How to pay attention
Protect Democracy
Nonpartisan nonprofit group working to prevent authoritarianism, account owned & operated by Protect Democracy United.
Tricks for parsing Trump’s noise; plus, a new poll on January 6 pardons
Next week will be a firehose.
Then the week after that. And the week after that, too. If there is one lesson from the first Trump Administration, it’s this: Expect a chaotic drumbeat of BREAKING NEWS.
This time around will also be worse. The second Trump Administration is counting on a shock-and-awe campaign of sorts. The pledge is 100 executive orders in 100 days.
It’s going to feel overwhelming. And that’s deliberate.
Authoritarianism thrives on despair. Trump aims to grind down critics by throwing so much at the media, civil society, and his political opponents that they can’t keep up. Every moment we collectively spend chasing outrages that don’t really matter makes it more likely that we lose heart or focus, and then some threat that truly matters slips through.
As Trump’s former White House strategist and pardonee Steve Bannon memorably said back in 2018, the strategy is to “flood the zone with sh*t.” Authoritarianism wants you to feel like you’re drowning in the crud.
We can’t let that happen. For everything that happens this next week, and the months and weeks after that, here are four questions to ask yourself to help separate the signal from the noise. To pay attention to the right things and figure out the genuine threats to our democracy so you can safely — and ruthlessly — prioritize.
领英推荐
Is the action tangible, actionable, and detailed? Or intangible, abstract, and vague?
One of Donald Trump’s favorite messaging tactics is to throw out provocative or inflammatory ideas with few to no details. This has a double effect — not only is the headline jarring, but he leaves everyone else to scramble and fill in the details.
…And then argue about the details. And argue about the argument about the details.
For example, take his implied threats to annex Greenland by force. Look at some of the resulting media coverage. (There are, I’m not kidding, 4.3 million Google News hits for “Trump Greenland” in the past month.)
When he leaves the details vague, we, collectively, cannot help ourselves. We try to fill them in. But — if Trump’s past promises are any guide — intangibility is a pretty good indicator that a proposal is a less-than-pressing concern.
I can promise you, there will also be executive orders that are a lot longer, more robust, more concrete, and more detailed than the Greenland threats. Those are usually the ones to pay attention to.
Human Rights Advocate | Happiness Researcher | Ethicist | Educator
1 个月Yes, I've long suspected that the flood of outrageous news is meant to overwhelm and demoralize people, as well as distract them from actions that pose genuine threats to our well-being. It's good to see this explained.