welcome to the fest

Oh man! This is juicy and interesting. Sure there's a bunch of fascist-ish behavior resurfacing these days, and a lot of their followers are white, but also a lot of them are not, mostly those are "normal" people getting feed up with being called "bigots" and "evil" from the "progressive" left and they have no idea the mess they are helping "power up". We're all to blame for that tbh.

This strip is pretty meta, IMHO. We are all the heroes of our own stories. This is a pretty nuanced take on the coopting of the revolution by the mainstream media.

I would say that it is a commentary on mainstream news than a self-referential criticism. Great timing on the subject though, I just read an article today that Trump referred to himself as a nationalist at a campaign rally recently. Nationalism is shit (not the shit--just shit); however, in following the suggestion of the comic strip, are we to say that the journalist who wrote the article (the article distinguished nationalism from patriotism and criticized Trump for his position on nationalism) is using 'Nationalism' as a dog whistle for liberals? Should we say that this is the same sort of dog whistle as Ron DeSantis' worries over a "monkey[ed] up" economy? Should we check ourselves of our passions, of ourselves, and engage the news as though we were strict observationists?
I ask too many questions: if I am the hero of my story, then I am also the arch-nemesis.

The reason the progressive left calls Trumpies bigots and racists is because they are.

Right-wing news entertainment media (especially talk radio but also stuff like Fox News and the ubiquitous Murdoch owned "local" "news" programs) have been primarily focused on (deceitful) propaganda and provoking emotional response in their base since at least the 90s. The left isn't going to catch up by trying now, even if they were as good at it, which they're not.

The left, in general, is positioned as feminine. Just as actual women will be seen badly for being intellectual and logical, or else seen badly for arguing with passion and emotion, the left, as a whole suffers the same double-bind.

I agree with newfish