I recently came across what I think was/is an honest to goodness conservative troll. You know, one of those people who might actually be paid by some organization to intentionally sow discord among progressives? I had already thought that writing this diary might be a good idea, since the comment it is based on received a good number of recs. Running into that guy rather sealed the deal.
Do you know how hard it is to pick the right troll image?As most everyone surely knows, diaries involving Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders often devolve into ugly accusations. And that is tragic, because I think most diarists are sincerely trying to inform the rest of us of relevant issues to help us vote for the best candidate. Typically it is very easy to spot who that candidate is by the issues the diarist brings to our attention, and then the fun begins. You know what I'm talking about, so I'll spare the details. But the truth is, insulting those who disagree with you is not a super intelligent strategy for actually persuading them to come on over to your side. When we hurl insults, we are hurting our own cause. Surely we must each have some small voice inside telling us this already, but we (often?) ignore that voice out of frustration and rage. And it feels good to set the bloody idiot straight, especially in that particular moment. It does, it feels good, which I think is a serious design flaw in human nature.
For the record I am a Sanders supporter. I recently came to the conclusion that HRC supporters are just like me, they are (mostly) informed and motivated to advocate for their candidate; they are smart, not stupid. Here's my shocking new theory (that someone must have known long before I figured it out): the root cause of much of our collective motivation is actually fear. Problems come up in our discussions because we fear different things. The more I realize that HRC supporters are really just like me, the more empathy I have for them.
I believe we would all be so much better off if we could acknowledge and respect the fact that those who fear other things than we do are real live human beings who sincerely hold their beliefs. When we hurl insults, it's as if we are shaming a child for being afraid of the monster under the bed: it's cruel, does more harm than good, and it doesn't even work.
Things get heated in politics because when people favor a candidate that we don't, it means that our guy might lose, and if that happens, the monster that we ourselves are so afraid of will come out and grow, and eventually kill us. The fear is just as intense as it was back in the days when we were afraid of the dark, but oddly, as adults we have lost awareness that the fear is even inside us. And because of that, this fear is very dangerous; it makes us vulnerable in ways we don't admit (and that trolls take advantage of). In fact, we aren't even capable of making such an admission, because we truly don't know that this fear exists. More below.