Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

There is a lot that is unprecedented in our current circumstances, but we get tripped up by the things that don’t change.

Liberals and conservatives (including nazis) see the world differently. In very broad terms, cons want the world in a hierarchy with an authority at the head. Libs see the world as more fluid, with authority figures coming and going as needed. Many of us have impulses in both directions, and the message we currently hear pulls us toward it.

This dichotomy is the foundation of much of Democrats’ struggle with messaging. Cons understand how libs think better than libs understand how cons think. But what cons understand that few libs have mastered (Gavin Newsom being a notable exception) is that you have to talk to people in their language in your world.

What is their language? It means, for one thing, that problems that are obvious to you need to be explained so that other people understand not only how the problem works but why they should care. That light bulb isn’t going to come on by itself because they don’t recognize this as a problem.

It means that while a certain kind of person likes to look at problems from different sides and discuss and debate how to fix them, most people don’t. They want to know what they need to do, do it, and move on to something else. You won’t engage them in solving a problem.

It means there are people who don’t see the world in terms of systems and outcomes. They see only more immediate causes and effects. “Systemic” might as well be “magical,” and it has just about as much credibility. But if you can walk them through a system like you would a Rube Goldberg machine, they start to understand.

What is your world? It means your vision of a positive culture–not utopia, not perfect, but something attainable and something they can relate to. Community picnics, not military parades. Free education, not unpaid internships. Sharing instead of hoarding. Loneliness is a chronic problem. We have been taught to keep a distance from other people, either to respect their privacy or because of distrust. This goes against human nature. There are a lot of unhappy people out there who want to be part of a community but they don’t know how or don’t even know that is what they are missing.

What does this have to do with climate change or prison reform or dark money or MAGAs or surveillance capitalism? All of these problems are part of one big snowballing restructuring of society. The solution also has to be to restructure society–not just roll it back, but fix it. The tools we have to do that with are people. People who, right now, don’t know what is wrong, don’t know how to make things better, and don’t know what a better world would even look like–don’t know what they are fighting for.

It’s up to us to show them.

So if we approach the problem as one of restructuring for the benefit of the many and not the money, what would that look like?

1. We need to have a common, broad vision of what a better world looks like. We need to build that, with each brick being the restructuring of some part of life. But then we need to wrap our arms around what that looks like as a whole picture, and THAT is what we need to get people excited about. Imagine a movie set in that world. Everyone could see how it functions in a way no flow chart could ever capture.
2. The bricks would be created by experts in those areas. What would a better transportation system look like? What would a better energy system look like? What would fully funded education and health care look like?
3. We need to take each of those bricks and chart a course for how we get from here to the way we want it. What has to change? Who has to approve it? Where are potential sinkholes? What’s the timeline?
4. We need to create our own media environment that excludes propaganda and includes more stories that support the directions we want to take.
5. We need to have the experts in #2 write books and to go on news shows over and over again to reinforce the message in #1. Here’s what it will look like. Here’s what we have already done toward the goal. Here’s how you can help.
6. We need to get the message to kids, who are naturally drawn to making things better.

Does any of this sound familiar? Maybe you’ve read something called the Powell Memo. Lewis Powell outlined what turned out to be a pretty effective strategy to take over. There’s no reason we can’t do it too, but we will use actual experts to create something better for everyone instead of just for big business.

Well, there might be three reasons we can’t do it. One is inertia; the people who wonder why someone won’t DO something already but don’t do anything themselves. Two, we do have thousands of points of light, by which I mean political action groups and their ecosystem. Each of those groups is working for a great cause and is a tiny, brilliant light in the sky, but guess what? Down here on the ground, it’s still dark. Three, if we don’t reach out to the undecideds with the right message, the right will.

Keep in mind, the people on the right know all this too, and they are creating an atmosphere that works against our success. Part of that atmosphere is to make sure we keep making the same mistakes, keep spinning our wheels, and keep letting our guard down at critical moments. They play us–and the media–like a violin. The only way to get out of this cycle of insanity is to be proactive, have our own plans and goals, and stop the knee jerk reactions to their actions.

The strength of the left is grassroots, but grassroots is for different kinds of actions. This kind of overarching plan has to be organized on a national level. I’m not sure who the best person to coordinate it would be, but someone out there knows. I’m just going to keep putting this idea out there and let it build until we get where we’re going.