He didn’t win by being consistent. Hypocrisy is WHY people voted for him. They thought he was the only one who would “do the hard things” by being cruel to the people who are hurting everyone. That’s the narrative at least, and while you can literally write libraries on the flaws, inconsistencies and logical discrepancies in Trump and the Republican narratives, the fact remains that most people are vulnerable to storylines.
Not moral flaws. Not character. Not record or experience. The only thing people largely, as a group, care about is JUST how someone makes them feel in that moment. And a lot of poorly educated, mentally unwell people saw and heard Trump lying to the people they believe were the cause of all our woes, and that’s why they voted for him.
If we ever want another democracy that works, we have to understand that our population is genetically and physically identical to the beings who were clubbing each other’s heads in during ten thousand years of ice age glaciers and primitive hardship. We survived those times by forming tight-knight groups and telling ourselves stories for how to survive. We’re doing the same things right now, but someone else is guiding those stories. Either we stop the storytellers or we make better stories that people will want to repeat. Those are our only options.
Either we stop the storytellers or we make better stories that people will want to repeat.
We do have better stories: the stories or class conflict and workers solidarity. It’s just that the people in power would rather fascists win than let those stories reach the people that need to hear them.
If the stories aren’t working, they’re not better.
“Better” here is going to be a highly loaded word, and revolves a lot around what results you’re seeking. Humans connect with stories that connect with their feelings, it’s how they got exploited to get us here. Decades of people signing away their own rights in service of stories that momentarily scared them, and here we are in the culmination of all these tiny stories and resulting policies that have been made to steer people to this place and time.
You can’t just tell people now “Trump is the bad guy, trans people aren’t threatening us, we have to help Ukraine, the wealthy elite are our real enemies.”
It doesn’t matter if the story is true, that story doesn’t move people. It’s just lecturing to the toddler-mind that makes up the bulk of our population. You can’t make the people better. We HAVE to abandon this idea that everyone wants to “do the right thing” on some level. No we fucking don’t. People want to feel validated. Not even feel good, that’s less important to people than feeling heard and validated. Our stories need to make individuals feel something, individuals who view everything outside of their immediate sphere of awareness as abstractions and theory, not reality. You can’t make these people feel sympathy or care for others, so we have to make them feel something else.
He didn’t win by being consistent. Hypocrisy is WHY people voted for him. They thought he was the only one who would “do the hard things” by being cruel to the people who are hurting everyone. That’s the narrative at least, and while you can literally write libraries on the flaws, inconsistencies and logical discrepancies in Trump and the Republican narratives, the fact remains that most people are vulnerable to storylines.
Not moral flaws. Not character. Not record or experience. The only thing people largely, as a group, care about is JUST how someone makes them feel in that moment. And a lot of poorly educated, mentally unwell people saw and heard Trump lying to the people they believe were the cause of all our woes, and that’s why they voted for him.
If we ever want another democracy that works, we have to understand that our population is genetically and physically identical to the beings who were clubbing each other’s heads in during ten thousand years of ice age glaciers and primitive hardship. We survived those times by forming tight-knight groups and telling ourselves stories for how to survive. We’re doing the same things right now, but someone else is guiding those stories. Either we stop the storytellers or we make better stories that people will want to repeat. Those are our only options.
We do have better stories: the stories or class conflict and workers solidarity. It’s just that the people in power would rather fascists win than let those stories reach the people that need to hear them.
If the stories aren’t working, they’re not better.
“Better” here is going to be a highly loaded word, and revolves a lot around what results you’re seeking. Humans connect with stories that connect with their feelings, it’s how they got exploited to get us here. Decades of people signing away their own rights in service of stories that momentarily scared them, and here we are in the culmination of all these tiny stories and resulting policies that have been made to steer people to this place and time.
You can’t just tell people now “Trump is the bad guy, trans people aren’t threatening us, we have to help Ukraine, the wealthy elite are our real enemies.”
It doesn’t matter if the story is true, that story doesn’t move people. It’s just lecturing to the toddler-mind that makes up the bulk of our population. You can’t make the people better. We HAVE to abandon this idea that everyone wants to “do the right thing” on some level. No we fucking don’t. People want to feel validated. Not even feel good, that’s less important to people than feeling heard and validated. Our stories need to make individuals feel something, individuals who view everything outside of their immediate sphere of awareness as abstractions and theory, not reality. You can’t make these people feel sympathy or care for others, so we have to make them feel something else.