Antifa & BLM Vs. Proud Boys & Trump

Today, our country feels more politically divided than it has been in several generations. The natural human tendency is to continue the blame-game and make the divide between Left & Right even deeper. At times, myself as a human have been guilty of this. But please, for the sake of our future, let’s set aside all of the partisan arguments for a moment. Together, let’s examine the bigger picture of what is happening and why.

First Principles: Antifa Vs Proud boys

What is happening? Groups of people (both Progressives and Conservatives) are interacting online and creating positive feedback loops where anger and outrage flourish with increasing intensity. Eventually this outrage reaches an intensity where it spills out into the real world and results in violence that feeds into the other side’s already boiling outrage storm. Each side’s anger and resentment results in words and actions that fuel even more anger from the other side.

So, why is this argument between Progressives and Conservatives increasingly hostile? Next, who benefits and who loses from this increased hostility? Lastly, how do we dismantle this fight and move into constructive resolution?

Who Wins/Loses When Left/Right Fight?

News Media Outlets Win:

News media outlets would go out of business if they didn’t have millions of viewers/readers consuming their content daily. See: Fear & Outrage Sold For Profit. Scientifically, our brains are wired to react more strongly to negative news because negative things might kill us (see: What is the Negativity Bias?). Basically, if you’re closely tuned into potential threats you’re naturally more likely to survive. Before the internet, you’d be tuned into natural threats in your own environments. But, with the internet and smart-phones, now you can tune into the entire planet’s potential threats.

News Media Outlets know from experience that readers and viewers flock to terrible news and they focus on things that people fear. By stoking fears of rival political parties, news outlets PROFIT by keeping their audience glued to the screen.

Politicians Win:

Politicians win when America is divided because they get to demonize political rivals while cementing themselves in the position of savior. Scientifically, fear and anger actually make people less intelligent.

When there is any fear or anxiety the amygdala region of the brain, your emotional center, jumps to attention and takes resources away from the executive decision making of the prefrontal cortex. In a chain reaction the light goes out on the prefrontal cortex, your IQ drains like a cold beer going down on a hot afternoon.
SOURCE: Psychology Today

Fear, anxiety and anger actually make even smart people stupid. And, less intelligent people are easier to control and manipulate. By stoking fear and anger in their political base, politicians rally groups of people into obedient voters who don’t ask too many questions. This tactic is a manipulation/propaganda technique called an “Appeal to Fear“. While it’s easy to see an Appeal to Fear that’s directed at someone else, it’s much harder to spot one aimed to oneself. The truth is that both sides of the political aisle use Appeal to Fear tactics to fan the flames of division that lead us to false either/or narratives. Also problematic is that false Appeals to Fear can create real fearful outcomes.

Authoritarian Countries Win:

As far back as the Cold-War, Russia (then the Soviet Union) has kept a long tradition of launching hostile disinformation campaigns aimed at exacerbating racial tensions in the United States (see: Why Russia will keep poking America’s racial wounds). Why do this? If you ask partisan media, it’s because Russia wants Trump to get elected. But, that’s thinking too small.

This is beyond Trump, Biden, Hillary or any other politician or particular movement. Russia and other authoritarian countries mainly want to make America look bad. By stoking the fires of racial division, riots and civil unrest in America, foreign trolls can then use these events as propaganda to show their own citizens that freedom was a bad idea to begin with.

In a world dominated by the US military and nuclear weapons, how do you overthrow freedom without provoking a war that would kill all combatants? The answer is that you use freedom as a mask to sow inflammatory disinformation and get the free country to tear itself apart.

Russia doesn’t want Trump or Biden to win: they want America to devolve into a civil war and destroy itself from within.
Russia used fake social media accounts like Blacktivist got millions of views and increase racial division. On the Right, Russia is also using troll accounts involving automated bots to amplify Right-Wing Extremists.

The bottom line is that Russia and other countries who would benefit from a divided, weakened United States are feeding propaganda and lies into both Progressive and Conservative groups in an effort to turn US Politics into a disgraceful fight.