The panic in her voice was evident. Elahe Izadi of The Washington Post podcast was asking — pleading really — with Congressman Jamie Raskin to explain why the January 6 hearings weren’t “working”.
By working, what Izadi meant was having the ”shocking details” disclosed in the hearing by credible witnesses like Cassidy Hutchins to make “Trump’s baseless election claims… go… away”.
It’s a lovely image. Rabid MAGA Republicans (or vaccine deniers, racists and misogynists) exposed to the incontrovertible truth that who and what they believe in was wrong, withering with embarrassment and slinking away.
But it won’t happen that way, because you can’t convince all the people all the time — not about the preferability of democracy over autocracy, or the safety and efficacy of vaccines, or the full humanity of women, or anything else.
There have always been autocratic-leaning people — hard numbers are elusive but let’s call it 30% of a given population — who like worshipping at the altar of the politically and/or religiously powerful. To feel as one, accepted as part of a group with no other obligations but to loyally obey.
Izadi surely knows this, so why the panic?
My guess is that she, like so many millennials, has been spooked by her feed. The one friend she thought was just like her — responsive to fact, truth, reason, logic and every other mode of persuasion those who believe in the peaceful resolution of disputes hold dear — had turned out to be not like her at all.
Surely, we tend to think, that friend can’t be alone. If she can’t be reasoned with, there must be many more.
Actually, no. The view of one person tells you nothing about how many others in your friendship circle or larger society feel the same way.
Without turning into a tedious research methods lecturer — which I am — the content of your feed is a totally useless indicator of the presence or absence of denialists in your life and in your social world. To know that, you need representative surveys.
Which, when it comes to changes in Donald Trump’s level of support after the January 6 hearings, shows good news. There’s been growth in the number of Americans who believe the MAGA movement is threatening America’s democratic foundations (58%, according to Reuters) and whose change in allegiance has meant a majority of the country no longer wants Republicans to dominate Congress, preferring Democrats to be in control instead.
What this means is that the repetition and demonstration of fact over falsehood does work to persuade the persuadable. That’s why those who want to preserve democracy, to reduce transmission of infectious diseases, end sexism and misogyny need to keep repeating those facts.
And rely on them — not the loud-mouthed outlier in our feeds — to measure success.
“ the content of your feed is a totally useless indicator of the presence or absence of denialists in your life and in your social world. To know that, you need representative surveys.”
What also helps: being the person in your social circle who won’t freak out at deviations from the acceptable list of opinions that your friends generally have. Being the person who can calmly ask “so – why don’t you want a vaccination” or “what is it about immigration you don’t like” or “why do you think women can’t be programmers” – while understanding that you may not be able to change that opinion (certainly not in one shot!) but that you still may have common ground elsewhere.
Then you will know what your friends and neighbours actually think, not the sanitised for popular acceptability version.
A god idea. It might also make someone who has never really considered their opinion realise they are just repeating something they’ve heard.
Yes, there’s nothing like having to explain your position to someone who doesn’t agree with it, for making a person see their own blind spots
It’s worth reiterating that the discontent is core to the business model for the platforms Laslie is referring to–also incidentally some of the biggest companies in the world. It’s not merely that there is a stable contingent of people who don’t care about what is true, or have ideologically learned to ignore it, but also that social media amplifies discontent by being optimised to maximise engagement–for which outrage and discontent is the ultimate attention-grabber. This distorts platform users sense of norms
Also, belonging to “The Tribe” and the sense of loyalty that invokes is another motivator in belief systems.
Yes Roberto. This expands to the white western tribe versus the rest. There is always some reason (Supplied by a compliant media) to find and hate an enemy.
The problem with Ms Cannold’s articles about the USA is that she still assumes it’s a democracy. We know it’s not. It’s a plutocracy run by powerful billionaires and corporations. As Chris Hedges ( and he’s a Pulitzer Prize winner) says “ If voting in the USA could actually challenge power and make a difference, it wouldn’t be allowed.” As it is folks vote and, as the recent Stanford graph, shows the correlation between what voters want and what they get is stark. No correlation at all. So MAGA or Dems, as Lenny Cohen sang “ We all know the game is rigged “.
My first impression was that you have articulated a hard truth. But it also sounds like a council of despair. The MAGA Republicans with the repulsive Trump had a red hot go at a coup d’état. US democracy is even more corrupted than ours, but for the time being I’d rather see corporate Democrats edge the MAGA crowd out. In the mean time we can continue on supporting the sort of political vision that is demonstrated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders.
The numbers opposing the MAGA group are growing, so apparently there is reason for hope. Plenty of historical evidence suggests there is cause for concern (but not fear). Having waged a war of terror against their opponents, in the German election of1933, the Nazis only tallied 43.9 percent of the vote on their own, well short of a majority to govern alone. So they went into coalition with the ultra conservatives and the rest, as they say, is history.
One other thing. Hazadi said, “Not everyone is persuadable. But that doesn’t mean the truth isn’t winning.” What is meant by truth in this instance? Is there some wider truth beyond this instance?
Nice article and very timely. I just wish it was longer! You only have to look at all the noise created by the anti-vaxers in Australia to see how misleading social media can be. For a while there it seemed like there was a significant chunk of them in our society, with big enough numbers to affect political outcomes. In reality their movement achieved nothing at the last election. And as suggested in the article, the far right in the U.S. are now the loudest on social media and parts of the ‘mainstream’ media, but polls show most Americans are repulsed by them