Courage to Stand

On motivation, and motivated ignorance

With the days before the election dwindling into single digits, I find my emotions torn in two directions.

On the one hand, I feel an overwhelming sense of pride when I see what fellow citizens are doing in their own spaces to protect our democracy. I’m inspired by busy people setting aside their own priorities to spend hours each week canvassing, knocking on doors and talking face-to-face with other Americans about what they understand to be at stake in this election. I've watched people who never post on politics craft carefully researched and well-reasoned arguments to reach fence-sitters, risking followers and relationships in doing so. I’ve watched people publicly reaching out to undecided or conflicted voters offering to have genuine, respectful conversations to think through things together. I’ve heard from conflicted voters themselves who are genuinely seeking truth in the midst of so much disinformation.

On the other hand, time and again, I’ve found myself frustrated by a lack of motivation among those who seem to understand perfectly well the stakes of this election. I know many progressives and principled moderates who comprehend that democracy is on the line, who shudder at what a Trump victory might mean, and yet who plan to do nothing except vote next Tuesday. Voting is essential. But it’s hardly the only power we have in a democracy.

Last month, a concerned citizen told me that they put up a political yard sign this fall for the first time ever. “I just couldn’t let Trump win and think I hadn’t done anything,” they said. I think this is a noble instinct, but I reminded them that they live in a swing state and there are additional things they could do between then and the election if they feel so moved.

With one week to go before election day, it’s not too late. In fact, now is a critical time to mobilize voters. Most experts agree that this election will be decided based on turnout—on which party gets more of their voters to the polls. Every day matters. What can you do? Contact your local campaign headquarters and ask them. They will give you options and find a way to plug you in. Maybe you’ll be driving people to the polls who lack transportation. Maybe you’ll be making calls to make sure people know where to vote and have a plan to get there. Maybe you’ll be knocking on doors. Or maybe you can make a last-minute donation to help operations behind-the-scenes.

“All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing,” says the quote attributed to Churchill and also to Burke and which someone definitely once said, or should have said. It’s one thing to lose a democracy via a violent coup. It’s another thing to hand it over because too many people couldn’t be bothered to exercise their democratic rights to protect it.

If apathy, or lack of motivation, is one source of my frustration, the other source can be summed up in two words: motivated ignorance.

Motivated ignorance, Pete Wehner writes in The Atlantic, “refers to willfully blinding oneself to facts. It’s choosing not to know.” For some, “knowing the truth is simply too costly, too psychologically painful, too threatening to their core identity.” In response, “people actively decide to remain in a state of ignorance. If they are presented with strong arguments against a position they hold, or compelling evidence that disproves the narrative they embrace, they will reject them. Doing so fends off the psychological distress of the realization that they’ve been lying to themselves and to others.”

As Wehner explains, “It’s one thing to embrace a conspiracy theory that is relevant only to you and your tiny corner of the world. It’s an entirely different matter if the falsehood you’re embracing and promoting is venomous, harming others, and eroding cherished principles, promoting violence and subverting American democracy.”

Perhaps you watched Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden yesterday. Drawing frequent comparisons to the pro-Nazi rally held there in 1939, the rally was filled with racist, crude, and incendiary rhetoric. To wit:

Anger and vitriol took center stage at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday night, as Donald Trump and a cabal of campaign surrogates held a rally marked by racist comments, coarse insults, and dangerous threats about immigrants.

Nine days out from the election, Trump used the rally in New York to repeat his claim that he is fighting “the enemy within” and again promised to launch “the largest deportation program in American history”, amid incoherent ramblings about ending a phone call with a “very, very important person” so he could watch one of Elon Musk’s rockets land….

There was certainly a dark tone throughout the hours-long rally, with one speaker describing Puerto Rico, home to 3.2m US citizens, as an “island of garbage”; Tucker Carlson mocking Harris’ racial identity; a radio host describing Hillary Clinton as a “sick bastard”; and a crucifix-wielding childhood friend of Trump’s declaring that Harris is “the antichrist”.

Trump continued his frequent rants about immigration and claimed that a “savage Venezuelan prison gang” had “taken over Times Square”, which will come as a surprise to anyone who has recently visited the New York landmark. The former president also stated, wrongly, that the Biden administration did not have money to respond to a recent hurricane in North Carolina because “they spent all of their money bringing in illegal immigrants, flying them in by beautiful jet planes”.

…Hinchcliffe’s comments about Puerto Rico – he also made lewd sexual innuendos about Latina women – were met with big laughs from the crowd. A comment from radio personality Sid Rosenberg that Hillary Clinton is a “sick bastard” was similarly well received, as was Rosenberg’s claim that “the fucking illegals get everything they want”.

David Rem, a Republican politician who the Trump campaign described as a childhood friend of the former president, called Harris “the devil” and “the antichrist”, to loud cheers.

While it may be startling to see the depths to which the Trump campaign’s political rhetoric has sunk, none of this is new.

If you haven’t been following along, the Editorial Board of The New York Times has collated a list of Trump’s disturbing promises:

Trump says he will use the Justice Department to punish people he doesn’t like.

Trump says he will round up and deport millions of immigrants.

Trump says he will deploy the American military against U.S. citizens.

Trump says he will allow vigilante violence to end crime.

Trump says he will order the military to strike foreign civilian targets if the United States is attacked.

Trump says he will punish blue states by withholding disaster relief.

Trump says he will use ideological tests to decide which public shools get federal money.

Trump says he will abandon U.S. allies.

BELIEVE HIM.

As the Times explains:

Donald Trump has described at length the dangerous and disturbing actions he says he will take if he wins the presidency.

His rallies offer a steady stream of such promises and threats — things like prosecuting political opponents and using the military against U.S. citizens. These statements are so outrageous and outlandish, so openly in conflict with the norms and values of American democracy that many find them hard to regard as anything but empty bluster.

We have two words for American voters: Believe him.

The record shows that Mr. Trump often pursues his stated goals, regardless of how plainly they lack legal or moral grounding. The record further shows that many of his most reckless efforts in his first administration were stymied only because of others in his administration who blocked, delayed or watered down his aims to ensure that he could not put himself above the law or the country. Mr. Trump has learned from that experience to surround himself with supplicants who would instead obey his wishes and bring his words and ideas to life even if they contradict facts, the public interest or the Constitution.

For this reason, Americans would be wise to see this language as a genuine threat, not simply Mr. Trump on a tangent. We should take the painful step of imagining America were his plans and promises to come to pass, to imagine the impacts to our culture, to our economy, to our security, to our shared commitment to the rule of law.

And yet, around half of Americans plan to vote for him.

Even more troubling, 82% of white evangelicals plan to vote for this.

And yet, many do so while dodging the moral and political implications of that choice.

“I don’t like either candidate, so I’m voting on policy,” is a common refrain in these circles. To which I suggest inquiring, which policies? The ones listed above? Or perhaps the ones experts agree will tank our economy? Or the ones that denigrate, demonize, and dehumanize fellow Americans?

As we prepare to cast our ballots this election, I would simply ask that we do so not feigning ignorance, but looking the evidence straight in the eye and saying, “Yes, this is what I choose.”

For both sides, Eleanor Roosevelt’s words issue a timely challenge:

“When you have decided what you believe, what you feel must be done, have the courage to stand alone and be counted.”