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Uncovering Right-Wing Funding [1]

['Political Research Associates']

Date: 2023-10-25

The Left needs to fund projects that build greater democratic institutions, such as public higher education. Democracy can be reclaimed for all of us, where resources are distributed instead of concentrated in the hands of a few corporate leaders. Funders need to talk to those of us who have been close to the problem. Funders also need to give us money and trust that we can organize, that we are self-determined and we have the right to defend ourselves.

The free market and invisible hand have become God and religion. It takes more than just policy or advocacy to break people out of those echo chambers. We also have to counter right-wing narratives with different narrative frames, and organize people around a story. This is how to build grassroots political will and power. In the long term, having conversations with folks and doing deep, intentional listening helps with understanding people’s underlying anxieties. When you say, “Well, what are you afraid of? What do you think is going to happen to you?” That’s where populist fear comes out. Spending deep time in relational organizing is super important. We don’t choose one tactic; we have a whole toolbox and we make sure that we’re thoughtful about getting to the “why” behind what concerns folks.

I talk to young people regularly and have to convince them that governance can be good and worthwhile. If young people don’t believe that good governance is possible in this country, they will go to places that provide them safety, security and care, because so many are afraid of violence in their communities or when they can’t feed their families. A lot of well-funded ideologies have good stories of how you stay safe. Fear is an activating emotion. It leads us to do things that make some of the worst possible worlds. But messages that don’t activate our fight-or-flight reflex, and show nuance, complexity, and belonging instead, give a different kind of physiological experience that holds us longer there. When we’re activating people based on a shared threat versus on a shared project that we can build together, you get different outcomes. Funding on the Left often relies on fear-based messaging: “things are so bad and if you don’t take action now, if you don’t donate right now”— panic, panic, panic! When you couple that with people who have already lived through genocide and other horrors, that creates a toxic stew.

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[1] Url: https://politicalresearch.org/2023/10/25/uncovering-right-wing-funding

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