David Weissman: "I was a Trump Troll"

[handmade34]

5. good

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201712/trump-divided-america-psychology-heres-how-we-heal


makes sense... if the primary goal of Trump supporters is to rile up the Liberals... then it makes sense to not get riled up... and persevere...

...it is likely that President Donald Trump has significantly increased your anxiety levels, distorting your perception of the world and negatively affecting your behavior in ways you are unaware of. But the good news is that these cognitive biases and behavioral changes can be reversed if one becomes cognizant of their existence and makes a conscious effort.
The human brain is a statistical machine that must constantly be making judgments and predictions based on beliefs, feelings, and past experiences. Trump’s fear mongering and fiery rhetoric is designed to heighten emotions and alter beliefs, offsetting this fine-tuned and calibrated system. If there’s one thing that Trump understands, it’s how to benefit politically from manufacturing fear and division. He may only be following his gut instincts, but it’s strategic psychological manipulation nonetheless.


this happens because cultural worldviews — like religions, political ideologies, and national identities — help curb existential anxiety by instilling life with some form of meaning and value. Essentially, intense anxiety over a perceived threat to one’s well-being promotes tribalism, and no one is immune to it...

By constantly emphasizing existential threat, Trump fuels the fears of Americans who will bolster their support for him in an attempt to feel safer. While this strategy keeps his supporters energized and loyal, the whole country suffers from the prejudice, aggression, and division it creates.

How do we reverse the division and aggression and begin to come together?

First, we must become acutely aware of the polarizing effect of Donald Trump’s presidency on both sides of the political aisle. We must openly acknowledge that the anxiety and fear created by Trump is pushing us all to our extremes, leading to tribal behavior and biases that can cloud our rational judgment.

Second, we must act in ways that alleviate these effects, and that means making a conscious effort to de-escalate confrontations and curb aggressive attitudes toward those who don’t share our worldviews or national identities. Don’t just delete those friends on social media who have opposing political opinions, no matter how much you may despise some of those beliefs. We must engage each other in rational discourse, and we must strive to see the legitimate points made by all sides, regardless of the abundance of illogical ones. And throughout this engagement process, we must stay calm and collected, as aggression only makes the division worse by increasing mortality salience. While this idea might seem futile to many liberals who have long given up on trying to talk sense into Trump supporters, we must remember that trying to heal the division is our only option. Simply letting it get worse will only lead to further chaos in America, and could contribute to another four years of this administration.

Lastly, we must not only try to build bridges when possible, we should monitor ourselves from becoming too extreme, especially when behavior towards ideologically dissimilar others becomes aggressive and violent. When that happens, the moral high ground is lost.

...in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “Hate begets hate; violence begets violence,” a concept that is supported by the results of Terror Management Theory and mortality salience studies.
If we all truly strive to make these efforts and resist getting discouraged by the inevitable challenges, then the nation will slowly begin to come together, and a new, stronger form of order will emerge from the current sea of chaos.