<story><title>Americans’ views on the war reveal a striking generational divide</title><url>https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/04/02/americans-views-on-the-war-reveal-a-striking-generational-divide</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ffwszgf</author><text>Most younger people are quite skeptic of mainstream media so they don’t trust the narrative  CNN and Fox News are trying to sell them.With the elderly it’s the opposite.&lt;p&gt;Further, most of the elderly lived at a time when the USSR was the clear and obvious enemy of “freedom”, so it’s not hard to fathom Russia being back into its usual shenanigans.&lt;p&gt;Gen Z is also more diverse and broadly anti-American (or “anti-imperialist”) so they’re less willing to blindly support US foreign policy and feel less connected to European conflicts than previous generations.&lt;p&gt;Finally Russia has, in my opinion, waged a fairly successful social media campaign to muddy the waters. Those videos of Ukrainians discriminating against people or color were signal boosted everywhere on Twitter. Same with the Azov Batallion which some people believe are the entire Ukrainian army. You also have people bringing up Yemen, Syria, Palestine, etc to emphasize the “white-supremacist” support of Ukraine receiving overwhelming attention.&lt;p&gt;Gen Z has thus mostly understood this conflict through the propaganda wars that play out in social media and thus have conflicting and&amp;#x2F;or “both-sides” takes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ErikVandeWater</author><text>&amp;gt; Finally Russia has, in my opinion, waged a fairly successful social media campaign to muddy the waters. Those videos of Ukrainians discriminating against people or color were signal boosted everywhere on Twitter. Same with the Azov Batallion which some people believe are the entire Ukrainian army. You also have people bringing up Yemen, Syria, Palestine, etc to emphasize the “white-supremacist” support of Ukraine receiving overwhelming attention.&lt;p&gt;On the other side of things, on Reddit, nothing unfavorable about Ukraine is getting attention.  You don&amp;#x27;t see any posts about Russia gaining territory, or Zelensky censoring media outlets favorable to opposition parties.&lt;p&gt;And nowhere on reddit or in the media do I see a discussion of the pros and cons of a Ukrainian surrender.  It&amp;#x27;s really hard to see how Ukraine will successfully fend off a country 10x its size.  (If someone has an answer as to why that might be realistic, I&amp;#x27;m open to hear it).</text></comment>
<story><title>Americans’ views on the war reveal a striking generational divide</title><url>https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/04/02/americans-views-on-the-war-reveal-a-striking-generational-divide</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ffwszgf</author><text>Most younger people are quite skeptic of mainstream media so they don’t trust the narrative  CNN and Fox News are trying to sell them.With the elderly it’s the opposite.&lt;p&gt;Further, most of the elderly lived at a time when the USSR was the clear and obvious enemy of “freedom”, so it’s not hard to fathom Russia being back into its usual shenanigans.&lt;p&gt;Gen Z is also more diverse and broadly anti-American (or “anti-imperialist”) so they’re less willing to blindly support US foreign policy and feel less connected to European conflicts than previous generations.&lt;p&gt;Finally Russia has, in my opinion, waged a fairly successful social media campaign to muddy the waters. Those videos of Ukrainians discriminating against people or color were signal boosted everywhere on Twitter. Same with the Azov Batallion which some people believe are the entire Ukrainian army. You also have people bringing up Yemen, Syria, Palestine, etc to emphasize the “white-supremacist” support of Ukraine receiving overwhelming attention.&lt;p&gt;Gen Z has thus mostly understood this conflict through the propaganda wars that play out in social media and thus have conflicting and&amp;#x2F;or “both-sides” takes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>formerly_proven</author><text>If the Russian invasion of Ukraine has taught me anything, it&amp;#x27;s that a) while overt Russian propaganda seems to largely fail in Europe, the more subtle suggestions are widespread b) most people have genuinely horribly bad defense takes c) there are somewhat more tankies than I expected</text></comment>