What To Do
HedCheez blog was originally intended just to be fun writing to get my chops back. It was supposed to be mostly light and often funny, talking about the musical project and whatever else popped into my head. But these are historically serious times. All of us who sincerely care about our future need to use our voices to stave off the most profound cataclysm that America has ever faced. By that I, of course, mean Donald trump.
Those of us still able to think clearly understand the dire dangers of this repugnant authoritarian ever getting his hands on power again. We are in extreme danger of losing our democracy to this criminal and his accomplices. If you haven’t accepted this reality, then this post is not for you.
We’re all scared. We’re all worried. We all feel an urgency and impotence to have an impact on the impending election. We’re up against a cult that no longer responds to reasoning, reality, or what we thought were our shared values. Those people are lost to America. They cannot be changed. They can only be outnumbered at the polls.
I firmly believe that there are far more of us than there are of them. People need to be encouraged and persuaded to vote for Joe Biden. Abstaining or voting for a third party is not an acceptable option. The one thing we can all do, that we must do, is to forcefully engage in that conversation at every opportunity.
Here are my thoughts on some ways to do that.
1. Become evangelical about the truth. Educate yourself as much as possible about the true state of reality. Know what the actual statistics are. Know the status of all the Trump trials and what the real evidence is. Know what the MAGA arguments are and exactly why they are wrong. know as much as you can about the law and how it is being used. Challenge every lie, exaggeration, and conspiracy theory forcefully whenever anyone tries to pass them off in a conversation. You will have no effect on the person making the outrageous claims, but anyone hearing you stand up to this nonsense will be emboldened and educated. The MAGAs will eventually look foolish as their faulty logic is exposed.
2. Get rid of the notion of agreeing to disagree. The stakes are simply too high. Agreeing to disagree over masks and vaccines killed one million people in America. Truth is truth. Lies are lies.
3. Stop treating Maga cult members as if they’re normal. Not too long ago being openly racist and sexist got you ostracized from regular society. Now it is normalized and excused. The Republican party has embraced racism, homophobia, sexism, violence, and authoritarianism as their platform and their ethos. They are a direct attack on the decency and fairness that is at the heart of the American experiment. You are either defending America, or you are part of the attack. Those joining the attack leave no doubt to benefit from.
4. Do not accept buzz words such as “woke”, “Marxist”, “deep state”, “the left”, “communist”, etc.., in an argument. Make the person who uses such a term explain exactly what they mean. These are Pavlovian terms used to trigger visceral reactions and muddy thinking. Most times the person using such terms will have no real idea what they mean by them and being called out is powerful.
5. Remember the atrocities of the last Trump term and refer to them often. Most people have blocked remembering a lot of 2018 to 2020 because of the Covid shut down. If you don’t believe me, try to remember what you did in a specific month in 2019. Remember stripping migrant children from their parents with no records so that they could be reunited. Remember denying the reality of Covid, denying the efficacy of masks and vaccines, touting nonsense cures like horse dewormer and bleach, freezer trucks outside hospitals used as morgues, extending the path of a hurricane with a sharpie so his prediction wouldn’t be seen as wrong… There are so many instances of Trump demonstrating his complete unfitness to be president that you will have no trouble building an arsenal.
6. Forward every meme, column, article, and video that makes our point. Social media is possibly the game changing battle ground. No one really knows how much effect it will have. We need to put a lot of energy into it.
7. NEVER allow the lie of a stolen election to go unchallenged. These people tried to take away our duly elected president through violence, fraud, and insurrection. It is a crime. Donald Trump is responsible. Anyone associated with it is a criminal and a traitor. Anyone who entered the capital on January 6th committed a crime and should be punished. This view is not up for compromise or negotiation.
8. Don’t be afraid to be an asshole. Most times when the MAGA cult people go off on a rant at a dinner party or social gathering, the polite people try to ignore it until it dies down and they can change the subject. This is a powerful tool MAGA uses to suppress conversation around politics and the election. These discussions are important to have. Minds must be sharpened and changed before the election. We must share information among the informed and support and energize each other. So, challenge the nonsense. Ruin the party for a bit. Don’t allow them to suppress your ability to discuss this vital topic among your friends.
And here’s a trick: stay calm. Don’t allow yourself to sink to yelling and trading insults (I know it’s difficult). If you use Socratic logic and calmly question their assumptions in a non-combative way it disarms them. They are not used to actual discussion, only sloganeering and argument. As long as the tenor remains calm and cordial you have the upper hand.
I truly believe that we are in imminent danger of losing our democracy. I see it as a coordinated attack by Trump and the entire Republican party. This is a war, though not yet a violent one. The battlefield is the ballot box. Our only real weapon is persuasion.
I have no degrees or expertise in all of this. I only have my voice and my ability to reason. I am obsessive about this and form my opinions from an amalgam of sources. But these are just my thoughts. I plan to keep posting them for whatever good they can do in the cause of keeping the Republican coup from succeeding. If you think they are correct, please pass them on. Please talk to me about things you disagree with. Conversation is the point of this. I don’t know if this will have any real effect, but I can’t sit on my ass and do nothing while America falls.