Show notes
Everywhere I look, I see the telltale hysteria that gripped my former party back in 2016. I was a good soldier for the Left, fighting for what I believed was the right side. The hysteria spread, infecting every corner of the Left, and at some point, we lost touch with reality.What was this that had happened to us, I wondered. Why had we abandoned our humanity? Why did the side that used to be the good guys, at least to me, feel so comfortable sliding into dehumanizing and degrading half the country? As I began asking questions, sooner or later, I would get the same one back again, “What happened to you?” But the right question was never what happened to me.The Democrats have had almost ten years to figure out that the problem was never Trump. It was always us and the pristine utopian world we built for ourselves using the internet, social media, and a charismatic leader like Barack Obama. It was a New America where everyone got a seat at the table.The Left always says the first Black president rousted the racists out of hiding, and they lost their minds. But the truth is, it was those of us on the Left who lost our minds with the first Black president. It became an addiction for us, this euphoric feeling of changing the world, of making history. Of being good.Trump’s win kicked all of us into a level of mass hysteria we couldn’t control then or now. As you can see by the headlines, every day is the end of the world - it’s a threat to Democracy, a Constitutional Crisis, a Nazi salute, a fascist in the White House. Everyone is to be feared. Every decision they make is bad and dangerous.The Democrats didn’t learn the lesson in 2016 that Trump represented a large portion of this country that had been abandoned and forgotten by us. We not only decided we were the chosen people to bring our new world to the promised land, but we also decided they were the bad people — the RACISTS — who must be kept out of our government, our culture, our institutions, our corporations — even our restaurants, our movie theaters, and our award shows.As with most utopias gone wrong, there was no due process or presumption of innocence. It was accuse lest ye be accused. It was apologize or else. It was guilty until proven innocent. We all lived in fear of a tyrannical mob on social media with the power to decide who gets to stay and who must go.What was all of this madness, this hysteria we were experiencing? It was a combination of algorithms our brains were not ready for, and how we’d cut ourselves off from the everyday lives of ordinary Americans. They at least still had one foot in normal. But us? We were crippled by delusion, ruled by hysteria.Trump threatened everything. He knocked down our carefully constructed utopian diorama with glee, and his supporters loved him for it. We just weren’t prepared for how hysteria takes hold and scares so many of us all at once. It was pure madness, and we were helpless against it.The hysteria spread to the corporate press, who got most of their information from Twitter, which was a mass hysteria delivery device. And that hysteria trickled down into the homes of anyone watching mainstream cable news. It was at the gym, airports, and the laundry mat. It was white noise in the background, selling our delusions as our new normal —quietly scaring Americans every day of the week.The hysteria brought down the empire as we attacked every potential threat to our utopia - movies, books, history, statues, buildings, words, jokes, poetry, science, marriage, men, the color of our skin, the words that came out of our mouths, what we could say online and what we couldn’t. Obey the rules or else. Be quiet or else. Sooner or later, it was bound to get to the kids. And when it did, not enough of us stood up and said ENOUGH.Usually, this would be when the FBI busts in and breaks it all up, but we controlled the FBI, so they would do nothing.I was one of the lucky ones. I got out in 2020 after the mob turned on me one too many times. If it wasn’t true about me, everything they accused me of, there was a good chance it wasn’t true about MAGA either. And it wasn’t. If you wanted to tell my story as a former Good Liberal who was radicalized online, you can think of it like this: I was radicalized by kindness, decency, and a desire to be free.All the Democrats and the Left ever had to do was snap out of it. See Trump and his supporters as actual human beings and not separate us and categorize us by the color of our skin and insist that the bloodshed of history still lives inside all of us. They could reach out and show some decency, let the rest of the country back inside the castle walls. But even that was too much of a risk for an empire in collapse.But be that as it may, until the Democrats get a grip, they must be kept out of power. So herewith are guidelines for the Democrats on how to keep losing elections, and I really think they should listen to me, don’t you? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe