I always thought “Real Clear Politics” sounded like something that would appeal to right-wingers. For that matter I think of Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation which seemed to be all about shitting on the world “real” very thoroughly so people would know how dangerous it was and stop using it.
Yep. There are quite a few movements nowadays, anti-vax for one, and another centered around gender identity, that fill the void left behind by the retreat of organized religion. Those two groups are somewhat aligned against each other because of the networks they participate it in, but they both have direct opposition groups that have the same breathless character "I wear two masks because you some people won't wear one", "my life was meaningless before I got long COVID but now I have a mission", "listen to me, listen to me, listen to me, I can't save my kid, my kid won't listen to me, but maybe if you listen to me I can save somebody else's kid"
The interesting thing is that if you call out the behavior by its characteristics and leave out names, specific incidents, beliefs, etc. the people involved will always think you are talking about the other side and not them and you can frequently go really far in this conversation without being specific until you get sick of the game and finally break it to them that you are talking about them.
