Division and Unity Pt.2

We now come to more arguments of this post and here I want to make clear that I do not under any circumstances think a Trump supporter or voter, is dumb, an idiot or some sort of bigot. They are at worst, normal, everyday, regular people. If you’ve read any of my previous posts you can probably take parts of that and see what I mean here, but to make it easier for everyone I’ll put the most important points that I can think of here.

Firstly everyone has internal biases. The most relevant ones to this discussion are the part of you that tells you you are right, the part that tells you you are more reasonable, rational, and sympathetic than others, and the part that doubts everything. Now, the first two are obviously not completely accurate and are under most circumstances balanced out by the third. For example, the doubt that you’re as reasonable and sympathetic as others can cause you to strive to be better, and thereby become more sympathetic and reasonable as an individual. This means that a healthy encouragement of self-doubt and self- examination can lead to becoming a better person. 

So, what does that mean about Trump? Well, I’ll get to that, but before I do I want to address points I made in another post in the past, about romanticizing history. It is a very normal thing for people to romanticize history in a way that seems to either gleam over or completely ignore problems of the past. It’s easy to think of Knights as gallant lords and heroes, and much harder to think of them as petty landowners fighting amongst each other for wealth, social standing, and political favor with little, if any, regard to anyone who gets caught in between. 

Now with those two points together we can look at what Trump does that can get rational, reasonable people to gather outside government buildings during a pandemic. 

First thing is, he is viewed as a conservative, which I do not believe he is. I think the only reason he ran as a Republican is that he couldn’t get support to run as a Democrat back in 2008. He did seek out that support during that time from various celebrities, there was even a substantiated rumor, that one could not win celebrity apprentice unless they were willing to give support to a Trump presidency. 

Him being viewed as a conservative already starts with some people, seeing him as the guy in their corner, but it also takes with it a number of other impressions that many conservatives are told on a regular basis are true, from sources like Fox News and other “conservative” platforms that saw a massive uptick during the 2016 election and subsequent presidency. The most important and obvious claim was that all mainstream media news had a massive liberal bias, which isn’t exactly true, it had a more massive monetary bias and the two just align too often for conservative-minded people who were mostly neglected for the more liberal and moderate audiences that brought in the most money. 

The existence of an unexploited market created the massive uptick in conservative focused news, however, there were in that marketplace, people who believed conservatives would believe anything and so made up stories. The more outrageous, the more clicks and more eyes would see it and the more money it would bring in. It didn’t matter if people believed it, all that mattered was that people saw it. 

Now, many people already know or understand this, but here’s the kicker, with a media bias geared towards where the money was that was neglecting, or appearing to neglect conservative-minded people would push people towards the idea that they weren’t telling the whole truth which they weren’t, they were only telling the truth that made them the most money. Which meant that the more reasonably believed stories could be possible, and the more outrageous one? Well, they might actually have been possible too! All someone would have to do was get someone in a position of power, like a presidential candidate, for example, to say out loud that it was true. To say that the media was against conservatives, a narrative that had been building, mostly because of an unexploited market, for decades. 

So now we get to the root of the media bias problem, liberals had more money and more voting power so they were catered to. The counter problem which was pretty easy to see was that the conservative catered media wasn’t just telling people conservative catered news but was presenting it in a way that said other media companies were lying to you or only telling half-truths. Now that’s not to say conservatives didn’t see this problem, they did, but they wanted to feel represented and many other media outlets were getting worse and worse with their conservative representation. A similar example to this would be the way gay people at times consume gay media that they don’t like or don’t think is any good just for the need to feel represented if even poorly. 

Like a landlord taking advantage of the pandemic, conservative media companies realized they had a captive audience who wanted their content. Conservative news personalities who would like to probably just present news that is left out by the other networks are forced onto the same network as people who are more than willing to go on the air and voice an opinion that encourages a total bunk conspiracy theory. 

Making blanket statements like “fox news is bunk” doesn’t help the argument since fox news also has Chris Wallace. A statement more like, “Fox news exploits conservatives by making people with integrity and people willing to lie to you appear as though they are equal.” It is much more fluid and doesn’t make the person sound like an idiot, it acknowledges that there are merits to fox’s existence but that the people at the head of it are taking advantage of those merits and exploiting people's need for a conservative news outlet for personal gain. This might also be a frustration with the network said viewers might share but don’t want to admit so readily.

The main point I’m trying to make here is people aren’t dumb, they are smart, but some people have learned how to play with your biases in a way that maybe you aren’t aware of, and use it to make a profit, without even bothering to either weigh or care for the consequences. Or, potentially, they have weighed the consequences and found a way to make even more profit from it. 

I know that this is often where negativism comes in and people say “Blame so and so, it’s their fault, they did all this, call them out.” I get the need to feel that that is what you should do, on some level I feel it too, but I’d be going against the whole point of this post if I told you to do that. I know this also sounds like virtue signaling my ability for sympathy, but I tell you now, no matter how bad someone is or what they have done, I want to feel like I will never give up on the idea that there is a good person in there. Regardless of how idealistic and foolish, that might sound. Just like everyone else, I’m allowed to be a little bit selfish and conceited. I want to believe that people at their core are good, even Trump. 

That ultimately is the part that breaks my heart, because if what I say is true. Then well, I wouldn’t want to be the person who finally convinces someone who has done monstrous things on how to be sympathetic. It’s why I always get emotional during that Vegeta scene in Dragon Ball. When finally all the veneer and pride are broken through and we see the truly good person inside him, someone who has to look at the life he’s lived and knows that he can never make up for it. But that maybe, just maybe, him taking Majin Buu with him, will be enough. 

Now Vegeta is still a fictional character and as such has a great presence of mind as to an otherwise world-shattering internal narrative change. He gives his son a goodbye hug before knocking him out and telling Piccolo to take the children away. He stares out toward the approaching Buu and asks, “Will I be able to see Kakarot in the afterlife?”

“The time is past for mincing words,” Piccolo responds, “So I’ll be blunt. No. You have killed too many innocents. You will lose your body and your soul will be banished to a place quite different from Goku’s. There it will be reincarnated into a new form, but only after it has been cleansed on memories.”

“. . .I see. . . Pity. . .”

The weight that kind of realization would have on a real person, that they were responsible for the deaths of so many, and to finally feel the sympathy for them all. It’s rather poignant don’t you think? 

Now I’d be leaving something out if I didn’t mention that Vegeta just got to act like one of the guys after coming back to life, but he also goes on to become the true protector of Earth, something Goku never really was.

It does instill some sense of hope that maybe somewhere deep inside there is a good person within what would otherwise be a monster, and maybe if you get them to realize it themselves, that’s more punishment than anything else they can suffer. If even a monster like Vegeta has good inside him, maybe none of us are as bad as we appear to others, and maybe reaching toward that is the only way to bring us together. Does that mean I don’t believe in a correction system or criminal punishment? Of course not that’s ridiculous, but maybe, if we start thinking more about who people could be rather than who they appear to be, the system can be changed enough to work in a way we can all be proud of.

I’ve gone on way too long and even managed to squeeze in a Dragon Ball reference so this needs to wrap up and hopefully, maybe it has made clear some of my opinions and doesn’t just sound like mad ramblings. Hopefully, I can conclude this in part 3 but who knows at this point.