Some Thoughts From A Political Veteran On How To Organize And Lead In A Time Of Crisis-- Be Subjective, (Don't Be So Nice) (Part 4 of a series)
Some Thoughts From A Political Veteran On How To Organize And Lead In A Time Of Crisis-- Be Subjective, (Don't Be So Nice) (Part 4 of a series)
The Weak Flank Of The Enemy--
This will be a bit lengthy, but hopefully helpful. I've recently been doing a lot more on Twitter, both posting my stuff, and as you may have noticed, trolling some of the worst of the MAGA pundits and propagandists, and there are some things which, in my view, just jump out as evident.
First is that the Trump cultists are themselves writing and posting at approximately a fourth grade level of reading comprehension, even those with law degrees and who are CEO types. (That is not meant as an insult to fourth graders or their teachers). They are literally in some cases dumbing themselves down in order to trigger the hot buttons of their targeted audience of worse-than-deplorables. Their posts have the character of bumper sticker slogans designed to provoke road-rage incidents, not serious political ideas.
The readers they are appealing to are those with a depth of intellectual life centered upon monster truck events, mud wrestling, and competitive eating festivals, in which there are so many Buffalo Wings consumed, that the US Amalgamated Chicken's Union is preparing charges of Henicide to file at the International Court of Food Crimes at the Hague. The MAGA-lomaniacs are writing for an audience of "red necks" which have no heads attached to them.
Though it is a shameful and unacceptable word to use, the most well known of the MAGA pundits, including Trump, his family and advisers, see their own base as "retards." Or worse, as the subjects of sociological experiments on the half-human, half-animal inmates of "The Island of Dr. Moreau." And they are driven by their own ambition to give their viewers the raw meat which they demand, the political equivalent of a hybrid news and entertainment platform combining The 700 Club, Alex Jones, and World Wrestling Entertainment, which masquerades as the fraud of "Christian" politics. Their politics and entertainment are equally violent, ridiculous and obscene, not to mention hypocritical. Back in ancient days, these "MAGA Christians" would have felt right at home at the Roman Coliseum, out there cheering for the Lions and giving the thumbs down to their own early Christian predecessors. (The Lion's Club?")
That said, many well intentioned anti-MAGA activists continue to react defensively to their vomitatious "projectile commentary" with moral outrage, and try to counter them with issue-oriented facts and information. This can be a complete waste of time, energy, and emotion. It's not that facts are themselves in any way bad. But as many have found out the hard way, people who are in cults have made a decision to disregard them, or to invent their own, as was infamously stated by Kellyanne Conway with her references to "alternative facts."
Simply presenting facts has a less than zero effect on the cult's leaders and most followers, because those you are arguing with have little or no rationality to appeal to. To them, facts are those things which are inconvenient nuisances that get in the way of the opinions they serve up like roadkill for vultures. (Remember the old wall poster of a Buzzard on a tree limb in the desert near a road, saying "patience my ass, I'm gonna kill somethin'?) You are dealing with people whose rage level is so high, that you can't reason with them as you would a normal, mentally healthy person. And that rage is the engine which Trump and his MAGA-world acolytes have harnessed to their personal ambitions. You are in fact arguing with a pathology which has taken over the person, not the person themself.
There is an old Thai idiom which comes to mind, "see so hai Kwai fong." Which roughly translated means, "playing the fiddle for a Water Buffalo." Trying to reason with a MAGA spokesperson or their cultist followers is equivalent to that. Its not that Trump supporters are sub-human. It is that they are inhumanly stubborn. Likewise, hoping to inspire your like-minded allies just by giving them information is to miss the essential issue, in my view. Your friends and allies are not really lacking for information about what is at stake, or who is responsible for our crisis. The issues we are concerned with are life and death, and therefore many of us are on the internet day and night, reading, researching, searching for answers to how we can most effectively vote and participate. Because of the internet we have unlimited access to information.
This is to say, people will more likely be inspired to take action by your attacking and diminishing the power of the enemy in their eyes. The image of power which the enemy projects is their principal weapon of control, ie; fear. Likewise, as Newt Gingrich famously wrote about many years ago, is their Orwellian strategy of manipulating words and language.
The best thing we can give to our friends and allies is courage, and the backup to wage a fight. And obviously, policy solutions grounded in justice, based on reason and science, and a strategy for carrying them out. And some relevant history will strengthen those who need to feel on solid ground while talking with others. Helping others is often just raising their perspective level so they can see things "from above," instead of simply from their own personal patch of the battlefield. That is, to show how we arrived here, what forms the adversary can assume, the methods by which they fight, in what ways do they miscalculate, and how have they been successfully resisted in the past. But Tweeting at MAGA fascists to yell at them and tell them they are sexists or liars, or racists, just makes their day, because it means they have "owned a Lib." Most people reading this already know it, but it still bears repeating.
Now, taking that old Thai expression as an example, most literate languages, regardless of the cultural history of their originators, have relied heavily on metaphor, imagery and symbolism to convey concepts. Language is not mathematical, rather it is both visual and musical. And like music, meaning is most often found "between the notes," rather than just the formal arrangement of the notes themselves. The ambiguity between the formal definitions of words, and the musicality of ideas was the realm in which the great poets and composers lived and thrived. They saw this as their conceptual playground for introducing beauty and causality, without trying to "program it into people," rather to nourish their souls with the emotions of discovery and realization. Think for a moment about how one's tone of voice can completely alter the meaning of the words you are speaking, almost to the point of conveying the exact opposite. "Yeah, I just love how you help me out around the house and with the kids, thank you soooo much!" It's often not what you say, but how you say it which is definitive.
Christian fundies, MAGAts, conservative ideologues and their media shills all have one thing in common. They think on one level, if at any at all. They cannot enjoy irony, humor, paradox, ambiguity, nuance, or change of any sort. Half the time, a great joke will just go right over their heads. Their mindset is to take intractable positions on issues, the truth of which they will never concede, never question, never debate. They are likely victims of childhood trauma who were indoctrinated with dogma from before the time they were toilet trained, if they ever were. (We still aren't sure what happened to Steve Bannon, who is like an escapee from Sigmund Freud's couch) And they will treat any fact or statement of contradiction as if it were a Martian invasion sent to body snatch them into joining a satanic cult. If you need any confirmation of this, start a conversation on the Bible's Book of Revelations. Surely then you will be witness to a religious experience, as you watch their faces glaze over like a Christmas Ham. Literal interpretations of words and precepts are the mental prisons in which MAGA followers choose to exist, which you'll never talk them out of. You need to bake them a cake with a hacksaw in it, along with pictures of life outside the walls, but make sure the warden doesn't know about it.
Hitting back against MAGA pundits with facts is like peeing out of the wrong side of a boat. Sorry, but that is a fact. However, simply stating this should not be confused with surrender, despair, or resignation. It means we go on the attack with concepts, embedded within deeper psychological truths. Metaphor, humor, irony, paradox, can get behind their usual defenses, take them by surprise, and destabilize them. It is hitting them where they don't expect, and where they are most vulnerable. Silence from their end is the best sign that you've hit paydirt.
Admittedly, the idea of ridiculing others in order to refute them goes against the grain for many of us. We are taught that being respectful of others, acting courteously, showing tolerance, and remaining non-judgmental, are each positive attributes which will serve us well in our lives, friendships and careers. Well, yes, but that was something we learned before our existences were threatened by these people, who indiscriminately spread a deadly global pandemic. We were taught these values of "always respecting other's opinions" ' before those others joined a violent fascist coup attempt by toxic Russian-influenced narcissists whose goal is to commit mass murder, and return us all to a new Dark Ages of serfdom and slavery. No one who played a part in raising or teaching any of us anticipated this, at all. That is another fact, which might suggest a need for us to change our approach.
In what universe are those pundits and ideolgues deserving of respect, fairness, tolerance, grace or courtesy? What they deserve is a metaphorical pie in the face and a good hearty laugh to follow. If there is anything left in them which is human, they'll be able to laugh at their own idiocy and possibly, for a moment at least, be brought to their senses. Ridiculing narcissists is the best therapy, even if it is not a cure. But at least if it doesn't help them, it will help us, because doing that will help us to stay above it. It helps us to feel less oppressed because we can see in bold relief their arrogance, their hypocrisy, and ultimately their utter impotence. Because they hate and fear change, and we are committed to bringing about change, our being "above it" is their worst nightmare. They want us to argue facts with them on their level, because for them, it is a substitute for sex. They "get off" on walking us into trap arguments over their insane positions because it is entertaining, and frankly, it's how they tire us out.
Because the era of traditional party politics is dead, when we make an intervention which is not defensive or reactive, rather one which is unexpected and hits right at the core of their hypocrisy, it confronts them with their own inner conflict. Instead of slinging lists of "talking points" back and forth, you are hitting at their identity, or lack thereof, and for that they have no defense.
It is not so much the individual lies which they retail for their gullible readers which leaves them vulnerable. It is the lie which they themselves are living every day of their victimized and grievance dominated lives that is their weak spot. You cannot successfully argue with them or their dupes by refuting their facts. Instead you need to hold up a mirror and force them, to paraphrase the words of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns, " to see themselves as others see them." You need to make them look, squirm, then cringe with embarrassment. Go after who and what they are, rather than going tit-for-tat with what they say. This isn't politics anymore, it is war, and it is personal. Don't be afraid to go there.
Likely this will not make a big dent in their corrupted fake identities, but it can have the effect of neutralizing them. You can take away a whole line of argument and an endless list of talking points with one good incisive joke. You can put them in a position where their very own malignant propaganda becomes their instrument of self-humiliation, and therefore in the future they might have to think twice.
For the worst of them, that's the best you can hope for. And in other cases where we hit them on a personal level instead of with sterile and lame facts, you can bring a few back to sanity. For example, look at Liz Cheney, daughter of "Darth Vader" Dick Cheney, Steve Schmidt, Joe Walsh, and even Mitt Romney. What place were they in ten years ago, relative to where they are today? Each of them was forced into a personal crisis of conscience, and shifted their outlook to a degree which has been significant. Only cynics are incapable of seeing the change in them, and that this change is real. No one "fact-checked" them into risking their careers and lives to stand up to Trump. Someone, or some group made a forceful and effective intervention which called into qurstion their personal sense of identity, and they responded in a way which has been historic.
This all leads again to the question of how to organize, and how to change people. Often, even the best intentioned of people require a personal crisis of some sort to give them reason to make changes. Sometimes it means a personal tragedy, a loss, or "hitting bottom." Or seeing spectacular events unfold which seem impossible, which challenge their whole belief structure. Other times it could involve being witness to heroic acts by others, which inspire us or challenge our passivity, complacency, or feelings of self-satisfaction. "If they can do that, then I can do a lot more..." or thoughts to that effect. We are living in a time where all of this is happening at once with almost all of us who have lived through the recent years and who value democratic ideals, which is why we are in such a unique historical moment.
Given the nature of our current threat, and what we stand to lose if we don't meet that threat, we have every right to intervene on a personal level and try to change people. Being an "influencer" of others, as is now the current popular social media term, is frankly bullshit. You are not going to "influence" people in a cult. Likewise, you won't be able to influence fearful people to risk everything to stand up to fascism. You need to throw the psychological equivalent of grenades into their mental barracks or foxholes in order to force them out, to put them onto the battlefield. That is known in military and political terms as "engagement." Without that, we have not much to work with.
Given the nature of our MAGA enemy, that means being fearless, polemical, sometimes incendiary, edgy, and a little over the top. Meaning, the opposite of fake balance and bland euphemistic posturing presented by most mainstream media pundits. Concretely, it also means waging effective psywar against their chain of command. "Respectability" in these times is for followers, people who defer to arbitrary authority, not for the future leaders of a resistance. Victory goes to those with an attitude, like the fictional French soldiers in Monty Python's Holy Grail, who told the knightly crew of Arthurian legends outside their castle walls, "we fart in your general direction, you sons of English pigdogs." Who doesn't remember that scene, and the inescapable point of it? Also coming to mind was the brilliant stage and movie parody by comedian Mel Brooks, "The Producers" and its shakespearian "play within a play," Springtime For Hitler," which proved both cathartic and empowering for the audience in its ridicule of the fascist leaders of the Third Reich. (including the hilarious depiction of their fascist ideology as being a projection of their deep psycho-sexual insecurities, a psychological truth underlying the collective personality disorder of the enraged mob of Trump supporters today.)
Ridiculing the enemy is one of the best antidotes for fear, the single biggest factor which holds people back from intervening..
A couple of years ago, in response to personal attacks, Michelle Obama said "when they go low, you go high." In light of where we are in history right now, I would amend that to say "go around them, and hit them in the ass when they aren't looking." Throw the old playbooks out, because we are in a new kind of conflict with a virtually psychotic and homicidal adversary.
Attack their weak flank. It is their hypocrisy, their arrogance, and ideological rigidity. It is their own degraded self-conception. Hit that with everything we have and they will back off or freeze up. Put them in a crisis! Then, we can move ahead to educate, inform, promote alternative ideas and policies. Find those people who for a moment are freed up to think on their own, because we've either shattered their false idols, or conversely by doing so have given courage to those currently sitting on the sidelines. That, believe it or not, is how resistance movements evolve into full-blown revolutions. And we sure as hell need one of those. We want and need people to vote in this election, more than ever. But a revolution of the mind is what is needed to insure that our elections bear healthy fruit, and that we get to have another one. Starting yesterday.
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Addendum, a short Q and A with a friend:
Lance, this articulates a concept that is hard to pin down but really important in understanding our power, and the powerplay of gaslighting, hate, and lies. Awesome!!
__________thank you. I would say that if there is a central concept I've tried to present, is that we are well advised to be offensive. For too long we have been passive or defensive as the MAGA social pathology has spread, and been reactive to their war against truth.
The overwhelming dynamic on Twitter is that of good people responding to MAGA lies by "fact-checking" them, which I believe is an exercise in futility. My goal is to show our truth-seeking friends and allies that they are being "gamed" if they walk into this trap. We need to attack the fascists in ways they are unprepared for, and make it personal, something we aren't used to because we try to be "nice people." Making that mental/ emotional shift, the switch from being critics to warriors for truth, is where we can begin to wield what Vaclav Havel termed "The Power Of The Powerless." The first and most important act of defiance of authoritarians is to attack them with their own hypocrisy, rather than trying to refute them like lawyers in a courtroom. Fighting these guys through legalism is a recipe for defeat.
I would say that if anything, I'm trying to help people learn to break the rules, and how to effectively resist. That's why all of the recent humor and lampooning from my end lately. Anyway, I appreciate your taking the time to read and work through the ideas. Thanks again.
