Jefferson Ekranoplan

How interesting that as I was searching for the proper tag for what I want to do here (the blockquote one) that I last used it in a post about blame.

I have discovered that, like probably a whole lot of other people, I am absolutely terrified of being blamed. This probably is a result of what I'm realizing is growing up in an environment where change was mostly motivated by using shame... if something is going sideways, I want to for the LOVE OF GOD make sure it's not my fault. If you want to tell me some bad news, up to and including direct criticism, you can make it go down a lot easier with me if you make certain I know that you're not blaming me; another less grown-up way of looking at is just make sure I know it's not my fault; unless it is my fault, in which case make sure I know you're not angry with me; unless you are, in which case make sure I know you still love me.

Anyway, on to the article that started me thinking about this.

Okay, I have to say some stuff about Trump voter schadenfreude:
A little bit of it is cathartic. But in general I'm actually really worried that it's going way too far and eroding our empathy.
Here's how it happens:
1 - Horrible things are coming, and we feel helpless to stop them.
2 - When we feel helpless, we want to take out those feelings
3 - To cope, we look at our neighbors (whose actions helped cause them) and who will also be suffering / often be suffering first, and feel smug about it, because at least that's somethign. We start going, "welp shit, we're all fucked, but at least you're fucked too haha."
The thing is that there is an increasingly fine line between the justice-satisfaction of, "Well, they are finally seeing some consequences" and the coping-contempt of celebrating someone else's suffering.
And I see an increasing fraction of my progressive world moving toward the latter, this is what I have to say:
YOU NEED TO REALIZE THAT THIS EXACTLY FEELING IS WHERE "LIBERAL TEARS" COMES FROM.
On average, rural and low-income Trump voters have felt helpless, disenfranchised, and facing inevitable doom for much longer. Living in areas long economically abandoned, they have been staring down the barrel of an ever shittier future.
Someone told them it was progressives' and immigrants' and queer people and pro-diversity people's fault. That part is false.
But faced with this SAME feeling of helplessness we're confronting now, THEY all got sucked deep into the rabbit hole of "Well, nothing is going to make anything better, but at least screw the libs".
And that is way, way, way too close to what we're all saying now. Nobody can make it better anymore, so at least screw the conservatives.
THIS IS HOW SOCIETAL FABRIC DIES.
We are just the SECOND wave being hit by the same playbook.
We cannot control what politicians do. But we CAN control what each of us do. And WE HAVE TO hold the line that we want a generative world with less suffering for everyone regardless of who they are.
Now, I'm NOT saying that we should spend active empathy on conservatives when vulnerable people being targeted by them need it 100x more.
What I'm saying is that when they go low, we should also go kind of low, but there is a floor past which we must not cross. And that floor is taking emotional solace in another person's suffering.
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And here's another take: I think it is very, very, very dangerous (and morally wrong) for us to believe that progressives somehow have a fundamentally different psychological constitution than conservatives and that we cannot fall for the same misinformation and emotional manipulation they can.
First, because it keeps us from recognizing the ways (like the above) in which it is happening right now.
Second because an important skill in surviving fascism is understanding our limitations. Almost anyone's values can be changed, converted, brainwashed, scammed-- with the right incentives and messages and people and time. We cannot plan to make a long-term stand for what we believe in if we don't understand the thousand ways that the coming world CAN erode it.
Third, because it's dehumanizing. Yes, it's upsetting that millions of people voted for Trump, but there is NOTHING that millions of humans do that doesn't have its own good reason in there. To believe in the strict inferiority of any group that large is imperialism.
Fourth, because it's hubris. We often underestimate how much they have been hit by propaganda harder and longer than we have.
And again, here, I don't mean that we should spend limited resources to include those who have broken the social contract of inclusion themselves. I just mean that any answer to the question, "Why?" that is not rooted in curiosity and empathy is not a true answer.
---
There is a saying when dealing with abusive people that I really wish was more popular. It's, when you know someone is being abusive to you, don't JADE.
JADE stands for Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain.
In other words, when someone is being toxic and abusive to you, don't SPEND your own effort trying to change THEIR mind.
Instead, recognize that your own swirling about the injustice and hypocrisy is actually part of the POINT of the abuse and the very distraction that makes it possible. Just step out of the swirl altogether, realize you're never going to be on the same page, and move on with guarding your own wellbeing.
Trump voter schadenfreude is an indirect form of JADE.
It's us saying, "Fuuuuuuckkk will they EVER UNDERSTAND?!!!!! what they did to all of us??!" and somehow hoping that, if not the actual conservative themselves, then at least some hidden objective narrator/audience of the story, sees and validates what we've been saying all along.
It's a reaction that comes from being gaslit, ignored, misinterpreted, and otherwise abused for so long; that we can't have nice things anymore, but we can at least feel like we were right.
But validation is not coming, and the Trump voters will never understand the story in our way, and there is no third party narrator.
The only narrators are us.
The story is the story we are telling today.
We are the people who will save ourselves.
And that means that the people who save us will be the people we are choosing to be.
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Edit: Because this post is going around more than I expected, I want to make an important clarification:
I'm not saying 'we should give conservatives our empathy because all humans deserve to receive empathy'-- I'm saying we should not let the cruelty of others goad us into cultivating bile in our own hearts.
In addition to withholding our positive energy, we should also keep them from sucking in our negative energy. The only real way to leave abusers is to emotionally disconnect from the swirl altogether and live well; to not let their actions shape the language of our emotions and instead live the inner emotional palette that's true to us. ---from FB username J Li

[now for how I processed this in the moment, and made it more palatable for a wider audience]

Look, I get it. I GET it. Fuck those voters who put us here... but. Just like the OP says: "Now, I'm NOT saying that we should spend active empathy on conservatives when vulnerable people being targeted by them need it 100x more." BUT the flip side of that coin is don't spend active antipathy on broke-ass people who are guilty of succumbing to propaganda, which could happen TO ANY OF US. If you must cultivate your ire to survive, don't spend that precious resource on anyone making less than a million a year.

I know I'm very tempted to find someone, anyone, to blame for The Horrors. For me, finding blame is something I scramble to do when I'm feeling ungrounded and out-of-control, and I'm looking for anything to grab onto to help me feel more in control. It's kind of a first-response reaction that is more about my feelings than any facts. And while the feelings get to speak all they want, letting my feelings drive the car has gotten me into trouble a lot in my life. I want to have someone to feel mad at. I need to figure out whose fault it is, so I can feel reassured that I didn't somehow bring this on myself. It's all about me, so it's important to me- but it's not a relevant, reasonable solution to the problem here.

"What I'm saying is that when they go low, we should also go kind of low, but there is a floor past which we must not cross. And that floor is taking emotional solace in another person's suffering." Understanding that my feeeeeeling is that I'd dearly love go back in time and kick Ronald Reagan in the nuts hard enough to launch him into orbit, I only want to have enough ire in me to save for a few key figures. To run this marathon, I need to save my soul/heart/emotional landscape/whateveryouwanttocallit from the bitter acid that holding active anger for several million people would do to me. 99% of those assholes are for all intents and purposes in the same boat as I am. I need to focus what little energy I can on those big targets.