Will 21st century enlightenment with walls save or sink our republic and democracy?

Introduction: Fake patriotism is closed-minded, self-righteous fundamentalism. The purpose of blog post is to evoke slow thinking about how to open closed mindsets about the fundamentalist perils of rigid political ideologies and identities. The antidote to the uncivil war of dysfunctional political polarizations is educational equity: reduce political illiteracy about fake patriotism.

Evocative questions to open political mindsets

This post is in response to Jonathan Haidt's RSA talk. Use the podcast link below to understand more about the titanic metaphor. He used this metaphor to anticipate why fake patriotism could cause a precipitous demise in US political governance.

The purpose of the questions below is to generate ideas about how we can create a blended learning platform (virtual and real coffee shops) to cultivate free-thinking and free-thinkers for true patriotism.

• What can we learn from the dark side of social media to make amends about the uncivil war of political fundamentalism?

The evil trinity of megalomania, narcissism and sociopathy has created a deep state of systemic fake patriotism that has evolved over decades in the USA. Fake patriotism is closed-minded, self-righteous fundamentalism based on rigid political ideologies. Fundamentalist-driven partisanship divides people and perpetuates dysfunctional political polarizations.

• Will the iceberg of fake patriotism rip our republic and sink our democracy?

The titanic was a segmented ship separated by walls that was designed to make the ship unsinkable. However, the titanic had fatally flawed container walls. Walls can be good, bad or ugly. The titanic metaphor raises this evocative question.

• How can we build walls to build blended learning platform to cultivate a civil society to save our republic and democracy?

All metaphors have limitations, but they can evoke different lines of inquiry, reflection and action. We need multiple methods to anticipate the complexities of how political fundamentalism has had large-scale, unintended consequences, such as electing political extremists with #fakepatriotpersonalitydisorders. Trump and other political demagogues are mere symptoms of the deep state of systemic fake patriotism.

Here are three questions and brief responses that were evoked by three slides used in Jonathan's talk.

• How do fake patriots abuse political power?

Fake patriots build non-transparent walls and locked doors to concentrate their authoritarian patriarchal power, by exploiting fake news, inequalities, conspiracies, paranoia, fear and hate.

• How can true patriots use political power for the greater good of all?

True patriots create the network power needed to build transparent walls with open doors to seek truth, equity and justice and to cultivate trust, courage and love.

• How can we cultivate 21st century enlightenment?

Transformational leaders create guiding principles to manage the complex emergent process of striving toward true patriotism as a way to sanction against the rise of fake patriotism.

Reactions to slide 1 about fake patriotism

Fake patriotism+tyranny = hate+disempowerment

Fake patriotism is self-righteousness about being closed-minded. It is the dark ages of the stone age brain.

Fake patriotism is about the amoral telos (purpose) of fundamentalist thinking and authoritarian control that violates the principles of freedom and liberty. Fascism and communism are the best examples of alt-right and alt-left extremism.

Political fundamentalists make a virtue out of their rigid political ideology and take autocratic pride in being non-compromising absolutists. Closed-minded rigid fundamentalism is unable tolerate the light of true patriotism. Fake patriots fear truth and transparent accountability the most.

Fake patriots build non-transparent walls with locked closed doors to attack and destroy their opponents, using their reptilian brains. These political bubbles brainwash people into alt-right or alt-left extremism.

In this cult trance of blind unconditional loyalty, people fall under the controlling spell of political saviors and con artists. They forfeit their liberty to become free-thinkers. They become mobs of political zombies, parrots of talking points, pit bulls attacking straw men, sacrificial pawns acting out animus, and puppets of the ruling elites who make them act against their own self-interest.

In this addictive state of idolatry, these political junkies grossly exaggerate the strengths of their political saviors and minimize their amoral and fatal flaws. Conversely, these political animals use hate to metaphorically kill their political opponents and negatively smear the virtues of their opposition.

Reactions to slide 2 about true patriotism

True patriotism+civil society = love+empowerment

True patriotism is curiosity about being open-minded. It is the enlightenment of liberty. True patriots are open-minded, free-thinkers who take the path to discover the telos of virtues for the fourth economic revolution: the purpose economy.

• How can transformational leaders create guiding principles to cultivate a deep state of true patriotism?

Reactions to slide 3 about transformational leaders

The bullet points below are modification of a slide from this RSA talk. These bullets are examples of guiding principles that transformational leaders can use to tip the playing field in favor of true patriotism and against fake patriotism.

• Communicate why the purposes of virtues are important
• Develop ethical norms to cultivate true patriotism and subvert fake patriotism
• Build transparent walls with open doors to generate a diversity of virtues and to amplify true patriotism
• Remove the divisive walls of fake patriotism based on demography, race, identity, race, sexual orientation, etc.
• Marginalize leaders with #fakepatriotpersonalitydisorder to diminish the amoral influences of fake patriotism

Will fake or true patriotism win the 2020 election?

Alt-right fundamentalist extremism is based on paranoid McCarthyism and fascism, and not the civic society of the republican Eisenhower era. In the 1950s-uncivil war, the polarity management of true patriotism defeated the dysfunctional polarizations of fake patriotism. In 2016-2020 uncivil war, the situation has reversed.

Closed minded fundamentalism is the great barrier to true patriotism

Alt-right extremists reflexively label all moderate conservatives, libertarians and democrats as lefties, socialists and commies. The reptilian tail of alt-right extremism wags the GOP crocodile. The GOP is paralyzed by a collectivist mindset of blind unconditional loyalty.

The best book to understand this partisan cult loyalty is: Political Animals: How Our Stone-Age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics. It was written by Rick Henchman, a devoted Nixonite. Die-hard partisan loyalty to Nixon persisted well beyond his impeachment in a state of denial.

The GOP is too fearful to take the one-knee down against alt-right fake patriotism and lacks the moral courage to stand up for the true patriotism of conservative principles.

• How we design walls to keep the titanic afloat?

Build walls of transparency accountability that make clear distinctions between fake and true patriotism.

First we need to agree on what is fake patriotism. Read the proposed definitions of #fakepatriotism and #fakepatriotpersonalitydisorder.

• What do you think are the merits and demerits of these definitions?

Truth seeking involves critiquing and understanding fake patriotism before answering these questions.

• What is your credo for true patriotism?
• What is your organizational/corporate/partisan credo for true patriotism?
• How will you live up to your credo?
• How will we liberate USA from fake patriotism?

The answers to, and dialogues about the responses to these questions will help to create transparent walls of accountability to truth with doors that open to truth-seeking about equity, equality and justice, and trust-building to foster courage and love.

Listen to the podcast: start at 7 minutes 25 seconds and allow at least 15 minutes

[Brief critique about the figure at the top of the page. Evangelical Christian fundamentalists, alt-right propaganda machines and corporatocracy are at the forefront of the ship controlling the direction of the legislation process. Together, these forces have far greater influence over the legislature than the common sense of the public square and the political will of all of the people.]

Ask more questions about patriotism

• How can we crowdsource ongoing dialogues about fake and true patriotism?
• How will we inspire positive emotions and motives to increase voter turnout?
• Will Trump's alt-right playbook of fake patriotism and fascism pay off in the elections?
• Why did the US lose the midterm elections?
• Will 21st century enlightenment with walls save our republic and democracy?
• Does Trump have a leadership disability? Assess his competencies
• Does Trump have a leadership disability? Assess your biases