When Demagogues Divide

When DSOT was founded back in 2018 it was on the premise that this country, and its citizenry, are in fact far more united than divided. That many of the horrors we face are not due to fundamental differences between the people at large but instead are due to a lack of representation in the rule-making and governing of this country, and the political class and the systems of power are responsive to a small group of wealthy individuals who use this power for their own enrichment at the expense of the rest of us. We posited that for many of the most important material issues facing Americans there was, in fact, widespread, super-majority agreement within the population. Americans agree on the importance of addressing topics like healthcare, environmental pollution, corruption, union power, the list goes on and on.

In the past few months of the authoritarian Trump presidency, and especially during the last 2 weeks after Charlie Kirk's killing, this proposition of underlying unity seems especially fraught. Demagogues like Trump and Vance contest that we are unreconcilably divided, hoping to create a self-fulfilling prophecy of ruin by vilifying large swaths of the country for having opinions different than his own.

There certainly are profound differences between partisan political groups, especially around hot button cultural issues. This problem is exacerbated by the hyper specific, algorithmically curated outrage content fed to each of us, working hand-in-hand with good old-fashioned propaganda from legacy media outlets, like Fox, which create a specific narrative through their selective coverage.  We end up with people who have completely different understandings of reality depending upon where one is getting their information sources. A well known and bleak situation, however, when we step back from the specific wedge issues employed by politicians, and begin looking at topics outside partisan political framing, we find that even today Americans agree on much.

A recent meta-analysis of over 160 polls identified dozens of issues in which a super majority of Americans agreed. We will be going over many of these during the coming months in between our coverage of the specific ways in which the current Trump regime -- and the Democratic “opposition” party -- are failing to represent the people, but we wanted to give you a sampling of just some of the issues that in fact we do agree on as Americans.

It's important to remember during this moment that demagogues and authoritarians derive their power and maintain their ability to pass their deeply unpopular policies by focusing on a few specific hot button issues and attempting to divide people who have far more in common than with the ruling class. Demagogues will attempt to divide us, will attempt to stoke violence, and will try to use crises in order to further division, paranoia, and hatred amongst the working and middle classes. All to divert attention away from the illegal harmful and destructive activities perpetrated by those in charge as they strip our rights from us.

Rather than fall for this ruse, we need to focus on building power to demand real concessions from the ruling class. We need political and economic power, built on the recognition that Americans are indeed united on so many profoundly important material issues. From those shared goals can grow a solidarity through recognizing that our individual freedoms are contingent on our collective power to force those who care about nothing but money to respect the demands of the many. So, join us each Tuesday in crowing solidarity as we build the economic heft to fight back against this authoritarian regime attempting to strip our free speech rights and civil liberties from us. Don't shop on Tuesday!

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