Embedded

The series on alternate realities wrecked me. It’s heartbreaking to hear how Zach’s family is torn asunder by his dad effectively joining a cult of conspiracy theorists. Is there any way to profile someone who came out of their rabbit hole? How did it happen? Is there hope? These folks are driving real policies now and creating broader social damage. Is there any way to reprogram them? What strategies actually work? Help us understand.

It was both interesting and frustrating to hear the father continue to act like his own bizarre beliefs were somehow comparable to the rest of his family and friends’. He’s adopted hateful dogma and bought in to seriously ridiculous ideas and uses bigotry that he wraps in religion to justify hurting his daughter. Until the right wing is held liable for brainwashing millions of Americans, this will continue to ruin families and lives. Great show, sad reality.

So a right wing dad made pretty far-fetched claims that didn’t come true…who cares? I guarantee the results would be the same if the sanctimonious journalist or anyone else (left or right) really into politics. Remember when Trump was about to start WW3 in like 2018? Or how supposed experts such as Timothy Snyder warned there might be no more elections after Trump took office in 2017? Or how the lab leak was a conspiracy? People (including experts) are bad at predicting the future (see Philip Tetlock’s book Expert Political Judgment). I would have respected the journalist far more if he would have tried to make his own prediction list, then maybe both of them could be humbled a bit.

I just listed to Alternate Realities on This American Life, and I look forward to listening to the unabridged version on this podcast. But man did it leave me feeling really bad for our country! This was an incredible story, filled with many moments of hope. But in the end, the hope was unmerited and it left me incredibly sad. Usually I just get angry listening to conspiracy theories, but here the story spread out over a year and the terrible pain of the family involved went from bad to worse. If this father, who obviously loves his family, has decided that the conspiracies are more import to him than his wife and kids, then what hope is there for the 50% of the country who continue to accept the crazy lies that fall from trump’s mouth and continue to be lapped up by his followers as if Trump was their lord and savior. I’m really afraid for the future of our country. It’s amazing that people have completely accepted everything that he says and are willing to give up our democracy based on complete lies and the incredible meanness promulgated by leaders on the right. And now they have connected it all to Christianity, which simply imbeds their ideas even deeper. Very, very sad