We have to become masters at exploiting pain

[Tom Rinaldo]

Of course I mean pain that we wished did not exist, pain that we tried our best to prevent, and pain that we will do all that we can to end. Trump's presidency will cause massive pain. That is certain. Since we could not prevent it the best that we can do is make sure that all the suffering is not completely in vain. We must be prepared to turn it to our political advantage where and whenever possible. That's what I mean by exploitation in this context.

We have to make sure that Trump and the Republicans receive all of the blame for all of the pain that they will cause. We all know the rhetorical question, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, if suffering occurs in a neighborhood and no one is there to document it, is anyone hurt? Obviously yes, for those who suffered, but outside of that neighborhood the suffering can still be invisible. The suffering can not be invisible. It must be captured, and broadcast, and shared in emails endlessly.

Horrible suffering existed for generations in the Jim Crow south. Part of the genus of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. was to highlight and shove that suffering into the faces of "ordinary Americans" (whites) so that they could no longer could hide from their complicity in perpetuating it.

Americans were no less racist in 1964 and 1965 when the Civil Rights and Voting Acts were passed than they are now. And fundamentally they were no less racist in 1964 and 1965 than they were in 1960 and 1961. The difference was that they watched Bull Connor sic police attack dogs on peaceful Black protestors on their TVs. The difference was that they saw broadcasts of mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers mourning the deaths of young black school girls at funerals for the children killed in a church bombing in Birmingham.

When legitimate refugees get murdered in Guatemala after Trump forcibly deports them, Americans should see the bloody details on TV. When an elder dies in an unheated apartment because she couldn't afford her bills Americans need to learn her name. Yes there sometimes is coverage of this sort on American media now. A little bit here, a little bit there, for the most part easily avoidable for most people, who go on as if nothing is happening. We must be experts at amplifying that news. It can't remain avoidable.

The people who are already on our side already understand. The people who hate people who are different from themselves will continue to celebrate their suffering. But their are others who can be touched. Social change, political change, happens when they are.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. People are very good at finding ways to believe that the people they see suffering deserve it. Amplifying it will simply

entrench that inclination. You see it here all the time.

[Ocelot II]

3. Unfortunately that's true.

Pain isn't real if it isn't yours. But the leopards will start eating some faces that didn't expect to be eaten, and that pain will be noticed.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. The problem is, for some, it's extremely satisfying to see the right faces being eaten.

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. I don't think history backs you on that

The horrors of industrial child labor were tolerated for decades before the "muckrakers" of the time cast sufficient light on it, and then a movement to reform it took shape. Conditions in Jim Crow South were no better or worse before King and his allies devised their civil disobedience campaign that put those conditions on display in typical American living rooms.

Of course there is some truth in what you say. Some people do react the way you describe, always have and always will. Some of them are invested in seeing the world that way, others are easily manipulated by their fears. But it doesn't take a third of the population opening up their eyes to make a difference. Five or ten percent easily enough to make a huge difference.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. The media landscape has changed such that I can watch war crimes on my phone while lying in bed before I go to sleep.

With both mainstream/legacy media and social media becoming less and less trusted, seeing things with our own eyes will have less of an impact.

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. It's the dialectic.

Something basic always changes, and then there is a reaction to that change, and an adjustment until the next basic change takes hold, and then the process repeats. But underneath it all fundamental human nature doesn't change very much.

The changes you describe manifest in a society that has itself changed since the 1920's and again since the 1960's, etc. I'll give a totally unrelated example. American's attitude toward pets. Millions of Americans were virtually indifferent, for generations, to dogs being kept in conditions that they increasingly are unaccepting of now.

Racism itself has changed. Very slowly and subtly at times. MAGA Republicans by and large really really like Clarence Thomas and Tim Scott though they fiercely support institutionalized racism.

What it takes to achieve a break through in consciousness keeps changing, but break throughs will always occur. That's why there is always a good market for media gurus and marketing wizards and new paradigm masters of every sort.

I'm not sure what it will take this time. but I think this is where we have to become creative.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. It's a matter of perception. MAGA is abused, but they don't see it that way.

Eloon has told America they must endure pain. Unsaid is "to make things better for us Oligarchs".

But if the public can't fight the pain, and believes it temporary to make things better, they will put up with a lot of pain.

I don't have an answer. Raw political power is being visited upon us. As if it hasn't happened before.

[Ocelot II]

5. People unused to pain won't put up with it for long.

A lot of MAGA "pain" seems to have to do with the price of groceries. No doubt this has been a real problem for some people, but the loudest whiners seem to be able to afford their beer and cigarettes and new cars. When the immigrants are gone and the tariffs kick in and eggs are $20 instead of $5 and a new tv costs $2,000, the squealing will be loud enough for even the GOP to hear it.