Thread by @Shoq, Forgive me the density of this post. It’s a long thread because [...]

Forgive me the density of this post. It’s a long thread because some things just can’t be said in shorter ones.

For decades , I have repeatedly—and to the annoyance of many—said that American progressives are often unimaginative, lazy, and far too entitled to … 1/25

apply real creativity to our struggles with the Right. Our advocates and activists typically ground their arguments mostly in current events, and presume voters have some grasp of historical precedents and rationales for the change implied within discussions of … 2/25

them. This is just a
kind of naive and counterproductive magical thinking. And there’s a LOT of it going around, because political activism is a defacto trade today, but one with very few standards for how it’s done. The WHY and HOW of issues are often discussed … 3/25

in sloppy, presumptuous, and inaccurate ways.

Thanks to 2+ generations of the conservative’s war on education, the average American voter couldn’t tell you where milk came from, unless perhaps you flashed a picture of the cow first. And brace yourselves, but if … 4/25

we’re being honest, many of our activists (and representatives) would also struggle with the most basic facts, histories and complexities that underlie our many issues. (I have often heard even some liberal academics lecture on topics where at least a third of … 5/25

everything they say is factually incorrect or a mangled version of some apocryphal shibboleth).

Progressives have never had an honest conversation about the role ignorance plays in our overlapping societal problems because they feel it risks insulting their … 6/25

constituencies (and their activity citizenry that donates to them). Conservatives have always gotten around this by relying on constant repetition of a few key themes they know will be easily grasped by people with too little education to question what they hear. … 7/25

Simple themes like “Government=bad, Unemployed=Lazy, Socialism=unproductive, Capitalism=productive, Liberal government=taxes, Conservative government=less wasteful,” will so easily resonate because they are often the only themes they ever hear, and are always … 8/25

crafted with an awareness of how little most voters know, and how rare any counterpoint is made available. Liberals, by contrast, too often like to insist that “voters are really smart,” as if flattering them by lying to them is going to matter much. 9/25

Conservatives TEACH their selfish worldview, while liberals often seem to believe (and legislate) as if a more progressive worldview is somehow innate and intrinsic to the human condition. They don’t teach; they preach. That’s why they so often spew empty … 10/25

sermon-esque platitudes like “Republicans are on the wrong side of history,” or “healthcare should be a basic human right.” These lofty assertions have no connection to most people, since most have virtually no understanding of the history and background that … 11/25

framed them and ties them to their everyday lives. And year after year, the problem gets worse, as the problems get more intractable, and voters become even further removed from the historical antecedents of our problems.

So what might help? A jointly funded (by … 12/25

hundreds of nonprofits paying dues) collaborative “Progressive Society Initiative” (PSI) that generates simple, digestible historical backgrounders that are widely published and shared in both paper and digital form. The “informable electorate” (the active … 13/25

citizenry already motivated to educate others) will quickly come to seek out such materials when trying to understand how to speak to others about issues they may be voting on. This ephemera would be collectively edited and vetted to ensure that the … 14/25

“backgrounders” stay general enough to not be biased toward one group’s mission or agenda, but can be linked to “associated people and issues” that delver deeper into the topic.

There is no such initiative in existence today. My purpose here is not to detail how … 15/25

this would all work in detail, but only to introduce the idea.

The links that follow offer just a few examples of SIMPLE (but generally accurate) backgrounders, published by @TeenVogue. Written by @grimKim, they are excellent surveys of two historical trends that … 16/25

MOST liberals and their billions of printed words could never convey to average people as clearly as these do. If each were linked to deeper crowd-sourced discussion, also as clearly presented, a vast library of knowledge would be built up over time that would give … 17/25

the “Left” point of view a lot more depth and consistency than anything it has now. Such widespread educational materials can only help with virtually every important issue we face, from climate change, to healthcare, to wealth inequality, public education, and … 18/25

systemic racism.

Read these few examples yourselves. Even if you already think you have a grasp of these topics (which many will fib and insist that they do), consider how much reflection they generate just by reading well-crafted articulations of them.

Note: It … 19/25

doesn’t matter what the author, @grimkim’s personal politics are (I don’t even know them). What matters is the relatively objective discussion of historical trends that most historians would find unarguable. Obviously, if part of the PSI project I envision, they … 20/25

would be carefully edited to remove any traces of personal editorializing, slant or bias.

Any creative work can be criticized or found lacking in whole or in part. These are “good enough” examples of the approach I envision. 21/25

Exhibit 1: What is Capitalism?
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-capitalism-is

Exhibit 2: Colonialism Explained
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/colonialism-explained

Now imagine such explainers (on dozens of issue we face), all carefully indexed and cross-referenced and widely disseminated, making it much easier … 22/25

How Colonialism Destroyed Cultures and Shaped the World

Colonizers believed that everything, including the earth, was meant to be bought and sold.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-capitalism-is

for others to not just read them, but also to refer (link) to them from their own articles, essays, videos, blogs, tweets, threads, Facebook updates, etc.

Even if we vanquish Donald Trump in November, we’ve only just begun to fix our larger problem: ridding … 23/25

ourselves of these toxic Republicans and their propaganda that seeks to advance their social Darwinism. That’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of good information.

A national project that educates our people with well-crafted primers on the issues we face … 24/25

can only help.

Please feel free to share and respond with your feedback on this Progressive Society Initiative idea. Maybe some creative progressive advocates (with more standing than I have) will pick up the ball and run with it. 25/25

FYI • Some examples of the kinds of writing I envision can been read on the late Steve Kangas’s site, the liberal writer said to have committed “suicide” down the hall from Richard Mellon Scaife’s office. Yarite. (Seriously. Google it)

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/tenets.htm

UPDATE: The idea is getting interest in unexpected ways. The concept of a public-private publishing venture is being discussed. If you could bring conceptual, organizational, production, writing, editing, or promo skills to such a project, reply here, or just DM me.

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