Isn't a strict Democrat or Republican the most likely person to be brainwashed?
No. While some are bette suited to the ignorant, any member of any of the main groups can be pretty brainwashed or not. It's not a boolean, either - there are degrees.
This is where history is useful because any example I use to show one group brainwashed and not another, is talking to the people who are brainwahsed - they'll disagree.
But historical examples are useful to show big parts - often majorities - holding views that today was are happy to criticize.
I can't remember the source, but I recall it said that cold war leaders tended to view 'communists and homosexuals as the same thing'. Both were treated as suspiciois, and ineligble/unsuited for trust in the government (remember before Don't Ask Don't Tell for one example).
Ironically, according to Wiki:
"In the 1930s under Joseph Stalin, homosexuality... [was] recriminalised in the nation. Article 121 explicitly criminalised male same-sex intercourse and with five years of hard prison labor as a penalty. The law was condemned by several communists operating in Britain. The law remained intact until... 1993. Although the Nazis persecuted homosexuals during the Holocaust, Joseph Stalin regarded fascists and homosexuals as the same, and part of a far-right homosexual conspiracy."
Now, today, we might point to 'brainwashing' as affecting many of people with the harder anti-gay views historically (the great Alan Turing who did so much to help Britain win the war was repaid by charges involving sodomy driving him to kill himself - that's just how the issue was then).
So we can talk about extreme anti-gay views historically as an example of 'brainwashing' with less controversy, as the US and Britain, Stalin, Hitler all ran around persecuting gays and blaming each other as being allied with them, for an idea how irrational and nutty the situation was, taking advantage of a basic bigotry for their own political gain.
We can find many other examples of even more intentional 'brainwashing' for political gain.
I don't see any TV news station shoving Libertarian ideology down people's throats.
That's partly just an issue of power - very wrong things are 'pounded' because they have the money to get that to happen - and party wrong, there's a lot of libertarianism mixed in.
I don't see any TV news stations shoving 'leftist' views down people's throats either - and only a niche market for even 'progressive' views.
But there's plenty of shoving 'conservative' views. Name even the most liberal national TV show that doesn't repeatedly have right-wing guests expressing their views.
It seems like the third party/moderates would be the least brainwashed and people like yourself who parrot the party line (that they're fed from watching FOX/MSNBC/CNN/whatever) would be the most brainwashed.
First, I'm not 'fed' anything - my views are my views. I get some information from all kinds of courses including some from the networks - which I might agree with or not.
So, you can forget your lie on that issue you included.
Second to your larger point, that might seem like common sense, if you treat all shows with any point of view as all lying to 'brainwash' people - but that's a false assumption.
And in my opinion, the people in 'the middle' are typically not 'the best informed, agreeing and disagreeing with some from each side', but the least informed.
People who hold rational views can agree with 'one side' generally, a large amount of the time - that is not precluded by reaching their own views. What if one side is mostly right?
It's the lazy answer to try to say you have to be in 'the middle' to not be 'brainwashed' - the middle like anyone else has to have good reasons for their views. Fewer do IMO.
The question now is whether you can discuss rationally why you would argue based not on a rational view but assumption that a side is 'wrong' - your own 'bias' or 'brainwashing'.
'Moderates' are the main 'know-nothing' faction IMO; Republicans the 'know-wrong'.
You know something I can't remember ever hearing any response to from the 'right'? The fact of the multi-billion dollar industry aimed at the creation and distribution of propaganda.
Because you're too much the victims of that propaganda to discuss it.