Mild disagreement here… they do have sincerely held beliefs, they just aren’t the ones they advertise. Rather, they are incredibly sincere in their belief that they are entitled to power and that everything is negotiable in the pursuit of that entitlement
Yes—and I think actually we all want power. I think some of us feel safest and happiest when power is distributed and collective, though. I hate feeling powerless these days. I also think folks from privilege of various kindsdon’t have a sense of how to pursue collective action/struggle
And that’s not to blame anyone necessarily. Americans have an utter individualist fetish in what has long passed for normie discourse. It’s going to take a lot of adjusting to recalibrate that sensibility in a way that we can trust on a guy level, as routine.
*gut level
I’ve felt snippets of collective euphoria when I’ve been involved in election organizing. My strongest sense of that came in Obama 2008 and the passage of the ACA.
Anyway, I’m probably not saying anything revolutionary. But I wish collective power were easier to represent, to render more tangible, to activate. Seems like one of those hard things that’s just hard and slow and maybe our current social structures actually make it harder.
Social media is such a double-edged sword on that front. Connects us; isolates us. Amplifies voices; silences voices. Anyway. I just hope our sense of collective strength coalesces and mobilizes before things go too far.