Discovered by their own clicks on social media, people click on what they fear and expect most. The five wedge issues abortion, guns, immigration, race, and climate are the most common, but big data gives us access to hundreds more.
These trigger points become part of an algorithm that puts fear, anger and hate right in front of us as many as 10,000 times a day, both subtly and overtly.
The avalanche of trigger messages transforms everyday people from conscious beings capable of thought and deliberation to useful idiots manipulated into conformity with a mob. A red mob that fears blue Americans because they hate life, freedom, white men and America. And blue idiots who hate red Americans because they hate women, love violence, hate immigrants, love white people, and hate justice. All of which makes them love America.
Most of these red and blue Americans aren't idiots by nature. The idiot is a part of them, deeply buried in their back brains. But they all have a frontal cortex that enables them to think more deeply so long as they aren't being triggered. But deep thought is not consistent with the interests of power brokers. They thrive on fear, anger, and hate.
They're useful idiots, create risk for their clients and profits for them, except perhaps for the power brokers themselves, who are few in number but stand at the toll gate of democracy.
We would all be far better off using our conscious, aware brains than succumbing to Imal triggers let's face it, we're all part-time idiots, useful and otherwise, rather than condemning each other.
The way out of this dilemma is to work together in the knowing faith that we all bring value to the table. And when we engage in honest, deliberative democracy, we don't need the power brokers to pay the vested interests with our money to serve us poorly.
A small number of us the number needed to be the margin of victory in competitive elections can shift the balance of power back to thoughtful, engaged citizens across the broad center and redefine the terms within which political power brokers and vested interests play for our money and power.
A small number of us the number needed to be the margin of victory in competitive elections can shift the balance of power back to thoughtful, engaged citizens across the broad center and redefine the terms within which political power brokers and vested interests play for our money and power.
So they serve us in order to serve themselves. That's the way democracy can be. It doesn't take many of us and it doesn't take much work, but it does take resolve, commitment and the boldness to Act.