{"id":52991,"date":"2025-02-24T18:19:18","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T18:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/metta\/?p=52991"},"modified":"2025-03-07T20:10:41","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T20:10:41","slug":"using-the-power-of-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/metta\/2025\/02\/using-the-power-of-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Using the power of truth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<a id='kmJ5gfv8TRt5eirswLIo4A' class='gie-single' href='http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2197852618' target='_blank' style='color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;'>Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'kmJ5gfv8TRt5eirswLIo4A',sig:'U3-c64YKVaYkYUh576Ax40C_8JP-9TPhr0hylCM7JdU=',w:'594px',h:'395px',items:'2197852618',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There has been a great deal of political analysis of Trump\u2019s reelection and what it means. While largely helpful, I think that analysis needs to go two steps deeper \u2014 from the political to the social\/cultural and from the social\/cultural to the human \u2014 if we are to understand his appeal, despite so many clear drawbacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To begin, President Trump is too astute a manipulator of the public unconscious for it to be a coincidence that in virtually every photo where he is not smirking, he is scowling. This is a clear departure, at least on one level, from an otherwise mentor, Ronald Reagan. Still, Reagan, was also a master of anger and humiliation, as when he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/online\/this-is-how-ronald-reagan-dealt-with-uc-berkeley-protestors-in-1969\/\">scolded faculty at my university<\/a> for allowing student protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Much more concerning, however, is Trump\u2019s copping of Hitler&#8217;s style and playbook. As one <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/world\/fbi-finds-largest-explosive-cache-on-a-virginia-farm\/ar-AA1wMuk1\">right-wing violent advocate<\/a> recently boasted, \u201cNo lives matter.\u201d This is the essence of fascism. Recall Orwell\u2019s characterization of totalitarianism: \u201ca boot stamped on a human face forever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This prediction has been there all along. Remember Trump\u2019s rallying cry in 2016 was \u201cDrain the swamp.\u201d Do you know where he got that image? I didn\u2019t, until <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/author\/timothy-w-ryback\/\">Timothy Ryback in <em>The Atlantic<\/em><\/a> recently noted that Hitler had once \u201ccampaigned on the promise of draining the \u2018parliamentarian swamp\u2019 \u2014 den\u00a0parlamentarischen\u00a0Sumpf.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You might also recall the more direct reference from Trump\u2019s earlier campaign, when he reportedly said: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/politics\/donald-trump-campaign-denies-i-need-the-kind-of-generals-hitler-had-comement\/ar-AA1sMjty\">I need the kind of generals Hitler had<\/a>.\u201d The point is not that he resembles Hitler, but that he would <em>boast<\/em> about it. That is scary, and it works: Some voters, despite making the comparison between Trump and Hitler, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/trump-hitler-pennsylvania\/\">voted for him anyway<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not to be outdone, Vice President J.D. Vance, while speaking at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month, scolded the German delegation for censoring Alternativ f\u00fcr Deutschland, the far-right party accused of neo-Nazi ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t#newsletter-block_620c8d9106deba535dcb74e35987db59 {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ececec;\n\t\t\t\tcolor: #000000;\n\t\t}\n\t\t#newsletter-block_620c8d9106deba535dcb74e35987db59 #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL {\n\t\t\t\tborder-color:#000000 !important;\n\t\t\t\tcolor: #000000 !important;\n\t\t}\n<\/style>\n<div id=\"newsletter-block_620c8d9106deba535dcb74e35987db59\" class=\"newsletter px-4 pt-4 pb-2 text-center mb-4\">\n    <div class=\"newsletter-block\">\n        <h3 class=\"newsletter-block\">Sign Up for our Newsletter<\/h3>\n        <p class=\"newsletter-description\">We&#8217;ll send you a weekly email with the latest articles.<\/p>\n        <div class=\"newsletter-form-wrapper\">\n          <div id=\"mc_embed_signup_front\" class=\"py-3 w-100\">\n  <form action=\"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.us2.list-manage.com\/subscribe\/post?u=f279f100fef8b39c61c33aef1&amp;id=615747eb15\" method=\"post\" id=\"mc-embedded-subscribe-form\" name=\"mc-embedded-subscribe-form\" class=\"validate\" target=\"_blank\" novalidate>\n    <div id=\"mc_embed_signup_scroll\">\n      <div class=\"mc-field-group input-group\">\n        <input type=\"email\" value=\"\" name=\"EMAIL\" class=\"required email form-control\" placeholder=\"Email Address\" id=\"mce-EMAIL\">\n        <div class=\"input-group-append\">\n          <input type=\"submit\" value=\"Subscribe\" name=\"subscribe\" id=\"mc-embedded-subscribe\" class=\"d-flex btn btn-sm btn-yellow\">\n        <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n      <!-- real people should not fill this in and expect good things - do not remove this or risk form bot signups-->\n      <div style=\"position: absolute; left: -5000px;\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n        <input type=\"text\" name=\"b_f279f100fef8b39c61c33aef1_79af2f1e5e\" tabindex=\"-1\" value=\"\">\n      <\/div>\n      <div id=\"mce-responses\" class=\"clear\">\n        <div class=\"response\" id=\"mce-error-response\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n        <div class=\"response\" id=\"mce-success-response\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n  <\/form>\n<\/div>        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For full disclosure, while I am ethnically Jewish and grew up as the Holocaust was ravaging Europe, I lived a relatively safe existence, unaware until years afterwards how many of my distant relatives had perished. Then, as now, I was not so much frightened \u2014 an emotional state \u2014 as at risk, which is an objective condition. Now that condition is more real for me in America than it was then; indeed, how can anyone be safe from this regime\u2019s violence?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One way to explain how Kamala Harris lost the election is that she appealed to reason, while Trump appealed to emotion \u2014 namely fear. This played to our widespread insecurity, which is partly based on very real dangers like climate and conflict. At the same time, reason has been usurped by (raw) emotion as the determinant of voting choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2025\/02\/american-loneliness-personality-politics\/681091\/\">recent article in <em>The Atlantic<\/em><\/a> summed up what I\u2019m calling the social\/cultural dimension very well, reflecting on the loss of community brought on, among other things, by social media: \u201cAll of this\u00a0time alone, at home, on the phone, is not just affecting us as individuals. It\u2019s making society weaker, meaner, and more delusional\u2026practicing politics alone, on the internet, rather than in community isn\u2019t only making us more likely to demonize and alienate our opponents, though that would be bad enough. It may also be encouraging deep nihilism.\u201d This takes us right back to \u201cNo lives matter.\u201d Clearly, the road back to democracy begins with a recovery of what it means to be a human being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With that in mind, it\u2019s not necessarily bad news that Trump won by appealing not so much to reason (where he would not have much to go on) but emotion. It doesn\u2019t speak well of our political maturity as a society \u2014 which may have been obvious \u2014 but it does define the grounds on which we can meet and overcome this challenge: not by reason, though we can build up to that, but emotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s clear that Trump has an enormous advantage: an entire culture of nihilism at his back. This is worth more than Musk\u2019s billions and the media\u2019s betrayal of our democracy. Despite appearances, though, this overriding cultural meme is on shaky ground. <em>Lives matter<\/em>. We know that; science knows that. The degradation of our human image is based on ignorance, and ignorance can be cured by knowledge. We don\u2019t have the media, and we don\u2019t have the billions, but we have truth. We have one truth in particular, and it\u2019s the one that can blow away the fog of nihilism: who we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are body, mind and <em>spirit<\/em> \u2014 pure consciousness, on which no limit can be set, no value. Education as we practice it does not tell us this; the almost limitless power of the mass media implicitly contradicts this, and the powerful evangelical movement implicitly denies it. But somehow, brave people who want to do good to the world are aware of it. See how it informed the vision of Martin Luther King, when he said that many Black people \u2028\u201clack sustenance for their bodies, education for their minds and meaning for their spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If this simple model \u2014 this profound but simple truth \u2014 were to become common knowledge the crabby politics of the new regime would not take hold. Even those who now espouse it might move on. Miracles have happened. They just take a lot of work; and that again is not entirely bad news. We can both act \u201cas if people mattered&#8221; and infiltrate the culture with the explanation of why we\u2019re in favor of democracy and why it works. There\u2019s an innate appeal to this message, strong enough to out-influence the media and the billions. We have Gandhi\u2019s Truth on our side. Let\u2019s use it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The road back to democracy begins with a recovery of what it means to be a human being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":52992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[35,56,95],"region":[],"series":[],"article_type":[],"class_list":["post-52991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-gandhi","tag-martin-luther-king","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.2 (Yoast SEO v28.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Using the power of truth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The road back to democracy begins with a recovery of what it means to be a human being.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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