Reflections on the capitol
Like most of us yesterday, I sat with my smartphone in hand, eyes glued to the disturbing scenes and news updates about the unrest in the capitol. I wish it was the first incidence of violence under the Trump administration but that is, as we all know, far from the truth. I turned to social media to see the same sorts of messages — status posts, instagram stories, and more — shared by my friends and acquaintances online. Most — if not all — told the same story of outrage and anger. There were many statements of “Unfriend me if you are a Trump supporter”, and variations of “Trump is an autocrat and dangerous man.” There were posts about “Now do you believe that racism is an issue in our country?” There were posts reflecting on the different treatment of the police toward white vs. African American protestors. There were posts validating the necessity of the BLM movement. And as I sat, mindlessly liking these posts that I felt acknowledged a shared desire for a better vision of America, and a pathway forward to that vision, I felt validated in my outrage and anger. However, I also felt slightly unsettled.
My mind turned toward the Social Dilemma, this new Netflix documentary that I had watched a couple months ago. It was a show that broadly covered the impact of technology and social media on our lives. In a rather dystopian way, the documentary depicted how the forces of technology often contribute to a growing divisiveness in America, through enabling the emergence of echo chambers on social media. Technology has made it much easier for extremist ideas and fake news to spread and cultivate among a shared population. After all, that’s how this group of protestors coordinated their organized attack in DC yesterday.
Reflecting on my own social media feed, however, I began to recognize the same problem of echo chambers. Here I was, a college-educated social liberal — and my social media feed was filled with mostly college-educated liberals. If I even had Trump supporters as friends, it would probably only be a few. These same people I saw in my circle expressing their outrage (rightfully so) were directing this message to their circles that likely shared the exact same viewpoint as them. While there is value in validating our shared outrage, I realized that the people to whom our messages would likely benefit from were the people that we were choosing not to associate through unfriending them or people we weren’t even able to reach through our platforms. Essentially, we were in some version or another, preaching to the choir. And the other side of America — the side we call racist and bigoted and violent — are also doing the exact same things on their social media platforms.
As our group grows increasing more anti-racist, more aware of inequality, police brutality, fascist America, the dangers of Trump, and other relevant issues, we become more secluded in our own “version of America.” Of course, this is the version of America I believe in and support. But it does nothing to heal the extreme polarization of our nation — which, needs to be addressed if we ever want to prevent future incidents like the one yesterday from happening. My problem is not with performative wokeness, per-se, for I’m sure many of my friends geniunely are worried and stressed for the sake of our nation’s future. I am sure that there may be a few Trump supporters or racist individuals we reach through our online platforms too. And I am not removed from the issue either — I, too, have made statements online in light of distressing past events in our nation, typically to an audience that shares my views.
But what I’ve come to better realize is that events like yesterday keep happening. Improving policy, electing better officials, organizing in communities, donating to organizations, writing, etc. are of course all ways that we can help on an individual level. And social media can be a positive vehicle to promote that kind of change through sharing opportunities or coordinating group efforts. However, I also think circulating ideas online about “Educating yourself” are ineffective in actually reaching the target audience you want to reach, and could manifest as examples of virtue signaling and moral superiority that the other side has seized upon as examples of the “problematic left.” Mostly everyone I know around me is willingly trying to better educate themselves, myself included, about racism and other issues in America.
I don’t think it’s wrong to profess outrage about these issues. And I think sharing this sense of outrage has certain value. But I worry about the two views of America that are increasingly unable to even speak, let alone understand, each other. Because Trump supporters are still going to be here after he leaves office. What if he tries running for office again? And worse, what if he wins? Trump is just the symptom of a bigger issue: the fracturing of America. He is the leader that misguided unhappy and dissatisfied Americans can gather around. Personally, I’m still trying to figure out what the root issues are for these Trump Americans. So in writing this, I’m not claiming to be an expert in these issues at all. But I think it points to a group that was once in the majority and now feels in the minority, a group that’s threatened by change, likely suffering from poverty or instability in their own lives, and yet with a sense of pride and superiority in their whiteness — because that’s the only thing in their lives they can derive pride from as they’re struggling to make ends meet. But again, I’m not claiming to know anything of expert knowledge. (There’s much smarter and better qualified people to talk to about that.)
Of course, I’m not advocating for being friends with Trump supporters — obviously, it can be bad for your mental health. What I’m more concerned with is the fact that we express outrage to people who already hold similar views to ourselves, which seems counterproductive to me. And I think that’s a bigger issue.
If you’ve taken the time out of your busy day to read to this point, thanks for that. If your next question happens to be, “Okay, so enough with the preaching — what is the solution then?”, I would have to tell you that I’m still trying to figure that out myself. On an individual level, I think recognizing the problem with divisiveness itself is a start, along with the complexity of everything. On a policy level, I think Trump has exploited these American’s fears and seized on a scapegoat (such as immigrants, the left) to blame, similar to how Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany’s problems. But if we can design policy to address the problems that his supporters face — unemployment, poverty , I think that would be beneficial. Again, however, I do not profess to have a lot of expertise in policy-making; only that I think policy in this direction would be useful.
While it may not be “flashy” to talk about echo chambers and bipartisanship, especially in light of yesterday, I think its an important issue. I’m not calling to be best friends with someone across the aisle, but I do think there’s a need to try and communicate our message to people unlike ourselves, who need to hear it. And the best way is to do that is to understand where they’re coming from, so they can better understand us.
