothing redditors love more than ceding ground in a fight that they won't feel a single effect from
"It's a simply a tactical retreat in order to make a back room deal. My favorite politician is a shrewd deal maker and knows what's best for the peasantry" they say as they sip their franzia and caress their photo of Aaron Sorkin
there's a lot of astroturfing on reddit but it only works because the mostly american male college student demographic of political reddit is genuinely awful