I personally do not know any Americans that are as you described. 1/3 of Americans are as you describe, 1/3 are definitely not at all as you described, and another 1/3 is too apathetic to care about anything.
The recent "No Kings" protests were the largest in US history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_and_demonstra...
Exactly. Very few Americans are out there actively "promoting the myth" right now that aren't ideologically aligned with the current Republican administration. That's a distinct (if significant) minority.
Also, while I believe more Americans should be protesting, people in other countries (like myself, at one point) may have an inaccurate idea about what heavy US protest "ought to" look like in the media they see.
We'd love to be protesting at the iconic White House and federal Capitol building, creating horizon-to-horizon crowds for the rest of the world to marvel at... But for me (and ~40% of the population) that's a 3500-3700 km trip. How often would you expect someone in Portugal to travel the distance to Moscow for a day of protest? (Worse, assume no good trains.)
Instead, we gather at local state locations, which will typically not get shown (or recognized) internationally, except when folded into a sentence about how "millions protested across the nation."
> 1/3 is too apathetic to care about anything
I think at least some of that 1/3 has their own problems that prevent them from being able to devote energy to politics
This is measured via election participation, so a confounding factor is the recent uptick in voter suppression tactics; these tactics are employed most visibly in states with large minority populations (e.g. states in the Deep South).
These tactics include: consolidating polling places in urban areas; restricting the ability to submit an absentee ballot or otherwise vote by mail; restricting early voting; voter ID laws; and "poll watchers" who intimidate those at polling places, sometimes illegally.
Moreover, those forced to vote in-person at polling places are not given time off from employment to do so. This overwhelmingly disenfranchises the working class, who just so happen to overwhelmingly vote for progressive policies that favor the working class over the middle/upper classes.
I know of way too many people that "aren't political" or just don't want to think about it. That's not the same as "having their own problems", that's juvenile behavior.
> that's juvenile behavior
IMHO those words are based on an immature understanding of human beings and their limitations.
We not only have physical, financial, and temporal limits; even more powerfully, we have emotional limits. When we're scared or traumatized, we often can't act except to keep things immediately safe as much as they can; we are in survival mode. That's also how bad leaders get good people to do evil things - terrorize them, push them into survival mode, and direct their fear at the leader's targets.
What we can do is recognize those mechanisms and limitations in ourselves, using empathy (a universal human trait), our frontal cortex, and compassion - always the first step to taking of our emotions and being effective - and recognize it in others. Calling them names only traumatizes them more. Empathy and compassion gets them to a better place where they can act. It's not easy - that's why the word 'courage' exists; that's why it's sometimes called, 'grace under pressure'.
Effective leaders know this. What we're missing - what so many people are missing - is good, effective leaders. AFAICT, the leaders we'd expect to rise to this occasion also are traumatized - and they have an obligation to do better if they want to be leaders.
This doesn’t actually work in the real world where people cannot be isolated from or protected from people who keep doing this to them.
You can’t ’out empathize’ someone doing 24/7 manipulation against people.
The only thing that works are real consequences against bad actors.
And that there was no real consequences for bad actors is exactly why we are in the situation we are in now.
> This doesn’t actually work in the real world
It not only works, it is basic leadership skills that I and others use every day. You're unwittingly advocating your enemy's morals, saying only force works.
However, consequences are important too, depening on the situation.
What you’re advocating is appeasement.
You can’t out reasonable an unreasonable person, when then unreasonable person refuses to respect your (or others) boundaries.
Most of the time, in a civil society, other members of society (police, etc.) enforce the consequences silently that allow what you are describing to work.
If they won’t/don’t, what you are describing is a guaranteed path to failure with specific personalities. The evidence is all around you.
There is a reason why self-defense includes the option for violence nearly everywhere, why every society has some equivalent to armed police, why nations always have militaries, etc.
Advocating a failed approach in a given circumstance isn’t good leadership (even when it’s ‘being the good one’), it’s the worst leadership approach possible.
> What you’re advocating is appeasement.
Nope; that's the old knee-jerk insult that people use when you don't embrace aggression. Appeasement or non-appeasement has nothing to do with it, but that's the word they say to use in the flow-chart.
Many people - maybe you - are driven to conflict as an ideology, as if there is no other effective or higher power. That justifies the bad people; that's what they want you to embrace; you're helping them without realizing it.
Fascists already ‘know’ that violence is inevitable. By accusing the opposition of it first, they delay it and get the upper hand.
Read up on appeasement and tell me it isn’t applicable. [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain]. It is exactly what you are proposing.
For fascists, there is no place they won’t go, or bridge they won’t cross, because they’re fundamentally driven by fear and insecurity. Fear and insecurity they themselves create through their actions. It’s an insatiable hunger.
It’s why inevitably, tanks are the only thing that works.
Or are you under the impression the opposite approach is winning?
Surrendering just speeds up the consumption, because the only thing they actually respect is fear of consequences. Which is why they work so hard to avoid them. Because they know, deep down, they are inevitable - and will be terrible.
Unless they kill or control anyone who can actually apply them first, anyway.
Or maybe people don’t want to discuss politics with you because they know you’ll label them juvenile, racist, vile POS and saying they aren’t political is the easiest way out of getting into a heated argument with you at the BBQ party. Most sane people know that arguing with you will not change anything (neither your opinion, nor the sad facts that we are all ruled by criminals no matter who we vote for).
I’m following politics and I have my opinions about things but you can be sure I won’t be discussing them with coworkers and friends.
Or maybe you don't know me at all, or any of the people I know. So don't act like you do to make a pointless internet comment.
Worrying about politics is the luxury of chattering classes.
Try living on or very near the poverty line, and then try and spend time worrying about politics. You are worrying about much more real (to you) problems.
When shit gets bad enough to motivate people on the poverty line, you're in deep shite.
Lots of poor people are politically active. Treating politics as some sort of vanity hobby for the reasonably well off is equivalent to saying that the working class doesn't have any meaningful political opinions. Maybe you meant they don't have time for obsessing over politics as an end in itself, but in my experience the majority of working class people have an interest in and opinions about politics, even if they're alienated rather than enthusiastic about political participation.
I should be more clear. My point is the sneering at the ~30% who are not politically engaged.
A boat load of meaningful change comes from working class agitation, but most of the political noise comes from the chattering classes, who have the luxury of creating cliques online, making and then banning phrases.
Of course the working classes have valid opinions. The issue is, unlike thier richer friends, they are living the discrimination that both left and right claim to endure. This leaves little time for mass organisation.
This has to be the most American thing I've ever read: the cognitive dissonance of the disconnect between income inequality and political systems.
I've got a (probably former at this point) buddy who makes less than $15K/year. He seems to have lots of time to listen to right wing propaganda podcasts and likes telling "jokes" about how minorities are problematic. He was never really interested in politics when we were growing up and I suspect never voted before 2024. Poor people have interests and opinions too.
They may also have been drawn into the all-too-tempting position of not opposing raw corrupt authoritarianism because the opposition party (the Democratic Party) and pre-Trump America both have deep flaws that are largely ignored.
I mean, their problems are politics, they just can’t do anything about them
There are many things anyone can do. You are not giving enough credit to the people shutting them down one by one. You won't hear them say they can't do anything.