Allow me to humbly share with you the best I\u2019ve read this week, in my earnest desire to bring people together \u2014 as opposed to joining a hidden tribe and thus instead contribute more to pulling us apart\u2026 From David French, an American attorney, author, and now senior editor of \u201cThe Dispatch\u201d\u2026 [Note: all emphasis mine.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI speak and write quite a bit about American political polarization. I\u2019m alarmed by the extent of mutual partisan loathing and enmity. It\u2019s terrible, it\u2019s getting worse, and I\u2019m convinced that\u2014unchecked\u2014it\u2019s a threat to our national existence. There is no law of nature that says that a diverse, continent-sized, multi-ethnic, multi-faith democracy will always remain united\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The devoted conservatives and progressive activists in particular are people with a disproportionate amount of wealth and who spend a disproportionate amount of time on politics as a hobby. They have resources, they\u2019re engaged, and they\u2019re angry. They\u2019re a minority, but they tend to dominate public discourse \u2014 even as an \u2018exhausted majority\u2019 retreats from political engagement and longs for an alternative. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The rage of the \u2018wings\u2019 is well-known. We can see it every day on social media. We can see and hear the fury at many political rallies and events. The reasons for that rage are complex, but let me advance an under-appreciated reason why red-pilled Uncle Karl and his woke niece Alice hate each other so darn much. The story starts with public apathy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I haven\u2019t been a writer all my life. I spent most of my professional career (21 years!) as a litigator, and for most of that time I worked for public-interest law firms. My practice focused on the First Amendment, and it required that I focus not just on the court of law, but also on the court of public opinion. I wasn\u2019t just a lawyer, I was a legal activist, and I saw firsthand how hard it was to motivate the public to actually care about important constitutional concerns. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you try to raise awareness (much less money) from people with busy lives and multiple family responsibilities, the first thing you learn is that it is extraordinarily difficult to break through to the public with a proportionate, measured message. <\/em> If your message implies, \u2018I\u2019m working on something important, but there is no true emergency.\u2019 Or, \u2018I\u2019m concerned, but there\u2019s no crisis,\u2019 then prepare to face indifference.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n No, the tried and true activist message is simple \u2014 \u2018The threat is dire, and we\u2019re the last line of defense.\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n None of this is new. \u2018Scare grandma with direct mail\u2019 has funded much of the conservative movement for a generation (or more). But technology has made the experience much, much more intense. Sign one online petition, and you magically find yourself on a dozen new mailing lists. Start clicking on alarmist social media posts, and you start to tell the algorithm that\u2019s what you want to see. It\u2019s hard to merely put your toe in the water politically. Test the temperature with a small donation, and within days, five scam PACs, nine breathless email messages, and four Facebook ads are deluging you with some variation of the same message, \u2018They hate you! They want to destroy you! Only I can save you!\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are Americans who recoil from this like they\u2019ve touched a boiling cauldron. \u2018Just stop,\u2019 they say, and they furiously unsubscribe, ignore political posts, and go back to talking about the Tennessee Titans, the Memphis Grizzlies, and the utter dominance of SEC football (ideally, anyway). But there are millions of other Americans who have a very different reaction.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018I had no idea things were so terrible!\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n As the messages flood your inbox, and the posts flood your feeds, concern grows to alarm, and alarm turns into rage. And if you\u2019re looking for things to be angry about, there\u2019s always a fresh outrage, somewhere. The immediate nationalization of every volatile local event means that a politically engaged American can know within hours (sometimes minutes) after someone punches a kid wearing a MAGA hat in Des Moines, or if a busybody white woman calls the cops on black kids who are innocently grilling in a Sacramento park. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Instantly, each incident becomes emblematic of the other side\u2019s perfidy. It\u2019s as if the scales fall from the eyes, and you see the world anew. You\u2019re \u2018woke.\u2019 You\u2019re \u2018red-pilled.\u2019 You\u2019re not simply \u2018Jane\u2019 anymore. You\u2019re \u2018Deplorable Jane,\u2019 and it\u2019s your mission in life to own the libs.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n But the strange thing is that this new life doesn\u2019t actually awaken you to reality, it deceives you. It distorts the truth. One of the most fascinating aspects of the hidden tribes research is its finding that <\/em>Americans on the \u2018wings\u2019 have the most twisted views of the other side.<\/em><\/strong> The wings are far more likely to believe that political opponents are more extreme than they really are. <\/em>In crucial ways their political engagement is increasing not just their political extremism, but also their political ignorance.<\/em><\/strong> They consistently accept opposing extremism as the norm, when it is not. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s no simple solution to this problem. I routinely tell people that the two types of pieces I write that cause the most dramatic negative reaction either 1) criticize Donald Trump; or 2) argue that a particular problem is a concern and not a crisis. It\u2019s as if an argument that a problem isn\u2019t an emergency is viewed as detrimental to the cause of public mobilization and public activism. And they\u2019re probably right. When was the last time 10,000 people flooded the streets of a state capital chanting, \u2018We\u2019re concerned! We\u2019re concerned!\u2019? <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Leadership does matter, however. And partisans respond to winning politicians. If someone can turn down the temperature and win while doing it, perhaps we can chip away at the culture of permanent outrage.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Respectfully\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n AR Allow me to humbly share with you the best I\u2019ve read this week, in my earnest desire to bring people together \u2014 as opposed to joining a hidden tribe and thus instead contribute more to pulling us apart\u2026 From David French, an American attorney, author, and now senior editor of \u201cThe Dispatch\u201d\u2026 [Note: all emphasis … <\/p>\n
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