Saturday, November 18, 2023

Thought-filled advice for a scary moment

Teri Kanefield has "both a law degree and a master’s in fiction writing." She comments on the condition our condition is in.

The legal system and the criminal justice system cannot solve a political problem. However, it is important for people to understand the system and how it works. If people don’t understand it, they are more likely to get caught up in the misinformation-rage cycle.

Therefore I offer explainers. But because there are millions of people in what I have been calling the MSNBC-CNN-Left-Leaning-Social-Media-Information Bubble, my explanations reach only a tiny fraction of people, which means I am constantly bombarded with cynicism and anger and people demanding “hope.”

Hannah Arendt, the scholar who taught us all about totalitarianism, believed that hope is dangerous because it prevents people from taking courageous action. ...

Serving as a poll worker in 2024 takes courage.

... The problem with a desire for “confidence” is that people want confidence that someone else will do something to save democracy. Since 2020, a new and novel theory arose that goes like this: It is up to the Department of Justice to save democracy. We sit back and watch and hope they do it right and feel lots of anxiety if it looks like they are going to bungle it. ...

Nope. The burden is on us. The only “hope” I can offer is the fact that Democrats have been winning elections, Biden beat Trump by more than 4 percentage points in 2020, and Trump is more widely hated now....

The burden is on us, now more than ever.

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