What to Do about the Problem of Trump Supporter Insurgents & How to Bridge the Divide between Liberals & Trump Supporters
On Friday November 13, 2020, Bill Maher and his guests Max Brooks and Caitlin Flanagan discussed what to do to solve the power of Trumper insurgents and how to bridge the divide between liberal voters and Trump loyalists.
The video is only about 5 minutes long, and it’s the best answer I’ve heard yet. It’s a zillion times better as a solution than the endless interviews of Trump supporters that mainstream media keep dong, “to try to understand their point of view”, when their points of view obviously come from their believing tons of lies.
It’s far better than the “Just teach everyone critical thinking” solution to people believing lies. That solution has been recommended for decades, while the problem got constantly worse. Though these people do believe lies, that is not the core of their problem. In fact, that’s not what they see as their problem at all, and consequently, most are not interested in learning critical thinking.
Getting recruited on the Internet to be a Proud Boy isn’t about whether you believe facts or not, though the person obviously doesn’t. It’s about being a member of a tribe of people who you think know what they’re talking about, who you think are competent. It’s about the meaning of the person’s life and their tribe or community. Help them to find a constructive meaning of their life and a constructive community and the problem is solved.
U.S. culture focuses on independence — but we fall down on the job of helping people to get to independence. If a person didn’t learn that from their family for whatever reason while growing up, it’s easy for them to get isolated and to be vulnerable to destructive groups and people. Our communities need to help young men — & even middle aged men who’ve been lost in this way since they were young — to find constructive community ties and constructive meanings to their lives.
Of course, we also need to fight the lies that keep being fed to people and thus creating more lie believers, Trump supporters and insurgents. We also need to spread the truth to these people. Here’s an essay on that issue.
