Trump – Evan Morrison's Blog

They Can’t Stop Us From Helping Each Other

It is never too early to start building the community you want to live in.

Recently I’ve seen some folks posting online about how, at this point in Trump’s last presidency, protests were filling the streets. How that isn’t happening this time around, and despair that there isn’t a more concerted effort to resist his destruction of the myriad institutions that make this country what it is.

I get how that can be despairing. Have people given up? Have we been defeated that easily?

I don’t think so. I think, what is apparent to so many of us whether we’ve put words to it or not, is that it is time for a paradigm shift. The way that well meaning people did politics in America doesn’t work, and hasn’t been working for years. I think that we’ve been clinging to old, ineffective strategies and tactics. I think our clinging to them is why Trump got elected the first time in 2016, and why he got re-elected in November.

I also think I know the work that it’s going to take to not only win out in this moment, but to ultimately inoculate America against fascist politics in the future.

But the ideas I have are not easy. A marketing campaign will not work. A pivot will not work. No set of focus groups is going to give us the answers we are looking for. Turning around this ship is going to take years. It’s going to take years because it’s years of work that, I think, a functioning society should have been doing the whole time. But we haven’t been doing it. Not only have we been letting our literal infrastructure decay and rot in this country, but we have been letting our civic infrastructure decay and rot as well. We’re starting at a deficit.

Something we can all do is build community. Find people who are like minded to you, and get to know them. Find the people who are present in your community, and get to know them too. Find the people who are different from you, and get to know them also. Get to know the decision makers, get to know the people who receive the effects of decisions. It is never too early to start building the community you want to live in. Don’t think on a large scale, think on the scale of your neighborhood, your town, your city, your county. It might seem like it will take forever to build community in every town, city and region in the country. Yes, it will, if only a few of us are doing it. But the more you build community with the people around you, the more community will expand through all the networks that naturally connect us. My one caveat here, however, is that we must build community in person. Online is great for marginalized groups. But the groups that feed us, shelter us, care for us, the groups that we work for and with – they can never be marginalized. Other than that I’m not going to tell you how to do it. I think the power actually lies in different people solving this problem in their own way. But I am sure that the more all of us feel connected to the communities around us, the more secure we are going to feel as the news from Washington DC gets scarier – and the better positioned we are going to be to defend ourselves and those we care about from what is to come.

This next idea is specifically for the politically connected: unite the country. I imagine that sounds painfully simple to the point of uselessness. The good things in life generally are simple. Having just read this explanation of how George Soros became a political boogey-man, it became clear that the politics of division were not successful immediately. They were something that was honed, tried, and experimented on over and over again. Folks who sought to divide us tried countless ways to do so, and simply stumbled upon the ways that worked. After trying for decades, of course they have now found a relatively reliable strategy. It is time for us to make that investment in uniting ourselves and inoculating ourselves against this division. We don’t necessarily know what is going to unite the people of our country together, that should not scare us away from taking on the task. Instead, lets us try all the things that we think could work. Let’s see what produces results, and then iterate from that. You might be thinking that we don’t have time for an iterative process… I would say we’re here now because we never took the time for an iterative process. If we don’t take that time, we’re never going to have the country we want.

I do believe that our country will be better at the end of this. If we want to take a long view of the challenges that face us, I would say that we face these challenges because we have not yet figured out how to prevent them. At all times in human history, people have been confronted by things that they could have prevented if they had known different. And people muddled through until they found the answers they needed. We will keep being confronted with this challenge, in different forms, until we learn to prevent it from happening. World War II, as awful as it was, was not enough for us to learn the lessons we needed to keep this from happening again.

I may have an even more positive view than Chris Hayes does, above. I believe that we are very near to being primed to being the awakened giant that Isoroku Yamamoto (probably didn’t so eloquently) claim we were after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I believe this because, in my years being a human, I have found that we come to be defined by the challenges that we take on. The lessons that we learn from overcoming adversity stick with us well after that adversity is gone, and are passed down over generations. We are about to, finally, take on the challenge of fascist politics in our own country. Something that has existed here since before our founding. An America that knows how to defeat fascist politics when it is in our neighborhoods, in our families, and in our homes… that will be an America that can do great things, again (groan!). That is a future that I want for my country, my community, and my family.

These are my two broad, simple, and challenging goals for the foreseeable future. Build community and unite the country. I invite you to take on these goals as well. Let us see what millions of us can do when we take on this challenge together.

Dude, You’re In A Cult

I was scrolling through my twitter feed, as one does, and I saw someone had tweeted something to the effect of “Check in on your MAGA friends. See how they are doing. Do they have any big plans coming up?” I kept scrolling, but that idea stuck with me. So I started checking on my MAGA friends by looking at their facebook feeds.

It’s not pretty, y’all. I saw a lot of denialism. The bubble has not burst. In the past, I have engaged with folks on an argument by argument basis. Like “hey, you know that’s not quite true? Check out this data (citing a source) and this data (citing another source).” Only to be told that my sources aren’t true, and that I’m being lied to. But when I asked them for their sources, I would get nothing whatsoever. Or I’d be told to watch some youtube videos (ha!). Or I’d be told to google something, I’d google it out of due diligence, and find myself in a conspiracy theory and clickbait filled website that clearly has no journalistic integrity whatsoever. Engaging with folks about this stuff became Sisyphean. Yet they are still out there, doing their thing…

Now, I feel like we need to be talking on a different level than individual arguments. I just want to say “Dude, you’re in a cult.”

I don’t expect that simply pointing out to someone on their facebook page that they are in a cult is going to go well. I don’t expect that pointing out to them that their distrust of “mainstream media” has been weaponized to get them to willingly believe lie after lie after lie… will be accepted readily.

But, what is going to make a difference? Back when I was in high school, we’re talking the late 90’s, I would just say the shit I had to say. I would just stir the pot. Some of the desire to do that is still in me. One of my favorite phrases is “the truth shall set you free, but first it shall piss you off.”

I do know from experience, that even if the truth is said in the most caustic way, if it’s repeated and inescapable it will eventually sink in. But how to do that online, during a pandemic, when this sort of communication is effective in person? How do we compete with the lies that are repeated and inescapable to our friends and family who have sipped the kool-aid?

In person, a person can see that when I’m telling them that they’re in a cult that I still love and respect and admire them. Online, I’m just words on a page. A person can think “do you think I’m so stupid that I would join a cult?!?” And I, not seeing that on their face, can’t say “no, being in a cult isn’t about intelligence. It’s about the cult meeting a deep unmet need that you have.” I imagine the person that is being told they are in a cult will think they need to defend themselves, lest they get cancelled, or defend their cult – because cults are bad m’kay. But I don’t want to make their life harder by telling them they are in a cult, I want to make their life easier. I want them to know that the world outside of their cult isn’t filled with scary, lying, evil people. It isn’t filled with communists. It isn’t even filled by deluded sheep that have had their minds numbed by the mainstream media. Really!

I haven’t written something like this before because I have been afraid of the backlash. People in cults don’t like being told they are in cults. Some of those people are my friends. Also, now that the events of the last few weeks have confirmed all of our instincts about Donald Trump as a president, it’s intellectually easier to call a spade a spade. Or a cult, a cult.

I’m not an expert here. I have read quite a bit about cults, and my biggest takeaway has been that no one is really an expert. We might just have to muddle through these conversations.

So, if you think this may apply to you, imagine when I say “Dude, you’re in a cult” that I say it with love. That I’m not attacking you, I’m inviting you to look at life differently. And if you aren’t ready to look at life differently, I’ll be here when you are.

This Might Be the Best Sunday of Football Ever

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine asked “What keeps your faith in the world?”

It’s days like today. Seeing, of all things, NFL players taking a knee together during the national anthem today is what keeps my faith. After Trump said anyone who kneels should be fired… as if kneeling is any disrespect to the national anthem.

I don’t remember being so moved by football.

I honestly don’t remember being so proud to be American. Not about anything that happened in my lifetime. Seeing so many Americans kneeling against divisiveness. Kneeling to remind the country that too many black people are dying at the hands of police.

Seeing so many people back the kneelers, or at least stand up for their right to kneel.

I’m proud to see America finally show it’s true colors. It always takes a crisis…

New Podcast: Topics

Check out my new podcast: Topics

Our political climate makes it very easy to not hear views that differ from our own and to ignore the humanity of people who don’t share our point of view. Topics brings people together to talk about issues that matter, in a forum where they aren’t going to be judged or belittled for having their point of view. We also interact with ideas, in a way that encourages everyone to re-think how they view things.

Our Views Have Been Weaponized. Or, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Immigration

In America we don’t actually talk about immigration, really. We talk about loosening immigration or tightening it. We talk about where immigrants should or shouldn’t be from. Or what kind of people they should or shouldn’t be. A conversation about immigration would be much different than the conversation we are having.

If we were going to have a real conversation about immigration we would start by answering the question of; how many immigrants do we want at once? What is the ideal mix of new and old residents that preserves the original culture while being enriched by the culture of the immigrants? How do we ensure that immigrants enmesh themselves in our society instead of forming their own little enclaves of like-minded people and not interacting with the culture as a whole? Are there certain kinds of people that we want to actually recruit to come to this country? Doctors, for instance? Temporary workers? Is there a percentage of the overall number that we want to reserve for refugees?

So that’s step one, determine how many immigrants we want in our country at once. Have a nationwide conversation to get some sort of agreement around that. For the purposes of this post, I’m going to choose that America can manage an immigrant population of ten percent. I don’t know what an actual ideal number would be, but ten percent makes the math easy. Ten percent of our current population, according to the population estimate on Wikipedia, would be 32 million people. But it probably takes more than 1 year for someone to acclimatize to living in America, to “become American.” Let’s say it takes an adult five years. We divide our 32 million by five and get: six million, four hundred thousand people.

So, let’s imagine that we decide 6.4 million people can immigrate to the country each year. The next question is, how long do we want it to take for someone to get approved to immigrate to the US? The actual immigration process rarely gets the coverage it deserves in this country – but it seems that an underreported issue is that the reason we have so many illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central & South America is due to the insanely long wait times for residents of those regions to get into our country legally (check out this post to get started on your research) (PDF). If you have to choose between being able to feed yourself and your family, or waiting to get into our country legally, well I don’t really begrudge anyone for breaking the law in those circumstances. Once we pick a timeframe that someone has to wait (say, a month), then we staff the US Citizenship and Immigration Services to meet the demand.

There are a few more questions to answer. Are there certain types of people we want to weed out of the immigration process? Serial killers, serial rapists, people who habitually commit crimes and aren’t going to change with a change of scenery, people who are going to blow stuff or people up…. Then, do we have reliable ways of identifying those people and removing them from the immigration pool? If not, can we create ways to do that? I personally think that if we haven’t developed means to do that, it is well within our capabilities. If you don’t think so, I would assert that you aren’t talking to the right people.

So that’s a framework. Develop some consensus around answers to those questions, and in this country we will be well on our way to winding down immigration as the hot button topic that it is today.

I’m going to assert something here, something that may sound like a bit of a stretch but that I think is worth considering. Or, it maybe old news to everyone reading this. I really am not going to be able to tell until I post this and see how you all respond: If the politicians/political parties/pundits/”news” outlets that you follow are not working to answer the questions above, they’re not interested in actually resolving anything for this country. Politicians are using the fact that you are for or against open immigration as a rallying cry, to easily and effectively motivate you and people like you to take action. The great majority of politicians are mediocre at best, and don’t have great speeches that they can pull out of their back pocket. So they use political footballs like immigration to get people excited about them running for or staying in office. The pundits and media use your passion about issues, like immigration, to generate clicks and views. The more they inflame people on both sides the better their ratings are. Issues that become political footballs are divisive, so as politicians drive supporters to them, they are also driving detractors away and widening divisions in our country. But in the short term, people get elected by using political footballs. That’s why they stick around. This is why everyone keeps talking about immigration, but rarely do people talk about specifics.

As soon as you start talking about specifics, you start talking about things that actually affect people’s lives. Hopefully I’m not losing too many of you here with this metaphor, but our political footballs are about scoring points. Not about actually affecting people’s lives. It feels good to “score one for the immigration team” to beat the “anti-immigrants.” Or vice versa. They are about winning and losing – yet not about people who actually win and lose because a policy has been enacted – winning and losing for your ideological team.

So am I saying that we could solve all the world’s problems if we were just able to give up beating the other guy that’s different than us?

Well yes, apparently I am…

I guess the important distinction here, after writing all of this, is that it’s time to call out our leaders on this behavior. It’s time to say “hey, if you were really motivated to resolve this you wouldn’t be talking about Muslims or sanctuary cities or immigrants stealing our jobs. You would be talking about how many immigrants we want, how we make sure they contribute to society, and how to make sure people aren’t foregoing the immigration process because they simply can’t wait through it.” Or instead of asking “how are you going to make ‘what we think’ into the law of the land?” asking “how are you going to lead our people to a solution that will work for a large majority of the population?” Or however you want to say it. Don’t use my words, use your own. To be fair to our politicians, and most people who are talking about the issues in general, is that most probably don’t realize that how they are talking about these issues simply perpetuates them. They don’t realize that by taking a side in the fight they simply further entrench both sides. So I suggest… be nice when you’re calling people out on this stuff?

In any group of people there are always going to be interests that pull people into conflict and interests that drive people apart. A capable leader is someone who gets people’s interests aligned where possible, and gets them out of conflict when alignment isn’t possible. It is not an easy thing to do – but it is the opposite of what our elected representatives and our media have been doing. They have been inflaming our differences and driving us apart for political expediency. Because conflict is more invigorating and motivating in the short term than resolution. Nevermind that constant conflict has a negative effect on our country, and on the ties that bind us together as a people. Nevermind that it affects everyone in their daily lives whether they notice it or not. Nevermind that the issues that we have been wrestling with for years remain unresolved, and that we are not moving on to new challenges as a people.

My friends, our views have been weaponized. They are being used against us.

PS: I would love if there was research on the effects of constant “perceived conflict” have on people within a society. If you are aware of any research like that, please let me know.

PPS: Until I get a graphic designer to work with me for my posts, they are going to continue to feature pictures of my animals. I hope you like the unrelated sleepy cat 🙂