At some point we need to talk about emotional and social dysregulation as a feature of the MAGA crowd.

You can be pissed that they exist but there are a LOT of them and they are in your families and sit in your church pews and process your paychecks and work in your schools.

In the 60s, communication scholars shied away from studying social movements because they freaked about: Black activists, women, queers people, and labor folks making emotional appeals

They also bought into a bunch of (mostly pop) psychology about how social movements created groupthink and cults of personality.

But the mobs and groupthink and cults of personality were more a features of the COUNTERMOVEMENT of new conservatism (Goldwater/Reagan) than of social movements.

So now, we have scholars who study movement OR scholars who study fascism.

Consequently, the public can't figure out the difference between the fascist mob and the #BLM protest.

I was trained as a Cold War scholar because there was no one in COMM to train me in critical race history/theory (had to do that on my own).

BUT the STRUCTURAL consequence of this bifurcation is that 20th century white scholars only study 20th century white perspectives.

Said another way: the critical race scholars have perspectives on FEELINGS and POWER that the rhetorical historians of white politics DON'T HAVE.

It's why the MAGA crowd see critical race theory as dangerous.

But there has to be a large-scale national project to CREATE SOCIAL GOOD.

35 years of Reagan austerity and trickle down has created an impoverishment of playful social collaboration.

The intense pleasure of paranoia meets a NEED TO FEEL.

Fill it with something other than COSPLAYING insurrection.

People need meaning, where they feel like they are creating their own reality.

Belonging is a social RIGHT.

So, to deprogram this stuff, give people stuff to BELONG TO that isn't fascist.

The decline of civic associations/unions is a problem that has been replaced with Fox News.

The MAGA folks have been talking about FREEDOM while liberals have been baking sourdough and doing puzzles.

Liberals need to seriously think about PRODUCING FREEDOM as a DRIVE OF THEIR POLITICS to help create a different kind of national politics.

Laura and I talk about some of this in the Leadership episode: https://www.stitcher.com/show/lean-back-critical-feminist-conversations/episode/leadership-80440392

In Black Feelings I write about the dynamism of Black protest and white rage. That dynamic begins after Reconstruction and finds its rhythm after Brown v. Board. https://www.amazon.com/Black-Feelings-Affect-Sixties-Rhetoric/dp/1496827953/