Obligatory Election Post
Nov. 6th, 2024 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiContent warning: some critique of the left by someone on the left behind the cut. Please feel free to skip if you're emotionally bleeding too much for self-critical, political strategy talk.
Like pretty much everyone on my reading list here, I'm pummeled by this election. A little surprised by the degree of landslide but mostly just scared. Not looking forward to a minimum of four years under fascism.
A big hug to everyone who is tired and scared.
I'm trying to think, though, about why so many voted for him. Some are hateful racists, etc., but that's not over half the country. Misinformation and propaganda are also huge, of course. Beyond that, these are some reasons I see, based on my vantage point teaching service classes in higher education...
* Everyone is well aware that the system is deeply broken and wants it fixed. Fascists offer a quick fix and, if you're not one of their initial targets, that can be very comforting. (The misinformation machines also help by misidentifying what, exactly, is broken and why.)
* Many rural, non-college-educated Americans feel deeply disrespected by the Left, and they're not wrong.
* "Woke equity culture" can be exhausting and intolerant. Its has done a lot of good, but in more socially progressive strongholds, like academia, it does feel silencing and, by that token, incapable of the self-critique we all need to engage in to be critical thinkers. (I'm talking about a tendency, not everything all the time.) I know a lot of left-leaning folks who are fed up with this, so small wonder that our right-leaning students and their parents are. They feel oppressed in those circles, so they have struck back and very dangerously.
To build the coalitions we'll need to defeat this looming dictatorship, I think we need to:
* Truly listen to diverse views and try to understand why people hold them.
* Based on that, come up with some good counter-propaganda! Ex. show that the left is not "anti-gun," which most of it is not in the US. We accept we're stuck with the Second Amendment.
* Show respect, embrace pluralism--that is--a society in which people who deeply disagree can live together civilly, participating in the same democratic system.
Like pretty much everyone on my reading list here, I'm pummeled by this election. A little surprised by the degree of landslide but mostly just scared. Not looking forward to a minimum of four years under fascism.
A big hug to everyone who is tired and scared.
I'm trying to think, though, about why so many voted for him. Some are hateful racists, etc., but that's not over half the country. Misinformation and propaganda are also huge, of course. Beyond that, these are some reasons I see, based on my vantage point teaching service classes in higher education...
* Everyone is well aware that the system is deeply broken and wants it fixed. Fascists offer a quick fix and, if you're not one of their initial targets, that can be very comforting. (The misinformation machines also help by misidentifying what, exactly, is broken and why.)
* Many rural, non-college-educated Americans feel deeply disrespected by the Left, and they're not wrong.
* "Woke equity culture" can be exhausting and intolerant. Its has done a lot of good, but in more socially progressive strongholds, like academia, it does feel silencing and, by that token, incapable of the self-critique we all need to engage in to be critical thinkers. (I'm talking about a tendency, not everything all the time.) I know a lot of left-leaning folks who are fed up with this, so small wonder that our right-leaning students and their parents are. They feel oppressed in those circles, so they have struck back and very dangerously.
To build the coalitions we'll need to defeat this looming dictatorship, I think we need to:
* Truly listen to diverse views and try to understand why people hold them.
* Based on that, come up with some good counter-propaganda! Ex. show that the left is not "anti-gun," which most of it is not in the US. We accept we're stuck with the Second Amendment.
* Show respect, embrace pluralism--that is--a society in which people who deeply disagree can live together civilly, participating in the same democratic system.
