Just A Thought — Friday Rants

Thanks for coming to my Friday Rant.

Many liberals and some progressives seem to believe that other progressives and leftists "don't understand how government / policy works"

And in some cases this is correct. And in the case of desperate people, especially so. Why would they be bothered with the intricate details of how "government works" when they are wondering how to keep their home or feed themselves and put gas in the car / get to work, pay their absurd copay, etc?

On the other hand liberals and some progressives that say this don't seem to understand how politics work, how marketing and human behaviour is manipulated.

Sure, you may win some temporary or small gains in the short term...sort of...maybe. But you lose the longer game, which is not even that long. Even when you manage 1/2 step forward, buried and built in that step is taking 2 steps back 1 or 2 years later. Bandaid one crisis with the seeds of another crisis.

How do people think the Overton Window was shoved so far to the right its falling off a cliff? Some of that is just straight high quality marketing, manipulation, and propaganda from the right.

...and some of it is ceding to that same right for 4 decades, year after year, giving in a little at a time, giving nom nom yummy nutrients that are used to fuel the rightist marketing machine.

Those libs and some¹ progs think we are being impractical or idealistic or lacking in pragmatism. Yet I am fairly certain the inverse is true.

To believe you will "win the argument" via tedious¹ complex logic and facts is to misunderstand what wins the argument for people that are increasingly desperate for their material conditions to improve. It is believing you can persuade someone at the bottom rungs of the hierarchy of needs to make decisions and prioritize based on the thinking that comes of the upper rungs of that hierarchy where those more basic needs are being met comfortably or at all or in some range of comfort.

Anyway…just a thought.

¹to be clear I enjoy the tediousness, but I’m an outlier and just lucky. And yet it *is* tedious compared to sticky zingers for example.