This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post about the parallels between the national and local political climates.
In one of the penultimate scenes from Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Anakin Skywalker tells Obi-Wan Kenobi, “If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy.” Obi-Wan replies, “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”
Without getting into a philosophical debate about the fact that Obi-Wan’s statement is itself an absolute, the takeaway from this exchange is that Obi-Wan recognizes by Anakin’s language that he’s now dealing with an extremist.
Yesterday, I wrote about the parallels between events that have happened here in Howard County and the events surrounding the presidential election and the insurrection at the Capitol. Today, I’m going to draw more parallels in discussing how we reached this point of toxic fury at the national and local level. To do that, I’ll use fire as an analogy. A fire requires three things to ignite: oxygen, fuel, and heat.
Oxygen. At the national level, we’ve seen a number of factors lead to political polarization. There’s the rise of 24-hour news channels that fill their airtime with infotainment and punditry, blurring the line between news and opinion. There’s the explosive growth of social media platforms that enable the proliferation of false information and conspiracy theories. And there’s the tendency for people to seek news from highly partisan media sources or from social media, which is confirmation bias on steroids. As a result, Americans have become increasingly mistrustful of the media, even traditional fact-based journalism, and we have become more politically polarized as we marinate in our cyber echo chambers.
Fuel. With the air filled with mistrust and bias, and with a lot of Americans facing anxiety over a wide range of social and economic issues, it doesn’t take much to rile people. All that’s required is to stoke their sense of fear and provide a scapegoat. That’s why certain narratives – such as undocumented immigrants taking away American jobs, equating LGBTQ+ civil rights to the extinction of Christianity, and claiming affordable housing will bring increased crime to the suburbs – are so effective at provoking righteous anger, especially among the more privileged socioeconomic groups. And because of the social media climate I described above, people who believe these narratives enjoy constant validation of their fury and righteousness. This is why they feel justified in using dehumanizing language (e.g., “libtard,” “feminazi,” etc.) against others. And it’s why “censorship!” is the rallying cry of anyone kicked off a platform for violating civility and decency rules.
Heat. What is it that serves as the spark that takes people from keyboard warriors to full-blown extremists? It’s very simple: they stop seeing people as merely political opponents, or even just people they dislike, and start seeing them as enemies. Their perceived loss of power and privilege enrages them. They also deify political leaders, treating them with a cult-like reverence and taking their words as pure gospel. This was all patently obvious at the Capitol this week, as insurrectionists draped in Donald Trump merchandise pulled down an American flag and replaced it with a MAGA flag before storming the building to “save America” from the “enemy.” Once you find yourself needing to save your country from democracy, you’ve wandered into extremist territory.
There are signs that Howard County is vulnerable to a spark. We already know that racism and hatred are a serious problem here. Yesterday’s post detailed the more extreme lengths local people have gone to recently to exert their will. There is plenty of toxic discourse on local social media; much like the recent right-wing exodus to the “free speech” haven Parler, Facebook groups such as HoCo Neighbors United open their arms to people looking for a safe space where they won’t be “censored,” where the bar of civility and decency is nearly at the floor. Within these groups is where the scapegoating of and dehumanizing rhetoric toward people such as Howard County Executive Calvin Ball, County Council members, Board of Education members, teachers, and fellow citizens adds heat to the tinder. Using phrases like “public enemy number one” to refer to a local leader is exactly the type of thing that can lead to combustion.
If you still aren’t convinced that extremism can happen here in Howard County, I’ll leave you with this: please see the image below, of the Twitter profile of the Howard County woman who was arrested at the Capitol on Wednesday. Extremism is already here.
