propaganda and email

Over the last few days I've had some interesting 'conversations' with right wing neighbors and relatives, some face to face and some online. Even those separated by thousands of miles have exactly the same wrong information and bogus talking points that they trot out as if they were incontrovertible truth. (Most academic would consider that strong evidence of cheating when grading exams, but here is strong evidence of cohesive stupidity.)
Some of this is Faux News, and some of it is the TV ads, but some of it goes well beyond what they dare to broadcast. While sipping my morning coffee and thinking about doe of the crazy BS I've heard over the last few days, I remembered the chain emails I used to get from right wing relatives, some of which were so toxic that I blocked them from my email forever. Much of these emails were taken up by outrageous lies, radioactive talking points, and just plain worse-than-birthed nastiness, but they often consisted of long series of photographs of military stuff: ships, planes, guns, etc. and even cartoons, apparently with the idea of getting the base whipped up with patriotic fervor...