The times are full of irrational nonsense. They are troubling.
Sometimes, people need to hear an alarm to spring into action, while “Doom posting is voter suppression.”
We need optimism to help us move forward, but complacency kills causes.
So, what’s the middle ground?
My current thesis is that what you are seeing is the result of two psychological killers, projection and denial. Projection of weakness and fear, namely the denial that people can’t really have their fantasy of a “Male White Christian America”, except maybe through violence and anarchy. And there are “four horsemen” colluding in some manner: Mainstream religion, business, politics, and their pony, race hate. History repeats this pattern. And it’s magnified by “social media”.
How can we deal with this? Not by internalizing it.
DU can be manic-depressive, so personally, I’ll open items that are in-between, and which give me hope and agency. What are they? To quote Ibram X. Kendi below (from “Stamped From the Beginning”), it’s whatever leads to meaningful change, and we are watching meaningful change happen right now, including all the irrationality … In short, help GOTV. We have numbers IF we get them out. One sure way to fight voter suppression. That leads to being in power, staying in power and meaningful change.
Since racism is the fuel of this monstrosity, let’s address it. Not by changing minds (read Kendi's book). But by building a big majority. Much good will follow.
An antiracist America can only be guaranteed if principled antiracists are in power, and then antiracist policies become the law of the land, and then antiracist ideas become the common sense of the people, and then the antiracist common sense of the people holds those antiracist leaders and policies accountable.
... There will come a time when we will love humanity, when we will gain the courage to fight for an equitable society for our beloved humanity, knowing, intelligently, that when we fight for humanity, we are fighting for ourselves. There will come a time.
Maybe, just maybe, that time is now.
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