Team Red Vs Team Blue
Speak through action
How many times in life have you conveyed your thoughts on politics to someone of the opposite leaning and then a grown adult has:
Listened,
Understood,
Reasoned,
Changed their mindset
I’m going to guess the answer - drum roll please!
Was I right?
Given ones life experience and a probable history of trying to convince Team Blue to join Team Red or Team Red join Team Blue
and
Given the definition of insanity is repeating the same actions, expecting a different outcome
What is the logical conclusion?
To stop the madness of trying to change an adults mind.
I’ll give a few more considerations to backup this point of view.
Firstly, it is my opinion that there is a layer above governments stitching together decision making across the globe. This post about seeing black holes touches upon it. Unpacking this statement, everything is pre-designed. Illusion of choice via democracy gives people a thread of belief that they can control their environment.
Is there any point in exerting life force over something that is predetermined?
Adding to this, if we supposed that this shadow government didn’t exist -
Peoples situations influence their perception, peoples perception are their reality.
Someone who has worked as an employee in a Union job for 30 years will have a series of experiences and conditioning that favors - doing exactly what they are tasked to do and no more. Their financial situation is directly tied to the Unions bargaining ability. Corporations bad, exploitive, laborers good.
Someone who has been a business owner for 30 years will have a series of experiences and conditioning that favors - risk & reward, delegation, scaling, identifying opportunity and acting upon it, doing more than is required, the use of capital, free market economics and so on. Humans are leverage and essential cogs in the system. The value that a human adds to the enterprise is rewarded and value-less people are not-rewarded or removed from the business.
The union worker is going to vote for companies “paying their fair share”, perhaps higher taxes for the rich.
The job creator is going to vote for the freedoms, reduction in governance, lower taxes and so on.
The two trying to convince each other of something are like trying to force your reality into someone else’s head. It can’t be done. Everyone lives in their own little unique universe. You cannot comprehend their reality, how they perceive and digest the world around them.
How often is a human going to switch from voting from one team to another? It would be a large admission that they made a mistake in their past choice. If they made that mistake - how many of their previous choices have been mistakes too?
Speak through action is something I have practiced for over a decade - where I don’t say much about anything but instead choose speak through action. This is act through doing instead of saying. This came around from having an online presence. I’d make a statement in an online forum to be met with scores of viciously angry apes. The conversation would deeply enrage me and force me to spend my day thinking of rebuttals. It made me angry, it wasted my time and it changed no-ones opinion. I now only speak through action or broadcast meaningful truths to those who would listen.
The surprisingly binary optionality of choices in Western Democracies is a pretty limited tooling for change. It coincidentally leads to a convenient theatrical platform pitting one vs another and not diluting the hate with a third option. Rallying one side with a clear enemy of another.
It impresses me in a negative way how many SubStack writers fetishize Team Red vs Team Blue.
Fear and Greed. The greatest marketing platforms.
Ignorance is bliss. Be ignorant of things you have no power over.
There's also "team undecided" and "team not playing."
Those teams actually determine who wins, far more than either "team red" or "team blue."
You may not be able to convince "team red" to join "team blue" (or vice versa) but you certainly can get them to join "team undecided" or "team not playing."
You also can get "team undecided" or "team not playing" to join your team, if you choose to play the game and be a part of a team.
That's what makes that system much, much better than systems where you're forced to play and there's only one team you can be a part of.
It's not a very good game, but it's better than the alternatives.
I do not like the tribalism of politics. I wish more people would be willing to say, “Well some of (Harris’s)/(Trump’s) ideas are ok…” instead of absolute and complete rejection of the “other” team.
I have a preference between the two candidates, but I am not, nor will I ever be, “tribal” in that preference.
Lastly, it is correct, especially in an online “argument,” you will not change the other person’s mind. But the reason for engaging is for other people who might happen across your thread. Seeing the “arguments” laid out, might change their mind.