Gray States

The Omnivore was invited to a Facebook page that is devoted to having anyone from across the political spectrum air their views in a mature, respectful fashion that is intended to be devoid of personal attacks or trolling--and is supposed to foster not only debate--but actual thought--possibly with the intention towards changing minds through a rational respectful process.

The Omnivore is sad to report that this is doomed.

Oh--It's A Good Idea . . .

The idea of "purple states" (the name of the FB Page, as well) is that if we can just come together--talk seriously about our issues and perspectives--then maybe we can sort out our differences--our country's growing partisan divide.

This sounds like a good idea--and would be one The Omnivore supports.

But it's doomed.

The problem is that the partisan divide isn't based on policy or politics or any of the stuff that you could sit down and talk out. No--the core of Trumpism--which has taken over the right, like a virus (a media virus, to be precise, spread through, originally, Fox News--but with new and more virulent strains like OANN and NRA TV) is not based on policy or politics.

It's based on a platform of revenge--redress for the cultural humiliation that Trumpians believe they have experienced at the hands of "elites" and "journalists" and "lefties, socialists, or academics."

What do you manage to "sort out" or "come together on" when what the other person wants is you to be humiliated in the same way "they were."

This is an especially hard question when the original wrong-doing was more or less invented by people trying to grift their targets for viewers, votes, and profits.

The Right-Wing Victimization Machine

If there was an original sin, it was the media refusing to tell the Republican side of the story--after--well after--the Republican side of the story had drifted far enough from "a reasonable take" and into "heavy duty spin and propaganda."

This split, which The Omnivore will place around the Gingrich years (although you can trace backwards and forwards as necessary for your counter-argument) resulted in the creation and rise of Fox News. It was explicitly willing to carry water for Republicans--and, as such adopted a captive audience that grew more and more entrenched over time.

It also turned on the feelings of victimization and being bullied by The Left. In Fox-World the noble conservative is derided as a bigoted idiot--a millstone around the neck of America--by the actually-evil powers that be (closet communist, out and proud socialists, champions of North Korea, etc.).

This, it turned out, was very good for viewership. It was good for profits. It was great for the political connections between Fox and the GOP. It created some superstars like Hannity and Glenn Beck--on cable where, before the medium was AM Talk Radio.

When Obama was elected--and especially after his second election--Fox (and its growing cohort of explicitly political right-wing media sites) exploited its viewers unease, latent (or, in many cases, overt--see Fox News Comments) racism, and a sense of loss of place that they felt seeing a person who they had been told was a crypto-Muslim-anti-Patriot in the Oval Office.

Fox and the Republicans played up a massive list of "scandals" which they continuously tried to pin on the administration--and which, each of them, failed entirely to be the silver-bullet that would take Obama down.

The lack of traction these scandals got in the rest of the media was seen as proof positive that The Press was in league with The Left--and thus the divide in trust of the media grew larger and larger (we see the reverse with the very real scandals that Trump has and the right-wing's press refusal to engage them on any serious level).

By this time, conservatives were told--and because of their previous media-capture, were convinced--that "the rest of the world was out to get them." This, along with embedded messages of disdain and disgust that "Liberals allegedly felt" (and, of course, as racist messages were played up and played upon, became more and more legitimate) created a sense of humiliation that deeply hurt the conservatives who felt that they were the underdogs in America--the picked on minority--the scapegoats.

Now, well, now it's their turn.

They're in charge--and, of course, they're making a mess of everything because instead of being the noble patriots, by this time, their governing philosophy is based of incoherent lies (see the "much better replacement for Obamacare" that Trump promised), inexplicable xenophobia (see: illegal immigration is at a historic low and this is considered a multi-billion-dollar crisis for which Trump must seize the government or else lose the country), and pandering to aggrieved racists (see Steve King, "very fine people on both sides," and the rise of the alt-right).

So What Does Dialog Achieve?

So about this Facebook Page--what is supposed to happen? What happens with the Trumpian sits down with the non-Trumpian and they really talk . . . and really listen? Well, you find out that the Trumpian has got some . . . ideas. What are they? Oh--let's see.

• America First: The suffering / trauma of children is meaningless--because they are not Americans (as such, if we can blame their parents for bringing them here, it is just fine to traumatize them).
• America Alone: It is great to seek closer relationships with Russia--even though they are geopolitical enemies of us--because it upsets the smug liberal elites. America and Russia will not work together to make the world a better place--they will not defend American interests--but we should court them because for too long have we been in alliances where the American right was not well respected.
• America Is A White Nation: In this view it is completely acceptable to be actually scared about the expansion of non-white people in America.  The reasons for this abound (and have "NOTHING TO DO WITH RACISM")--but we can see the pervasive unease in demographic changes.
• Truth Is Lies: In this world, the statements of military experts (including General Mattis) that the Iran anti-nuclear deal was working are just liberal lies. North Korea is on its way to disarming. ISIS is completely defeated! In this world the media is a scheming communist/socialist combine designed only to present propaganda. Nothing can be trusted. Everything is suspect.
• Conspiracy Theory Is Truth: The adjunct to this is that if the media is made of lies then under the surface may lurk dark currents of malevolence. The FBI is run by a cabal of Clintonites that register (and serve for years as) Republicans--but then become a praetorian guard when, finally, True Conservatives reach the White House. Dissenters are assassinated (Seth Rich), and so on. The degree of penetration of these lies varies (was Trump wiretapped? "Wiretapped," illegally unmasked, legitimately unmasked--but with nefarious political overtones, etc.?) but the vein of conspiratorial thinking remains--and is pervasive through the right-wing media and the administration itself.

A Conclusion

When you encounter these--even if they are dressed up in a nice suit and a smiling face, what are you supposed to do? Where do you compromise or seek unity? When you find out that, in the right-wing constellation, everyone who is not for Trump is against conservatives, what do you do? 

What does this dialog and openness show you and achieve? When the emotional engine behind Trumpism (and, to varying degrees, people who still find themselves aligned with the GOP for various internal tribal reasons) is seeking redress for imagined humiliation, where are you going to end up?

That's an exercise The Omnivore leaves to the reader.