This is a part two of a similar question asked here: https://slrpnk.net/post/24228904
Basically I am workshopping progressive sligans. I am a basic agitator and interact with a lot of people who lean progressive but aren’t politically engaged yet. Crowd-sourcing the revolution, I guess.
It’s a nice buzzword for Vulcans to justify some horrible shit using logic, but if you go deeper than a StarTrekism buzzword, then it doesn’t really make much sense.
For example, Trans rights. Trans need to be safe. RWNJ’s need to feel safe, and out number them. Who wins?
in the real world, everybody wins when Trans people’s rights are protected and everybody- especially the most vulnerable- are kept safe. Including the RWNJ’s.
That example’s a good one for a anotger reason: right wingers do need to feel safe, but that doesn’t mean that anything needs to be done about trans people. RW perceptions of what needs to be done are wrong, because they are based on myths and misunderstandings about the risks transness. Or another way to say it: the need for safety is real, solutions proposed by rightwingers are not appropriate, even aside from the issue of trans rights, because they won’t solve need for safety - hiding the bogeyman under a rug or behind criminalisation won’t make it go away, and will increase misunderstanding.
to be honest, at this point, I’m pretty sure the RWNJ’s don’t actually want to feel safe.
But yeah, the appropriate solution is to keep everybody safe, and educate the RWNJ’s. Though, if you were able to actually convince them of the truth, they’d probably run off to disenfranchise the next group.
Maybe… My understanding (which is admittedly based on not much hard evidence) is that right wingism is more of a symptom than a cause, and that there are basically two or three drivers:
The insane far-right that are in power in the US, and the people surrounding them are most of the third category… I don’t think much of the base is in that category. But that group knows the triggers for people in the first two categories, and abuses the fuck out of them…
So yeah… I guess you’re right in that “convincing them of the truth” of any single issue isn’t going to solve anything. But I think aiming to solve those underlying insecurity and trauma issues might… Not that I have any quick-fix solutions…
which, yeah, I don’t disagree with that. The problem is that they’re actively working against their own interests. Blatantly so. They don’t want to take programs that would give them financial security (or all the other forms of security that would give, like stable housing, access to good and healthy food, a good education, etc.).
Some of it is that they’re primed to do that. But a lot of it is, they’re lashing out. They don’t want to feel safe, as an example, because then that removes their excuse for lashing out at people they want to harass and torture.
Basically this:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5BkRevFP5AE
Anyone else screaming “oh god! don’t twist! don’t twist!” ?
Being safe outweighs feeling safe, so this whole analogy is void.
WOW… you managed to get my point and still miss it. Impressive.