Thread by @shaunjlawson

There's actually quite a serious point in all this: one for everyone to chew on. What do we do in any democracy when so many people are just wrong?

https://twitter.com/suziegeewizz/status/1210540334045958145

Wrong about austerity - which is based entirely on lies.

Wrong about Brexit (Hard or No Deal Brexit, at least) - which is also based entirely on lies.

Wrong about immigration: without which, we can't afford the NHS or pensions.

If we tell them they're wrong, we look condescending, arrogant, out of touch and like we think we're somehow better than them.

If we just nod our heads, we become complicit ourselves.

Seriously... what do we do?

We can't just ignore them. We certainly can't hector, lecture and further alienate them. But appeasement DOES NOT WORK. Never has, never will. And in any country: if a narrative based on lies can't be challenged because so many people believe it, that country is finished.

I'll give you an example. Sometime circa 2016 or so, a well respected pollster on here conducted focus groups with working class voters who were all talking about immigration, the 'workshy' and 'benefit scroungers'.

One of them said: "One of my neighbours is on benefits and never comes out of his home!"

This begged the question: how on Earth did he know? Had his neighbour boasted about it? Or had he instead assumed something which wasn't true because his neighbour worked from home?

And - think about it - in how many cases was that also true of others? People who'd drone on about 'scroungers' because of what the Tories and the press would parrot... without the faintest idea if it was true or not?

When the pollster published his research, and concluded that Labour must go in a Blue Labour direction, I challenged him. Had he asked these people how they knew these things? Had he told them facts, based on evidence?

Nope. "Not his job", apparently. 🙄🙄🙄

That pollster's a smart guy: well informed, does shedloads of research. But if he can't see how dangerous that is - just let people parrot nonsense, hatred, bigotry: don't challenge it, even apologise for 'not understanding their concerns' - there's no hope left at all.

When people use those concerns to blame not the decade-long government, but the opposition, for a decade of catastrophic cuts; and local councils, not the government, for a decade of cuts to those councils by the government, we have an unbelievably serious problem.

We have people left so far behind by this wretched, disgusting system that they've lost all ability to inform themselves. They just repeat constant bollocks. About everything.

What does someone who is informed do to change that? I have no idea. I wouldn't have the patience.

We've even reached the stage now in which anyone who is informed is instantly part of the problem. Because y'know, "we've had enough of experts".

This is how democracy dies. It really is. Without a well-informed, well-educated public capable of critical thinking, there's nothing