I stumbled onto a short made by someone I have only briefly interacted with on YouTube. The short was named something that implied it was about events that showed fascism in action. The links the uploader provided made me feel compelled to do a live analysis: click.
I wasn't sure about what I had done after the fact, but it did make me think about political discourse that I'm aware of. Even though I dislike politics in general and do not talk about it much, there are still a LOT of things that do deserve the logical treatment.
One such event I've read about is that people who dislike what ICE and other agencies are doing engage in strange changes of words in order to change the narrative—or put another way, to make a story.
Rather than say ICE is arresting people, I've read they are "invading" cities, "capturing" people, or "disappearing" people. It's painted with dark, sinister overtones. Mostly you will see this language in posts or tweets and the like, but still—it's there.
Why? Well, I'm not sure why anyone does anything, of course, but clearly this isn't what the facts are. ICE is not, in fact, "invading" any city. They are not disappearing people. They are arresting them. Now, some people do not like this, think it's overzealous or overblown, etc. etc.… but why change the narrative in such a way?
As above, when I analyzed the video, it was only because the words suggested it was somehow linked to fascism—although not stated out loud, it was implied by the label of the video and the words on the screen.
Is the panic that some have over the events so high that they are willing to forgo reality in order to make a new narrative story, just so that story compels others to act out of emotion rather than facts?
I... do not know. But it is disturbing that we humans can and will fall into such mental traps. We read something that says "men in masks are harming women" and go into protective mode. BUT, you see, these are ICE agents. Yes, they have on masks (sometimes), and yes, most of them are men (perhaps all), and yes, in some cases, they are arresting women… and they might cause harm if those women resist.
But anyone who resists police can be harmed, as the police must contain you and apply force when you are resisting.
The way forward cannot be to use emotions and the changing of facts to forward your agenda. Otherwise, I will be skeptical of it, and I will point out the falsehood. Use facts and reason to try to compel change, not darkened tones. Poisoning the well might work, but beware—it's your own water supply.
Perhaps reason and logic will be used and prevail in the end… if only we insist upon it.
Will we?
I'm not sure.
