I was saying to someone the other day, in a moment of uncharacteristic pessimism, that our whole situation in the United States is a bit ‘daunting’ at the moment.
It’s hard to see how we can collectively back away from the hostage situation we find ourselves in. It seems to me that a small group of nutty extremists have a worrisomely strong grip on normally fairly reasonable people, keeping them quiet and afraid to speak their actual conscience. Those that are free of this grip appear to be the exception, and understandably so in many ways. The harassment and threats they have endured, and continue to face, is appalling. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
But the fact is that it’s easy for any of us to slip into that quiet and afraid space and assume all the people around you are scary, trigger-happy, conspiracy theorists. And at that moment, we all unintentionally put ourselves on mute.
Another friend of mine, when I was talking about this, said (and I’m paraphrasing): “Well the thing to remember is what we encounter day-to-day. Our neighbors and the grocery clerk and the lawn guy and so on. These are not the people making the news, but they are the real people.”
And of course that IS exactly the point. It’s where the majority of our attention should go, because these are the majority of people. We may not agree with or vote the same as our neighbor or our lawn guy, but we’re still all ‘regular’ people, who need not be afraid of one another. Our conversation with each other matters.
The nut jobs, however vocal and boisterous, are NOT the majority of people - not even close. They are a tiny minority whose voices are being given an outsized platform. Yes, some of them are dangerous and reasonable caution is warranted, but for the rest, even those in powerful positions, shouting is just air.
And here’s the thing: we don’t even have to shout back to drown them out. We can just unmute ourselves and talk normally. Because there are many, many, many more of us than there are of them.
100%
And, right now it feels like the nut jobs are winning. :-(