Dystopias should be fiction

How to resist in a time of political divide

I’d like to start with a brief test: Even if you are not American, I bet you could name at least ten prominent political figures in the United States. What’s more, for each of those people, I bet you have an opinion about what kind of person they are, what policies they support, and often what scandals they are associated with.

It might surprise the youngest of you, but there was a time when the average person could only name the president, vice president, and maybe a few other political figures like their local governor or state representative in the House. What has changed?

No matter your age, one adage remains unsurprisingly true: follow the money!

It’s likely if you took my test, that along with presidential candidates you named people like Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG!), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC!), and Matt Gaetz. Aside from being well-known political figures, who have legions of devoted followers, and are vilified as evil by “the other side,” do you know what else they have in common? The majority of their funding comes from individual donors in sums of under $200/donation.

It’s true! In 2023-24, 64.29% of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s funds came from small individual contributions <$200. For AOC, it was 69.9% and for Matt Gaetz it was 53.91%. The reality is that individual small donations are a significant force in American politics.

On one hand, this is a very democratic thing: People voting with their wallets and banding together en masse to participate in democracy the way the rich and powerful always have. If it were that simple, I’d be all for it. But there is a darker underbelly to this trend that is quite dystopian.

In the year 2000, shows like Survivor, and Big Brother kicked off the reality TV craze that dominated television for the next twenty years. We all know ostensibly that these shows are not really reality, but nevertheless they give us “real” heart-wrenching stories about the contestants. Shows like American Idol asked viewers to vote each week on who would remain until the end, but these votes were often not based on musical ability, but rather a “behind the scenes” look at the person’s life, their character, their struggles. Cue the sad music.

Producers and show-runners would clip out sections of interviews to skew our perspectives, contrive conflict, and boost ratings! It quickly became clear that the crazier and more outlandish contestants became the audience favorites. And audiences themselves would divide into tribes supporting one contestant and vilifying their rivals.

Sound familiar?

Why are political candidates like MTG, AOC, and Matt Gaetz able to raise so much money from small individual donations? Because they learned the same lesson from the rise of reality TV celebrities that Donald Trump did: Extreme views divide the audience and rally the base to vote for you.

Combine that lesson with the rise of social media algorithms that promote extremism & hate and you’ve got yourself a recipe for the current political landscapes found in countries all over the world. Our political leaders have learned that divisive politics pays- and money is what it’s all about.

Make no mistake, when you overreact, when you share clickbait headlines without taking the time to read the whole story, and when you cling to your tribe, YOU ARE PLAYING THEIR GAME! Joe Biden went from comparing Donald Trump to Hitler to having tea with him. They’re all on the same side, and it ain’t yours!

So the question remains, how does one resist oppression in such a landscape? The truth is your beliefs are not your identity- or at least they ought not be. We all have different beliefs about the way the world should be and it is a good thing when we disagree. But social media algorithms and political tribalism has too many of us believing otherwise. It is not a sign of a healthy democracy that if I know your opinion on abortion, then I probably also know your opinion on gun control and climate change! Those three things have nothing to do with each other outside of a political tribe. If you find yourself in such a tribe, the best thing you can do to resist is to seek out opposing viewpoints and consider them with good faith.

That is not an easy thing to do. It will feel like you are betraying your camp. It will feel like you are betraying yourself! But eventually you will realize that other people have interesting points of view too. And we can learn from each other if we actually listen to each other. In fact, the dichotomy of the “two sides,” left and right is a false one used by your oppressors to control you!

Be open to your neighbors; chances are they are good people just trying to get by the same as you. And despite the differences in your beliefs, you will have a lot more in common with them than with the political candidate you donated to because they “owned those morons on the other side who want to destroy your country!”

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