Let’s Make October 5th “Pop the Bubble” Day
Time to step up against the fusillade of falsehoods
Most of us have them.
You know, those people who pop up on our social media feeds, subjecting us to messages and memes that remind us of their batshit craziness. These messages are followed by long comment strings of “Yep!!”s and “100 percent” emojis, and often vulgar deranged attacks on their go-to targets of vitriol along with all the rest of us “libtards.” To add “credibility” to their attacks, the posters often drop in a familiar right wing media platitude that further demonstrates both their disconnection from reality and their inability to spell.
It’s a hornet’s nest we dare not stir up. And so, with a sigh of mild exasperation, we remind ourselves of an uncomfortable truth: We know these people, and we are actually related to some of them. For the many of us who are not under the MAGA spell, the hardest part of the last decade is not the overwhelming presence of Donald Trump in our lives, but our loss of connection with friends, family and coworkers whose descent into an alternative reality has neither an explanation nor a resolution. We feel powerless, and we mostly are.
But powerlessness, when manifested as submission, can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our lack of dissent enables the bubbling cesspool of vulgarity and delusion that pushes any chance of constructive coexistence further beyond our reach. Our silence is a form of compliance, or as philosopher Edmund Burke is often (if erroneously) credited with saying, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Perhaps it is time for us to be better men (and women). As Vice President Kamala Harris’s mother said to her, and her to us, we must do something.
In our compliance of silence, the inhabitants of these alternative realities are shielded from the full range of factual inputs. They are ensconced in a right wing and social media bubble that reinforces their beliefs and discredits all others. But what if, one day, we all endeavored to pop that bubble?
On Pop the Bubble Day, we should join hands, hold our nose and jump into these social media cesspools. We would be armed with good faith and factually supported arguments that our wayward friends and family may not have been exposed to for several years. This could be a disruptive social media initiative on a mass scale; it likely won’t sway the majority of cesspool dwellers, but it might enlighten a few. And a few is not nothing.
I know what you’re thinking: Do I really want to expose myself to the inevitable abuse I’ll receive as the lone non-echo in the echo chamber? Consider this the social media equivalent of storming the beaches at Normandy (disclaimer -there is no actual equivalent to storming the beaches at Normandy). It might seem like a hard thing to do, but not in the context of those who actually gave their lives for freedom and democracy.
The “fight” I am proposing is our moment to step up and honor the sacrifices of our predecessors by firing the weapons of truthful arguments to beat back what threatens to be a very damaging fusillade of falsehoods.
Along with truth, we have another potent weapon to deploy as part of our invasion: Positivity.
Have you noticed how much darkness and negativity there is in those conversations we observe from a safe distance? It points to what has long been the emotional fuel behind MAGA: grievance. The implication of “Making America Great Again” is that America is not great. We are far from flawless, and there’s much work to do, but those who are trapped in their bubbles of shared grievance are shut off from any informational input that would expose them to the sunnier reality of American growth, prosperity and potential.
For the MAGA crowd, disaster is upon us and only Trump can fix it. Sure, there are still far too many people struggling in one way or another, but the trendlines are irrefutably positive. We can’t expect this to put smiles on their faces — the inertia of wallowing in their grievance and dismissing progress is powerful — but we’ll at least plant a seed of optimism in the minds of a few and perhaps displace some negative brainworms in the process.
So how do we do this? A few rules of engagement to consider:
Respectful dialogue. Resist the temptation to attack individuals and keep your gunsights trained on their arguments. This can be challenging, considering that you’ll be battling a cult-like dynamic in which their personal identities are often inseparable from their arguments and the love of their leader, meaning an attack on their argument is a personal attack on them. Many of them also believe the often-bizarre right-wing media caricatures of liberal people, and you must be one of them. We should do our best to transcend these prejudices and remind ourselves they are fellow humans.
Solid arguments. The misconceptions in the bubbles are easy to spot but not always easy to disprove, considering that one of their go-to arguments is that mainstream media and academia are conspiratorial partners who constantly lie to them.
There may be no way around this, but to give one example in which a key piece of basic information is missing from a common MAGA argument:
You’ve probably noticed a lot of people posting pictures of gas prices at $1.49/gallon (or similar) when Trump was president, thus laying blame on Biden for today’s higher gas prices. None of these posters reference the fact that the pandemic, and the resulting drop in demand for gasoline, was the cause of these plummeting gas prices. Simply referencing that historic reality is enough to deflate the argument.
Where possible, we should support our arguments with links to credible sources — those who adhere to journalistic reporting standards and are subject to ongoing fact checking and corroboration by other sources. There is plenty of data to work with that has likely never penetrated their bubble, for example, Inflation is going down. Unemployment continues to stay below 5%. Wages are up. Economic inequality is beginning to decline. Crime is down. Illegal border crossings are down.
Relentless Positivity. A Ted Lasso-like approach can be an empowering method of defusing negativity. Countering abuse with empathy is an act of strength that can neutralize personal attacks and begin to erode the dominant misconceptions so many have of liberals. An underlying context for us to keep in mind: We have far more in common with those in the bubble than that which divides us.
The majority of us want the same things in the end — we just believe in different paths to get there. Yes, there is a segment of zero-sum adherents, who believe that the success of MAGA is a function of the demise (and perhaps death!) of liberals. They may be a lost cause, or they just haven’t had the exposure to anything outside their bubble that might nudge them in a more enlightened direction.
If they love their country as they so often claim they do, then this is our chance to inject a positive dose of great American optimism and patriotism by reminding them of the motto of American exceptionalism: Out of many, one. This, we might gently note, is really how we “make America great again.”
Winning Hearts and Minds. If you have the right information, it’s easy to win an argument, but as we have learned, beating someone down with an empirically solid case is not the most effective means of changing a mind or winning a heart. People hold pride in their positions and their beliefs, and they will often stand by them simply to save face. All we can really do is lay out the facts with respect and positivity, and then it’s up to them to decide.
And that’s really the way it should be. We all have a need for self-determination, which means the most effective way to change someone’s mind is to let them reach their own conclusion. We should do what we can to create the safe space for such a transition, offering whatever acceptance and empathy we can muster, regardless of whether it is deserved. It is, admittedly, a strategy to take the higher ground, but one that makes it difficult for them to fall back on their misconceptions about liberals to justify their resistance. (Historic factoid: Getting to that higher ground was really hard in Normandy)
Okay, you’ve stepped into the cesspool, you’ve made your arguments, you’ve referenced sources, you’ve refuted falsehoods. How will know if you have won?
Ironically, when the replies are just a string of oppositional memes, I know I have made progress. Memes are like little shields that people hide behind because they have no remaining logical argument to make. Perhaps they think they are “owning the libs” with their memes because nothing could possibly be so clever and humiliating. This gives them the sense of satisfaction they need to deflect those inconvenient facts. I will then politely invite them to re-engage when they are ready to make a meme-free logical argument — a reply that usually triggers another meme.
Most importantly though, the act of sharing opposing arguments is a statement to those in the bubble that there is another reality out there that may not be what they think it is. That alone is positively disruptive — a bucket of disinfectant dropped into the cesspool, that may start a journey for some towards a broader, healthier exposure to alternative viewpoints.
And for us, it is both an act of patriotism, and, one might even say, courage: Engaging our fellow citizens in positive American discourse, unified in our good faith pursuit of a more perfect union.
October 5th, a Saturday, will be exactly one month before Election Day. Consider this a call to arms (and arguments), and let’s unite to pop those bubbles!
