Dems please stay engaged!!

This message is for my democrat friends who are losing hope. Increasingly and with rising sense of concern and alarm, we notice the disappointing and cowardly behavior from Republican leaders and citizenry. I notice many Democrats are losing hope. At such a time of divisiveness, I want to point your attention to something else that is simultaneously happening and perhaps indicates things to come, in the near future. 

First let me quote two anecdotal items. Recently I met a friend who is a dedicated trumper. He is a person who believes that the US should get broken into two countries so Republicans can have what they want in “their” country. He has taken the vaccine and the booster but does not believe in vaccines or the masks. We had this conversation.

He: All people who have taken vaccines are still getting covid. I am not going to take any more boosters if they come.
Me: But vaccines and boosters are keeping people safer and many of them out of hospitals.
He: How many exactly have stayed out of hospitals due to the booster?
Me: I don’t have specific numbers here.
He: So you just have a perception?
Me; No. There are some facts that can be checked and verified. So don’t ask me to do all the work. Instead, why don’t you try to check the facts by googling them? And instead of only tuning into Fox, also try tuning into CNN, MSNBC etc. to know about covid.
He: I am not going to. I don’t even listen to Fox. I don’t listen to any news. Sometimes I read some blogs. 

Another example. I saw on MSNBC, one journalist interviewing some Trumpers. One woman has 3000 connections on FB (she hasn’t met over 90% of them). She sends out many forwards on how the election was stolen from Trump and there were few others with the same beliefs. Many of them don’t even listen to right wing media like FOX and they do not trust fact checkers of companies like FaceBook (who are not politicians). In fact, some fact checkers employed by FB have even gotten death threats. 

SO here is the point. 

We are on a cusp of massive transformation and overhaul. Everything that is happening right now is precursor to massive transformation. Right now muck is rising to the top. As they say, it is darkest before the dawn. Isn’t it often the case in history that the muck that rises to the top, eventually gives an impetus for change in society? That is where we are. On one hand, all attempts to negate science and facts, is massively disappointing. AND YET, on the other hand, THAT is the beauty of living in this time that all the muck, false beliefs and insanity are coming out in the open. 

For instance, think of Jeffrey Epstein. He molested so many young girls for so long. When it all surfaced, it was extremely anger provoking. And yet, at least it surfaced and the guilty ones can then be held accountable. 

Also, let’s think of what is happening on the other side. My trumper friend is not listening to FOX along with CNN and MSNBC. He occasionally reads blogs. They are getting disillusioned and disengaged. Slowly many of them will go back to living on the periphery until and when they integrate true information or their children do. 

Why did I write this? I See a lot of disappointment among Dems. Biden can’t make progress, Dems are divided, some in the President’s own party won’t let him pass his bills that they originally believed in, Republicans continue to subscribe to falsehoods etc. SCOTUS continues to remain right leaning and the left continues to fear that with gerrymandering and lack of voting rights reform, the majority may lose due to technicalities. I fear this as well.

And yet Republican leaders are not all united. They are fully aware that the only strategy they have is to block and obstruct but that is not a strategy to govern. Mr. Trump has obfuscated their focus and it will not be easy for them to unite behind a nominee or a message. And consider the people who subscribe to conspiracies. They are divided as well. In fact, many are also divided within their own minds. Many of their beliefs in such conspiracies as the election was stolen, have become riddled with doubt. Some cling half-heartedly to what they knew to be true and some prefer to check out with occasional rants about how they would prefer secession. These assertions may sound more extreme but there is only fluff underneath the conspiracies and extreme stands they choose to take. 

So my friends, it is fine with taking occasional breaks from the news as we all must take care of our health and manage stress. And yet, stay engaged. If it is any help – remember, that a massive transformation needs for things to break down and not work for most. And this year we will likely see the transformation happen. When that happens, we want all hands on deck — all systems engaged – all people fully awake and contributing in building a better tomorrow.

Top ten reasons to not single out Trump team members for “harassment”

I don’t want to single out our dedicated Dem leader who stirred up a controversy this week by asking people to “harass” the team working with the current administration. We are all filling her rage and sadness and any one of us might have said the same thing when witnessing little #ChildrenInCages . However, compared to us, far higher standards are expected of our leaders. It is completely ok for a leader to call us for civil disobedience and to show up and resist and march and speak up and protest. But let us not ask people to show up to single out administration team members on their private outings with their family members. Here are top 10 reasons why the strategy suggested by her is not the best one to adopt. 

10: When they go low, we go high (this one is still a good one to follow but please note, from number 1 it has gone down all the way to number 10.

9: Civility discourse aside, Dems need to differentiate themselves in every conceivable manner from Trump, in order to make a solid case of defective #leadership (when the right time arrives). We must maintain the distinction.

8: Instead of keeping all energy focused on their scandals, this unnecessary moves the focus on #Dems. There are enough Trump scandals that we need to stay relentlessly focused on HIS scandals. Despite that our attention is slipping as he slips things under the radar. We must not make more opportunity available to him.

7: Democrat base is vastly different from Trump base. While Trump base thrives on his lies and potty mouth discourse, democrats do not appreciate it, leave alone thriving on it.  Democrats are more likely to do fact checking, more open to contrary information, more willing to engage in dialog and more likely to call their leaders on uncivilized talk, unlike Trump base. So a Dem leader is unlikely to score high points for divisive stirring of the pot, like Trump does with his base.

6: Closely related to number eight, Dems don’t need controversy that divides them while so many critical races are going on, especially over non-substantive issues. We must not enable Trump to go higher in polls because we are getting divided over our leaders’ uncivil dialog, especially when all attention should be on Trump’s inhumane actions.

5: It is extremely tempting to give him a dose of his own medicine. But however tempting, we must not, because we will lose. ONLY TRUMP CAN DO TRUMP. Most other politicians just don’t have the capability for incessantly lying, name calling of opponents and riling up and dividing people. So why attempt something that is a forgone loser act for dems? (from article by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large).

4: There are far superior and memorable ways to point out Trump’s inhumane actions, and draconian policy of dividing young children from their parents at the border. Except for the recent snafu by Samantha Bee, the comedians (SNL, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, Sam Bee, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah) have all done an awesome job of calling out Trump and have done so with amazing class and wit.

3: Trump is doing the lying and engaging in divisive rhetoric strategically and effectively (as per the standards of his base) because he is being exactly who he is. Ironically, Trump’s words and actions are authentic and reflect who he is as a person. He enjoys power for power’s sake, he marvels at the power of the dictators, and he understands that he can stay in double digits in power and polls only by keeping the population divided. We are understandably stupendously angry at his clear and open unwillingness to follow due process. We are understandably and heart-soakingly saddened at his inhumane treatment of migrant families at the border. But what we say in anger is a one time thing. We are patently unable to stay angry always or to stay sad always, whereas Trump will never tire of being self focused ALWAYS. Again it circles around to Trump being Trump.

However, in the event that we do manage to authentically and consistently give him a dose of his own medicine and in the event that we effectively manage to stoop to his level, then we still have a problem.   Quoting from article by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large, “Then there is the political argument: No one gets down in the mud with Trump and comes out clean. Or, in the words of George Bernard Shaw: “I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”

2: : Trump has lowered the civility discourse so dramatically and has polarized the country so much that merely to survive and protect their political careers, no GOP members are able to speak up against him. So now the #dems are not just the keepers of democracy, but also keepers of civility, truth, humanity, and integrity. Someone will have to hold that post with consistency, patience and persistence, no matter how tough the going gets.

1: Number ONE reason we may not want to stoop to Trump’s level is because we have to believe that though victory may be slow in coming, truth and integrity always wins. The last laugh will be enjoyed by integrity, unity and humanity. To be steadfast in that belief will require us to have tremendous courage to keep up resistance and even more patience to show up and yet resist the urge to get in the mud with him. As the cries of little sobbing children reverberate in our ears, we must know that we need to stand by them, not for a day, not for a week, but for a lifetime, for the harm that is being inflicted on their little impressionable minds. The same patience will be required of us to right the harm that Trump and his administration is doing to all the other groups among us, our kneeling athletes, LGBTQ, Muslims, Mexicans, Gold Star families, women who require full medical access and so on.  This will have to be a long journey of patience and persistence and that is what we will also need from our #dems leaders.