Thread by @MollyMcKew

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom I think maybe you can both be right — a bit. Perhaps you will both forgive a semi-long explanation.

Anne — very grateful for this contribution, precisely bc it removes the problem from the “nothing can be done” category & points out that plenty of places have done this before /1

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom Also *we* have done this before. Throughout the civil war, Lincoln was obsessed with things infrastructure and national symbols (Thanksgiving Day, etc), knowing that eventually it would all have to be physically and mentally knit back together.
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@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom I also worked in Liberia just after the end of the long civil war, & saw how effectively some of the tools you describe in your thoughtful piece worked. Especially the overall “change the subject” idea. For the first time for a whole generation, they could be something else /3

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom There’s an art to conflict resolution — and maybe a little magic and a lot of luck — the right messengers are so crucial, etc etc. But it’s so right to point out that there are actionable techniques to be tried — even if we don’t think of ourselves as people who need them /4

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom I have also need trying to think thru this problem set in the American context. But where I think the successful examples we draw from — many of which are in your piece here — become more challenging in America is on the issue of value proposition and economics /5

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom In Liberia, people had less than nothing, and the power of showing them education and water and security and hope for a future became a powerful remedy to some divides.

In Colombia, again the idea that you could live a life without this other way had an economic aspect /6

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom Sometimes this economic issue is direct — personal employment etc.

Sometimes it’s about security — you can go to work and there will be more jobs and your kids can go to school when there is less or no violence, etc.

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@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom But what is the value proposition that brings American seditionists to the table — this is something I struggle with. They aren’t absent economic opportunity or security. And in many cases view themselves as better off in both categories because of Trump.

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@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom They also tend to be of the long-cultivated mindset of hyper-libertarianism/Gadsdenization —“don’t tread on me” morphed into “I expect the government to do nothing for me”

Obvi this falls apart in aspects—everyone still wants the garbage collected without effort—but it’s real /9

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom So what’s the value proposition — it’s hard.

I agree with your national service idea for a variety of reasons. Builds relationships you otherwise don’t have (as mixing in the military does); changes perspective on national and citizenship; offers real value benefit training /10

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom Also helps unravel the 1%/3% thinking, that only a very few people are willing to serve to defend the nation, and everyone else is a bunch of freeloaders, so the ones willing to fight with guns are the true Americans and no one else is.

We can all serve. We can all defend. /11

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom My contribution to this, looking from a different aspect, is restarting civil defense organizations, which is like a national service year complement for the older generations of Americans. But same idea. Know your community. Training benefits skills.
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greatpower.us/p/the-way-ahea…

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom But this gets back to—can you & Tom both be right? Can peacebuilding and shaming coexist?

I would argue yes

We have to offer a deescalation pathway that requires participation from both sides. And I think the hope is that enough people want this to end that they participate/13

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom But there will still be the people for whom the value proposition is the sedition. Greene. Cawthorn. Boebert. Cruz. Hawley. The membership-based militias. Their power and access to wealth now comes from the sedition idea.

That’s where shame is important. /14

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom Because they won’t want bridge building or peacemaking that works, because it takes away their access to minds and wealth. This is why they are so dangerous.

But it isn’t just them. Many of the regular joe seditionist also see their value in participating in the sedition. /15

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom Peeling people away may change the value prop — less pie for more people. But I don’t think that we can deny how real this is for many. They see opportunity, value, purpose in this pathway. A hyper-individualization mindset gives them permission only to care about themselves. /16

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom But you can change the world around them while refuse to participate, and hopefully those who CHOOSE to participate are enough.

But the threshold of — who are the local politicians who will lead this effort — is a real hurdle in a lot of places. /17

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom Defining this value proposition is essential to incentivize the hard word.

Anyway. Sorry for the loooooooong sidebar /18x

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom Hard work. Sorry for may typos, need more coffee

@anneapplebaum @RadioFreeTom MANY typos FFS