If you still use :reddit-logo: , there’s a huge panic about cross border car theft. I think :citations-needed: did an episode about this phenomenon, but local news rarely gets blasted in my face so heavily for a sustained period of time. Am I seeing another astroturf campaign? Is some bullshit being pushed that I haven’t heard about yet?
I think the uptick is the response to an increase in e-commerce during the pandemic - commercial real estate looks like it’s been becoming less and less profitable to own over the last 15 or so years :curious-marx:, so this is a response to squeeze the profits - making a plea to the public to increase spending on state security forces to act as their own loss prevention department. Media companies own tons of commercial real estate so this covers their interests as well.
Imagine :porky-happy: at 30 Rockefeller Center squealing with delight as they see a gasmasked riot cop order a passerby to pick up a can that the cop knocked over on the street below.
I don’t think they think or plot that far ahead to purposely use state security as their own loss prevention. I think more likely this stuff just gets the boomer ratings because it confirms boomer views. And they kind of have to keep those ratings to sell those commercial spots advertising drugs and weird ab workout machines.
