Two things I need to share as followups to previous comments and both can be linked to the article Jack shared. The first is about subtle facts that get slipped into conversations and alter what we believe is true. Here is a link that I think clarifies the differences between socialism communism racism and capitalism in a ways that is both clever and easy to remember.
The second is a followup to actions I promised to make regarding a meeting with my district candidate for the US house of representatives. I hand delivered two items directly to the candidate, one was my views and recommendations with respect to his platform items posted on his campaign website and the second on how he can deal with the fear that the current administration is causing by threatening, either directly or indirectly, to interfere with the mid term elections, in the hopes of keeping people away from the polls. He promised to read both. I gave him my contact information and encouraged him to have a member of his campaign staff contact me for any clarifications they needed. We'll see what happens. More later.
Read it, sit with it...then share it wherever you think it'll do the most good...you've got GOOD instincts for that.
And....I love that you're ALREADY... thinking about how to organize it all. That's exactly the move… information you can actually find and USE... beats a hundred bookmarks you'll never open again.
Thank you for this critical information. It is so hard to break through to people- the reality we're experiencing- the potential death of our country, the urgency of climbing the learning curve, and being prepared to vote smart, and resist when autocracy tries to crush dissent.
Maybe this piece will help us be more effective in reaching others. No one likes to be psychologically manipulated, aka gaslighting. It's so subtle and insulting and evil.
Virginia... you've named the hardest part: it's not being right…it's being HEARD.
Different skill entirely...and the people who care MOST...tend to be worst at it.
The cruel paradox: the lines that feel most urgent ("the country could die," "you're being manipulated," "this is evil") land on an unconvinced person as "you think I'm a dupe."
And...nobody changes their mind while feeling judged. You said it yourself...no one likes being told they're being manipulated. Same goes for being told they're naive.
So...what breaks through...is the opposite of what urgency wants: less warning...more curiosity…fewer facts...more STORIES.
Start from something you actually SHARE; their kid...their town...their paycheck...and ASK more than you tell. People will FOLLOW a question into a room...they'd never be shoved into.
Keep the fire. Just hand them a door...not a verdict.
File the date. A newsletter that has spent months chronicling the week’s atrocities turns, for a second time, to something more fundamental than the news itself: the machinery underneath it. This is what serious writers do when they conclude the emergency is not a single actor but a set of techniques, reusable across decades and regimes.
Note which claim opens the report. Not “here is what is true,” but “here is what is being done to you.” That inversion is the entire discipline of reading propaganda. Historians who study the twentieth century’s authoritarian episodes will recognize every play in Part Two by another name — the firehose is what Arendt called the destruction of the factual world through sheer volume; the Big Lie needs no citation, since the term comes from the century’s ledger of horrors; gaslighting and DARVO are simply the interpersonal versions of a state denying what it has just done in full view of witnesses. Jack is correct that none of these are new. What changes is only the speed of delivery.
Note which principle carries the most weight for a citizen rather than a historian: the illusory truth effect. A society that mistakes repetition for verification is a society already halfway captured, because the capture requires no violence — only volume, and time. This is the quiet mechanism behind every slogan that outlives its evidence.
Part Three is the harder discipline, and the more useful one. Tactics can be memorized. Character has to be read, patiently, in the moments nobody is grading. Jack is correct again here — the accountability test, the two seconds after a direct question, tells you more than a hundred hours of stage-managed appearances. Authoritarian figures are rarely undone by their critics. They are undone by the accumulating record of small, unwatched choices, because that record cannot be edited after the fact the way a speech can.
What the report does not say, and does not need to — because a reader who has followed this far will complete the thought — is that clarity of this kind is not a private virtue. A citizen who cannot be confused cannot be governed by confusion. That is the whole of what these ten plays are built to prevent, and the whole of why naming them, one at a time, in daylight, matters.
Two things to hold onto, without softening: the tactic dies when it is named, and the discipline of clear sight is a defense that has to be practiced, not merely possessed.
Thank you. We are a nation of naive people, because this has not happened here before? Or because we failed to educate adequately? Or because we've been distracted too long by sports, Netflix, consumerism, careers that leave no time for reading, the media were deregulated and big money took over the news? Or we've been comfortable too long, got lazy?
Virginia...I'd change one word in your question: not naive…tired. And...not by accident.
Your list isn't a set of competing theories...it's a STACK...and each piece feeds the next.
"It can't happen here" is the most HUMAN sentence there is. We stopped teaching civics like it's a machine you have to maintain. And....when big money TOO OVER the news....the product...quietly shifted from "an informed public" ...to "your attention...sold by the pound"… outrage got cheaper than reporting, and local papers died by the thousands.
The one word I'd strike is "lazy." Someone working two jobs with no time to read isn't lazy...they're MAXED out. And maxed-out people are the easiest to govern ...without their noticing.
Good news hiding in there: if it was done TO us...it can be undone BY us.
Wow! Wow! Wow! (2yo grandson Cayde’s new reaction) Thanks for this much valued, succinct, and actionable plan. It is always better to have a plan and act than wring your hands and fret. It does not do any good at all. Set your course and follow through.
Downloaded and going to print. My eyeballs can’t get the teensy print read quickly enough for my brain and I’m getting unfairly irritated with myself. Gotta keep learning to figure out best practices for making the best of what I have to work with.
What I HAVE read is going to help everyone I share it with. I shared already with a friend I’ll be seeing tomorrow and he’s said he’ll have at least one copy printed by the time I get there. I have the BEST community around me! Check out “The Peach Truck.” BEST peaches EVER, and I had mine delivered to his house because I wasn’t sure where I’d be (same city was all I knew) when I placed my order. This Stone can consistently kill several (hypothetical) birds at a whack. 😉
Ah Jack, how can we thank you enough for speaking to us, engaging with us, cheering us on? I am part of the way through, but need to take my time to absorb and come back to it again and again and again. You really make me think, encourage me to #Holdfast even when I just feel as if there is no hope. Thank you. Sending hugs. #HoldingFast
Very clear, readable and succinct.
As useful to me in the UK as anywhere else.
My main personal takeaway - convert horror into purposeful action.
Thank you Jack.
Candy...that means a great deal to me. I'm so glad it landed with...and FOR you!
-Jack
Two things I need to share as followups to previous comments and both can be linked to the article Jack shared. The first is about subtle facts that get slipped into conversations and alter what we believe is true. Here is a link that I think clarifies the differences between socialism communism racism and capitalism in a ways that is both clever and easy to remember.
https://stevenerick.substack.com/p/a-view-from-the-cheap-seats-eab
The second is a followup to actions I promised to make regarding a meeting with my district candidate for the US house of representatives. I hand delivered two items directly to the candidate, one was my views and recommendations with respect to his platform items posted on his campaign website and the second on how he can deal with the fear that the current administration is causing by threatening, either directly or indirectly, to interfere with the mid term elections, in the hopes of keeping people away from the polls. He promised to read both. I gave him my contact information and encouraged him to have a member of his campaign staff contact me for any clarifications they needed. We'll see what happens. More later.
Thank you, Jack. Will read it and decide who best to share it with.
With all this useful information I need to get more organized to use it all in the best way possible. I’ll get to work on that ASAP.
#Holdfast
~Susan
Susan…anytime.
Read it, sit with it...then share it wherever you think it'll do the most good...you've got GOOD instincts for that.
And....I love that you're ALREADY... thinking about how to organize it all. That's exactly the move… information you can actually find and USE... beats a hundred bookmarks you'll never open again.
Glad you're in this one with me!
#Holdfast
-Jack
Thank you, Jack. Love the Converse (my favorite color)
Thank you for this critical information. It is so hard to break through to people- the reality we're experiencing- the potential death of our country, the urgency of climbing the learning curve, and being prepared to vote smart, and resist when autocracy tries to crush dissent.
Maybe this piece will help us be more effective in reaching others. No one likes to be psychologically manipulated, aka gaslighting. It's so subtle and insulting and evil.
Virginia... you've named the hardest part: it's not being right…it's being HEARD.
Different skill entirely...and the people who care MOST...tend to be worst at it.
The cruel paradox: the lines that feel most urgent ("the country could die," "you're being manipulated," "this is evil") land on an unconvinced person as "you think I'm a dupe."
And...nobody changes their mind while feeling judged. You said it yourself...no one likes being told they're being manipulated. Same goes for being told they're naive.
So...what breaks through...is the opposite of what urgency wants: less warning...more curiosity…fewer facts...more STORIES.
Start from something you actually SHARE; their kid...their town...their paycheck...and ASK more than you tell. People will FOLLOW a question into a room...they'd never be shoved into.
Keep the fire. Just hand them a door...not a verdict.
GREAT QUESTION, Virginia.
-Jack
WOW! Where did you get such a list?! Did Trump give it to you himself?! Lol Awesome & very useful! Thank you, Jack!
Ha! I don't think Donald likes me. Thank you so much.:)
-Jack
Thanks Jack, We all need to keep in the fight.
You're welcome, Gary. YES...we DO!
-Jack
File the date. A newsletter that has spent months chronicling the week’s atrocities turns, for a second time, to something more fundamental than the news itself: the machinery underneath it. This is what serious writers do when they conclude the emergency is not a single actor but a set of techniques, reusable across decades and regimes.
Note which claim opens the report. Not “here is what is true,” but “here is what is being done to you.” That inversion is the entire discipline of reading propaganda. Historians who study the twentieth century’s authoritarian episodes will recognize every play in Part Two by another name — the firehose is what Arendt called the destruction of the factual world through sheer volume; the Big Lie needs no citation, since the term comes from the century’s ledger of horrors; gaslighting and DARVO are simply the interpersonal versions of a state denying what it has just done in full view of witnesses. Jack is correct that none of these are new. What changes is only the speed of delivery.
Note which principle carries the most weight for a citizen rather than a historian: the illusory truth effect. A society that mistakes repetition for verification is a society already halfway captured, because the capture requires no violence — only volume, and time. This is the quiet mechanism behind every slogan that outlives its evidence.
Part Three is the harder discipline, and the more useful one. Tactics can be memorized. Character has to be read, patiently, in the moments nobody is grading. Jack is correct again here — the accountability test, the two seconds after a direct question, tells you more than a hundred hours of stage-managed appearances. Authoritarian figures are rarely undone by their critics. They are undone by the accumulating record of small, unwatched choices, because that record cannot be edited after the fact the way a speech can.
What the report does not say, and does not need to — because a reader who has followed this far will complete the thought — is that clarity of this kind is not a private virtue. A citizen who cannot be confused cannot be governed by confusion. That is the whole of what these ten plays are built to prevent, and the whole of why naming them, one at a time, in daylight, matters.
Two things to hold onto, without softening: the tactic dies when it is named, and the discipline of clear sight is a defense that has to be practiced, not merely possessed.
#HOLDFAST
Thank you. We are a nation of naive people, because this has not happened here before? Or because we failed to educate adequately? Or because we've been distracted too long by sports, Netflix, consumerism, careers that leave no time for reading, the media were deregulated and big money took over the news? Or we've been comfortable too long, got lazy?
Virginia...I'd change one word in your question: not naive…tired. And...not by accident.
Your list isn't a set of competing theories...it's a STACK...and each piece feeds the next.
"It can't happen here" is the most HUMAN sentence there is. We stopped teaching civics like it's a machine you have to maintain. And....when big money TOO OVER the news....the product...quietly shifted from "an informed public" ...to "your attention...sold by the pound"… outrage got cheaper than reporting, and local papers died by the thousands.
The one word I'd strike is "lazy." Someone working two jobs with no time to read isn't lazy...they're MAXED out. And maxed-out people are the easiest to govern ...without their noticing.
Good news hiding in there: if it was done TO us...it can be undone BY us.
YOU, Virginia...are the proof.
#HoldFast
-Jack
All of the above.
Wow! Wow! Wow! (2yo grandson Cayde’s new reaction) Thanks for this much valued, succinct, and actionable plan. It is always better to have a plan and act than wring your hands and fret. It does not do any good at all. Set your course and follow through.
#HoldFast
Downloaded and going to print. My eyeballs can’t get the teensy print read quickly enough for my brain and I’m getting unfairly irritated with myself. Gotta keep learning to figure out best practices for making the best of what I have to work with.
What I HAVE read is going to help everyone I share it with. I shared already with a friend I’ll be seeing tomorrow and he’s said he’ll have at least one copy printed by the time I get there. I have the BEST community around me! Check out “The Peach Truck.” BEST peaches EVER, and I had mine delivered to his house because I wasn’t sure where I’d be (same city was all I knew) when I placed my order. This Stone can consistently kill several (hypothetical) birds at a whack. 😉
Ah Jack, how can we thank you enough for speaking to us, engaging with us, cheering us on? I am part of the way through, but need to take my time to absorb and come back to it again and again and again. You really make me think, encourage me to #Holdfast even when I just feel as if there is no hope. Thank you. Sending hugs. #HoldingFast