Civics

Civic Geek: The NRA’s problems and the future

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

The Parkland student-inspired MarchForLife protests have certainly had an impact. The NRA’s image is obviously tarnished and American opinions on guns have changed. Those bodes ill for the NRA – but also gives us ideas to address other issues where financial interests work against our citizens.

First, let’s look at where the NRA is:

The Parkland Students Got Organized Got Attention

The Parkland students got organized, got attention, and got a protest. This has had an impact, and it’s not going away – even if it fades (and it may) it’s inspired people and gotten them organized.

Two things stand out here:

  • * They were articulate and sympathetic by basically being themselves.
  • * They kept focused (though obviously there’s interest in other issues).

It’s really, really hard to argue with articulate people making the human point “I’d like not to be shot in my classroom.” There’s a message and people you can connect with.

The NRA Went On The Attack

And it looked awful. The NRA’s entirely geared up to be an attack machine (it’s really a PAC) and it responded as it does. When no one backed down, of course, what else can they do? They came of looking unsympathetic and unrelatable (wheres the students were otherwise)

Which brings us to a big issue . . .

The NRA-Adjacent Are Worse

Christ, I couldn’t believe the amounts of personal attacks on the Parkland students from assorted “journalists,” bloggers, and media lack-of-personalities. I mean I expected some of this, but it was far more vicious, petty, and stupid than I expected.

Then you get to the real fringe groups, the people looking for crisis actors and connections to pizza cults. They’ve already easily created or internalized various insane narratives. These both feed more “mainstream” journalists as well as self-reinforcing their own delusions.

The people towing the NRA line, the “NRA-Adjacent” look far worse – and that rubs off on the NRA. I have enough trouble telling Dana Loesch’s rants from someone on Twitter with six followers.

Which means that these people, when they look bad, make the NRA look bad EVEN IF THE NRA WERE TO GO QUIET. Since they can’t shut up, their activities are going to keep making the NRA look bad.

The NRA-Adjacent Are Vulnerable

Look at how fast Laura Ingrham apologized for mocking David Hogg when people went after her advertisers. Consumer revolt is not only helpful – it points out hypocrisy, viciousness, and provides publicity.

Remember how many people make a living providing punditry, and saying whatever pays.

There’s More To Dig Up

The NRA accepts foreign donations and has admitted it. There’s been suspicions for awhile about how they act as a kind of PAC/money laundering operation, and connections to Russia. They’ve got enough questions that additional public scrutiny isn’t going to e good for them.

Now they get to have it. When they and their adjacent advocates can’t shut up while they attack teenagers who don’t want to get shot.  We’re probably seeing a self-exciting system.

What We Can Learn

So what does this teach us about modern politics? It gives us some ideas of how to take on various corrupt groups and government officials – because they often fit the same pattern. They’re beliigerent, only know how to attack, have a “halo” of even more extreme believers, and there’s always something more to dig up.

Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. This means:

  • Be sincere and human.
  • Use the media.
  • Build focused movements.
  • Don’t give in to the attackers, but expect attacks.
  • Let those “adjacent” to corrupt organizations make the organizations look worse.
  • Be sure to use consumer boycotts and awareness against those adjacent to corruption.
  • When you have belligerent corrupt organizations and politicians, there’s usually more dark secrets to dig up.

These Parkland students didn’t just give us advocacy on gun rationality; they point to other ways to take on corruption in the system.

– Steve

Civic Geek: The Enemy Problem

by

One of the major problems, perhaps the problem, of American politics is the need for enemies.

This pretty much defines popular “conservative” thought, soaked and saturated in media methods and conspiracy theories.  It’s all about how things would be better except for “those people” – which of course means people who promise to fight “those people” can clean up with legislation, nepotism, favors, and contracts.

But when your whole life is about fighting “those people” with the assumption everything will be magically fixed when they’re defeated (and they’re never defeated because you’ll find new enemies) then you build nothing.  The “fight those people” mentality strip-mines the soul and the culture, until only the battle is left – and the people making bank off of it.  It’s a terribly meaningless attitude.

Way back when Bush Junior was president, I was concerned that he’d too easily become the Hated Enemy, and that dealing with his bad policies (and seeking good policies) would be obscured by people just hating the man.  This did not happen, fortunately, though part of it was probably how fast his previous allies tried to forget him.  I am concerned Trump may end up the bogeyman, even if he is, honestly, an incredibly shitty president and human being.

The key thing in this country – in any civilization – is building, strengthening, and connecting social institutions and people’s connections.  From education to social behaviors, building is what makes us who we are.

Building also provides us real satisfaction.  You can’t be satisfied endlessly looking for someone to fight in the vague hope some day life is better.  This gives us meaning.

A challenge – a true challenge – in America is to get to a building mentality first.  We have to balance that with dealing with a truly terrible administration and its enablers.

A further challenge is to propagate this “builder mentality” so it spreads.  Without it, even the most enlightened and forward-thinking society is endlessly fighting manipulated, angry people all the time.

  • Steve

 

Civic Diary: Conflict And Construction

by

Well, got behind on a lot of these.  So I’m back at it 😉

Anyway, my latest Civic Geek thoughts have been on the issues of conflict in American politics.  Bluntly, a lot of our politics is about looking for enemies.  This tends to be on the “Conservative” side of things (whatever “Conservative” even means any more), but we see it on the Liberal side at times.

Americans often fall for the delusion that if we “just get rid of X” then everything is OK.  Of course this is wrong; it takes a lot of work to make a society run, but ask yourself how many times people fall for this mindset?

If you focus so much on getting rid of something, you never do the work to build a working society.  You don’t improve things.  You don’t fix things.  You don’t try new things.  You don’t grow yourself.

Worse, that even assumes that “Getting rid of X” actually solves the problem.  How many times have people been told “THOSE people” are the issue and of course, the real issue was the bastard telling you to “get rid of those people” while he picks your pockets or sells you out.

So even when “X” is a problem, you have to focus on making sure you have a working society.  In fact, that working society, like a healthy immune system, might prevent any actual bad thing from doing as much damage.  It might keep similar problems from arising.

You have to work to make yourself – and your society – strong.  Preventing actual bad things is done this way, and is far easier than fixing problems after they start.

This is one concern I have in the age of Trump, which in some ways is George Bush II magnified.  Bluntly, I think Trump is the worst president in American History, and we’re going to be paying for the damage for decades.  Trump embodies the “X is the problem” mindset, but dealing with him can lead people to too easily thinking once he’s out of office, everything’s OK.

It isn’t.  If he got there, there’s a problem, which seems kinda obvious.

Good Civic Participation should focus on making a strong social and political system.  Good Civic Participation is about a diverse system that ensures a functional, grounded society, since participation is citizenship.

We’re going to have a lot of lessons in psychology in the years to come.