Had you ever had the experience of not even having a conversation with someone because before the conversation even began the other person has already made a neat little strawman for themselves to attack your opinion without giving actual arguments?

Go ahead, make the fork

Have also ever noticed that they tend to get Real Mad when you ask them question because the conversation quickly switches to in group/out group dynamics and you just revealed that you’re not in whatever group they are? And they also probably have very specific definitions of words and phrases as part of their mental framework that you don’t know, so both sides completely misunderstand each other?

this hits the nail on the head – except where you say "mental framework." for most of the global south and its periphery, that's not a framework; it's just reality.

the rest of the world gets a mix of western echo-chamber noise and raw government propaganda, which actually lets them build a more nuanced, tankie-adjacent understanding. western liberals – especially americans – don't get that mix. they only get the echo chamber, with propaganda buried inside it like pills in a dog treat.

that's why they get "Real Mad" -- the smugness of that echo chamber provokes anyone who isn't infected by it since there's documented proof from sources as reputable as the u.s. government itself. but westerners dismiss it as tankie nonsense in the same way that maga dismisses evidence that contradicts their worldview.

jessie won't be able to explain anything to you until you've done the work to purge those brainworms – and that means understanding how words like "authoritarian", or "autocrat", or "state-sponsored terrorism", or even "tankie" are used to reinforce the echo chamber, not describe reality.

i used to be a liberal, so i know this won't land right away. concrete advice: stop using echo-chamber outlets – wikipedia, fox, npr, cbc, abc, bbc, le monde, der spiegel. go to primary sources. read the epstein files. read foia releases. sit with the implications.

there's a shortcut – listening to tankie influencers like madeline pendelton – but i also know you've been conditioned not to bother, but it's here now if you should ever end up realizing how much control the epstein class has over your life and want to understand why.