If You Cannot Win on Bread & Butter Issues, Fight a Culture War Instead

 

If You Cannot Win on Bread & Butter Issues, Fight a Culture War Instead

MAGA’s Winning Strategy So Far

Personal attacks, closet racism with the right words (woke, DEI Candidate, pro-family), religious mandates from bigoted pastors and fabrications are now the backbone of Trump campaigning. When the numbers and statistics don’t go in your favor, fabricate, manipulate or ignore; you can always find anecdotal evidence to support just about anything. And repeat, repeat, repeat. Truth has been relegated to the eye of the beholder, unpersuadable by empirical facts. Play the victim and share your personal anger over legal woes as if caused by the same forces that create misery for the ordinary citizens, members of your base. And blame, blame, blame. Target specific identifiable groups, give them nasty names, and repeat, repeat, repeat. Don’t knock it; it works.

For example, a recent distortion of a recent House vote that proposed adding new layers of voter IDs (undeniable proof of citizenship), opposed by Democrats, was translated by MAGA publicity as “Democrats want to give the vote to millions of undocumented immigrants.” But like most MAGA-supported conspiracy theories, that false narrative was reported as factual by virtually all rightwing media, including Fox News. If conspiracy theories could be negated by facts, MAGA couldn’t elect a dogcatcher. While you might not openly castigate democracy, you can vilify the most basic characteristics of democracy, inherently messy as they accommodate differing voices.

Virtually all modern GOP economic policies have been based on tax and regulatory cuts. That these policies have not worked to improve the lot of ordinary Americans, instead shifting the negatives to the middle and lower classes and only benefitting the rich, may explain the Republican shift toward culture wars. The desire to make tax and regulatory cuts as part of white Christian nationalism hasn’t done well. Conspiracy theories can take you where you want to go, thrive, generate a collective consciousness that is self-reinforcing, and make a handy distraction from “truth.” No, America, there are no “alternative facts.” They are either facts or conjectures. Truth, for so many, has been wildly unconvincing as of late. “The Quiet Damage: Anon and the Destruction of the American Family” author, Jessely Cook, presents this perspective in the July 28th Los Angeles Times:

“Not long ago, a millennial father of two in the Midwest whom I interviewed was convinced that many of our elected leaders like to feast on the flesh of children. He feared that the world was at the mercy of a depraved club of the richest and most powerful among us, one armed with space lasers and clones… Most shocking to those who knew him weren’t the conspiracy theories themselves. It was that he had come to believe them. Nearing 40 years old, he was a college-educated, upstanding guy with friends, a family and an established career. How, they wondered, had this perfectly sane person gone crazy?

“It’s a question more and more Americans are asking about their own loved ones. As disinformation permeates our culture, the road to QAnon-type territory is getting shorter. Healthy skepticism easily gives way to undue suspicion. The dizzying public reaction to Donald Trump’s near-assassination was a perfect illustration: Observers across the political spectrum raced to fill the information void with baseless assertions that have gained momentum despite mounting evidence to the contrary, revealing a nation increasingly at odds with reality.

“The statistics are as stunning as the falsehoods. Millions of people now believe that the government, media and financial worlds are ‘controlled by Satan-worshiping pedophiles,’ according to recent polling. These aren’t loosely held views. While reporting for my book ‘The Quiet Damage,’ I talked to people all over the country who had tried until they were blue in the face to make the conspiracy theorists in their lives accept the truth…. But the truth is almost beside the point.

“It seems entirely sensible to fight fiction with fact. In spite of passionately professed allegiances to ‘the truth,’ however, ardent conspiracy theory adopters seldom have a desire to be accurately informed. Belief in the unbelievable, in many cases, stems from desperation to meet fundamental human needs, such as feeling valued and having a purpose. Over the last three years, while interviewing hundreds of disinformation-splintered families, it has become clear to me that facts alone can’t fix this. The solution begins with treating conspiracy theory obsession not as a sickness but as a symptom…

“Human needs are just that: needs. Our innate need for things such as meaning and belonging is superseded only by what the body requires for subsistence, and not by any thirst for accuracy or truth. When these needs go unmet, we can become desperate to satisfy them by whatever means necessary. And the conditions that leave people deprived of what they need and susceptible to irrational conspiracy theories are common — and commonly overlooked.

“In movements such as QAnon, the lonely find belonging, the aimless find direction and the angry find validation. Consider baby boomers, who share an alarming amount of fake news online. Many people believe that some mix of cognitive aging, poor digital literacy and too much Fox News is to blame. But this overlooks a bigger issue. Conspiracy-theory-entranced seniors have described to me how, before adopting a QAnon-like brand of what some called ‘activism,’ they felt as if society no longer valued or had use for them. Facing what experts have identified as an ‘epidemic of loneliness,’ they yearned for purpose, community and fulfillment.”

When there is an uneasiness in the world, challenges brought forth that threaten “what we’ve always counted on,” where the economy and seemingly unfathomable accelerating technology bring on massive change, fear rises, the feelings of being left behind make everything seem desperate, and the complexity of it all screams for simple explanations and “others to blame.” Enter unscrupulous politicians and “leaders” (often religiously based) with “understandable” solutions, “clarifying labels” (through wrong) and identifiable people to blame. This leads to many throwing up their hands and outsourcing their opinions to a charismatic leader or a designated group that can answer all those issues without further effort… even if the answer is baseless. Then we witness people reinforcing that leader or group to vindicate their choice. Passion rises. They support what they have chosen. When all is said and done, others believe the ends justify the means.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there is no better place to spread conspiracy theories and falsehoods than a culture war with simplistic answers (however off the mark) with a body of unscrupulous leaders ready to take advantage of the frightened and the gullible.