S8E02: How to Do Social Justice This Election Season Without Being a Jackass: Understanding Populism.

November's presidential election represents a comparison between two forms of government. One, a democracy, driven by the principle that many people have voices, and ideally a government that works for a large sum of people. Two, an autocracy, driven by the principle that few people have voices.

Autocracies, such as the 2024 Republican Party, often communicate via jackassdom, including blame, repression, and fear-mongering. In this episode, Julia and Jeremiah talk about common communication ploys from autocracy, and ways that progressives and other pro-democracy voters can avoid responding in ways that reinforce jackassdom. We talk about:

• Frustration & Empathy (6:00): Jeremiah starts us off, “We recognize that this podcast series is happening because so many people are some combination of confused, enraged, and exhausted by the horrendous behavior of the 21st century Republican Party. Behaviors that dehumanize and segregate need to be named as such. However, there are ways to do that that lead to productive conversation and change. And there are ways to do that that continue to reinforce the negative interaction cycle.”

• Strategies of Autocracy (12:00): Jeremiah names, “We have a responsibility to understand, to talk about, the psychology and communication strategies of autocratic governments. Almost all of which includes three things. One, disinformation, or the active distortion of information. Two, propaganda, the presentation of information specifically for the activation of a particular emotion, typically anger or fear.  And three, acts of violence, as we see through Proud Boys showing up and camping out in Springfield, Ohio.” 

• Populism (14:00): Julia says, “So there's two elements here, it seems. One, there is a singular leader who says that they, and they alone, have the solution to the world's problems. A real life savior complex. And two,  an element of gaslighting is occurring. Sure. To promote that the majority wants one thing when the majority certainly does not want that thing involves a combination of disinformation, deception, and propaganda.”

• Trump's Bad Behavior (22:00): Julia reflects on Trump's startling introduction to his election, “I heard from even Christians that I respected that this was just an example of quote unquote, “locker room talk.” Which is one narrative. But actually what this is, is bragging about sexual assault. In 2016, I had been a practicing therapist for  some years and I and many women had an awakening to experiences that we had had that were assaultive and abusive. This gave us some language. But it was also fueling massive disinformation on the side of Republicans.”

• Populism & Anti-Intellectualism (24:00): Jeremiah discusses, “Moffitt in the book Populism describes three major communication strategies that populists use. First, he explains that populism goes hand in hand with anti intellectualism, or a resistance to expertise and the scientific process … So what does anti anti-intellectual populist look like in real life?  Again, we have a lot of examples of this. Over the last year, we've been following the banned books process in Florida and other states, where Ron DeSantis and others have railed against critical race theory.”  

• Moralism v. Moral Critique (30:00): Jeremiah says, “[McKibben] distinguishes between moralism and moral criticism. McKibben defines moral criticism as a well reasoned and thoughtful critique of another person's actions. Most importantly, these reflections acknowledge a basic sense of respect for the other person. Moralism happens when that blame becomes, using her words, inappropriate or excessive. It presents a clear villain or scapegoat who can be blamed for the ills of society. It places blame and namecalls people who may confront or operate differently from the populist actor and suggests that others who join the populist in this blaming absolve themselves from their own issues.”

• Social Media & Limiting Empathy (33:00): Julia notes, “Mediums of communication such as social media and texting formats exacerbate those forms of dialogue because you cannot see and physically engage with the non verbals and humanities of someone's avatar, which prohibit you from experiencing empathy and other inborn physiological systems of relational checks and balances.”

• Why We Define Terms (37:00): Julia highlights, “The lack of defining terms could create confusion. Two different people could have different understandings of the word, which gets in the way of finding solid ground. It also opens the door to a populist individual or group, creating pressure to narrowly define the term in a particular way, at the expense of the historical complexity of the term.’

• Different Sides of the Same Coin (40:00): Jeremiah sharply says, “Evangelism works, populism and jackassdom are all common bedfellows.”

• Relationship 101 (42:00): Julia discusses our first relationship 101, “All of us to be aware of the times that we have moved into moralistic jackassdom territory.  I really want to spend a moment talking about the myth of the perfect social justice warrior.  So in so many liberal circles, especially with cancel culture being so high, we've set up this standard of what it means to be a good liberal, a good progressive, a good social justice warrior. And frankly, it reminds me a lot of growing up in a highly fundamentalist Christian community.”

• My Way or the Highway (46:00): Jeremiah shares, ” I've mentioned on this podcast before that I got kicked out of the church, which is 92% very much what happened. The other 8% of that though, I think in my own version of that was as I was learning more about sexuality, learning more about sex therapy, I think rather than kind of saying to church leadership, like this is the direction that I want to go with this and saying, ‘can we have some conversations about this?’ I wish that I had facilitated more of a dialogue between different people in the leadership. And, and who knows what the outcome of that would have been. But I think in general, any time that I move into a space where it looks like I think I have the answers, sometimes it's just like, we need to make a decision and like, I'm just going full steam ahead.”

• Moral Superiority (50:00): Julia points out, “Liberals in particular tend to use academic words and either one they use it not knowing actually what it means I am sure that many people use language around heteronormativity or decolonization without understanding it Or, they do understand it, choose not to define it, and use that as a moral superiority context.”