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Trump has given us useful tool [1]

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Date: 2025-02-26

Let me start with a little pop culture reference:

Dear Friends, in these days of modern times, when you can’t tell the ACs from the DCs, well, aren’t we all yearning for someone who can turn on a little stopping power? Dear Friends, I mean a smokey glass. Don’t you think I mean a lightning rod with which to chase the spooks away?

In the current superstorm of chaos, there’s a quick way to sort out where people are coming from. Whether it’s a local government official, a state rep, your Congressman, your friends, neighbors, relatives, someone on social media, someone in the media, someone at work — there’s a way to get a quick read on where they are coming from. We can thank Donald Trump for giving it to us.

It boils down to two questions and they require only Yes or No to answer.

1) Do you believe the 2020 election was stolen?

2) Do you think January 6 was an inside job?*

* That is, the January 6 rioters were actually peaceful protesters and all the violence was a Deep State plot.

These and other loyalty tests are being given to Federal employees, but they can work for us as well.

If you are dealing with a Republican official at any level, see what happens when you try to get them to answer on the record . They won’t be able to answer with anything but “Yes” if they want to stay in the party and toe the party line. If they waffle, try to change the subject, or refuse to answer, that tells you how secure they feel about their own position.

What they might say differently in private doesn’t count — except as a measure of hypocrisy and political cowardice. As public officials who are supposed to answer to voters, they should be obligated to make their true views known to the public. It’s not for nothing that they are in fealty to a man whose administration runs on lies.

Elsewhere

As for others, this will save you a lot of time cutting through bullshit — at the risk of being seen as confrontational. A “Yes” answer to either question means you are dealing with either a cult member, a non-serious person, or someone who is clueless. Smile, disengage politely, and back away if you can.

You can leave them out of family gatherings and social events. You can take your business elsewhere. You can try to avoid interacting with them at work, and know whether or not to engage with them. You can refuse to be dragged into pointless confrontation — but don’t back down if you are. They like simple answers and don’t do nuance. Be clear about where you are coming from.

That being said, it’s not always possible to distance from them — and what happens if/when they start to question their beliefs?

What You Can Do If You Must Deal With Them

Sara Robinson, writing at Orcinus, has a couple of good articles on how to deal with people who are caught up in authoritarian movements like the one we’re living amid. Cracks In The Wall, Part II: Listening to the Leavers discusses how people end up up as authoritarian followers and how they can escape. It’s written from the informed viewpoint of her own journey as a former fundamentalist.

Cracks in the Wall, Part III: Escape Ladders discusses tactics to use when people arrive at a place where they are ready to break out of the rigid beliefs that have become unsupportable for them and they are willing to look for different answers. Where facts and logic usually aren’t enough to persuade them, an FAFO moment that hits them in the gut too hard to ignore can create an opening. It’s not a simple, quick process.

We might just have such opportunities given the levels of FAFO that are already starting to manifest. It will take compassion, empathy, and time to turn them around. Unfortunately we may have to focus on surviving what’s coming at us. We are effectively in a war for the soul of the country, and wars have casualties. Triage is not a pleasant job.

Meanwhile, we can thank Trump/Musk for making things simple for us. It’s slowly dawning on people that we are dealing with a Pearl Harbor type event, if one that is not just a hit and run but a continuing assault. Picking a side just got a lot simpler.

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