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Two mantras are everywhere after Trump's defeat:
"We have to seek unity."
"You're never going to change 'those people's' minds."
I wrote about how each of those mantras has it backwards:
We don't have to seek unity.
We can, and must, change minds. https://the.ink/p/not-your-fault
"We have to seek unity."
"You're never going to change 'those people's' minds."
I wrote about how each of those mantras has it backwards:
We don't have to seek unity.
We can, and must, change minds. https://the.ink/p/not-your-fault
Trump voters voted for something dangerous and barbaric and, for the planet, potentially catastrophic.
They are not people you need to bend over backwards to compromise or seek unity with.
They need to be beaten. And they were. https://the.ink/p/not-your-fault
They are not people you need to bend over backwards to compromise or seek unity with.
They need to be beaten. And they were. https://the.ink/p/not-your-fault
You don't try to meet halfway those who want to destroy many of the country’s institutions and norms and highest ideals. https://the.ink/p/not-your-fault
It seems to me more important to hold fast against such people in the short term, while seeking, over the medium and long term, to make those people — or at least a sizable segment of them — no longer want to destroy the country.
To change their mind. For our sakes.
To change their mind. For our sakes.
Containment is a viable short-term strategy. Persuasion is the only viable long-term strategy. For our sakes. https://the.ink/p/not-your-fault
And when we think about it like this, we can actually summon some hope. Because we're not on Day One of this project. We are already quite far along on the work of transforming millions of Americans' sense of themselves and of their place in this society. https://the.ink/p/not-your-fault
We are living in a pregnant time in which millions of Americans are actually learning about our history in ways they hadn’t before, being retrained at school and work to live differently with others, and coming to grips with how to be in a country without a white, male default.
If you think of this as a migration -- a psychological migration -- millions are already on the move. Millions are already being resettled. Millions of men. Millions of white people. We don't tell this story enough. It's never finished. But that doesn't mean we're stagnant.
And we diminish the work of freedom fighters and activists and truth tellers -- whether in #BlackLivesMatter 
or media efforts like @nhannahjones's "1619 Project" -- when we ignore the very real and positive changes in public opinion they have wrought.
They ARE changing minds.
or media efforts like @nhannahjones's "1619 Project" -- when we ignore the very real and positive changes in public opinion they have wrought.They ARE changing minds.
Which is why I'm not interested in some hollow unity or some reaching-out.
I'm not interested in cutting deals with "those people" as they presently are.
I'm interested in changing who they are, and I see those efforts working -- slowly, fitfully, but working all the while.
I'm not interested in cutting deals with "those people" as they presently are.
I'm interested in changing who they are, and I see those efforts working -- slowly, fitfully, but working all the while.
It's not working on an electoral calendar. It's working on a civilizational calendar. But it's working.
Men ARE changing. White people ARE changing. Old structures ARE crumbling. It's too slow. But it's on.
Men ARE changing. White people ARE changing. Old structures ARE crumbling. It's too slow. But it's on.
This is why the "unity" chorus rings false to me -- but why I do want us to muster empathy for these voters motivated by the loss of their power.
I don't want to empathize with them out of kindness or because they deserve it.
I want to empathize in order to change things.
I don't want to empathize with them out of kindness or because they deserve it.
I want to empathize in order to change things.
So that's going to be my posture going into 2021: against unity, but for empathy, persuasion, and hope.
Clear-eyed about what too many of my fellow citizens have succumbed to, unwilling to give ground to it, and yet ever hopeful that people change. https://the.ink/p/not-your-fault
Clear-eyed about what too many of my fellow citizens have succumbed to, unwilling to give ground to it, and yet ever hopeful that people change. https://the.ink/p/not-your-fault
