I saw a diary today passionately arguing against this diary provocatively titled Fuck it...Let Hitler Win. I loved both diaries. The Fuck it one was powerful. It pretty much verbalized my growing horror over just how far this Trump thing has gone. It’s like a practical joke that is not a joke. It’s as if some temporary craze like the SARS panic metastasized into Armageddon territory, and this time everyone won’t get to tuck a bunch of surgical masks and Cipro bottles into the back of the closet and try to forget that they ever got so carried away.
I never thought the same country that elected Barack Obama to the White House twice could ever take this megalomaniacal idealess self-promoting Hindenberg of hate this seriously for this long. Some day, I believe to my marrow that his supporters will eventually disavow him and join the ranks of the abashed McCarthyites of the red scare years, but we are mere days from the opening of absentee balloting in some states and the zombie that will not die no matter how hard he shoots himself in the foot just keeps...on...marching.
So thank you diarists. This shit is getting real. I am a grad student, but I made a recurring gift to the Clinton campaign that’s good through the election.
Now it’s time to start talking and not shut up until game day. I encourage anyone to consider the spiral of silence theory; in short:
Spiral of silence is the term meant to refer to the tendency of people to remain silent when they feel that their views are in opposition to the majority view on a subject. The theory posits that they remain silent for a few reasons:
- Fear of isolation when the group or public realizes that the individual has a divergent opinion from the status quo.
- Fear of reprisal or more extreme isolation, in the sense that voicing said opinion might lead to a negative consequence beyond that of mere isolation (loss of a job, status, etc.)
The spiral is created or reinforced when someone in the perceived opinion majority speaks out confidently in support of the majority opinion, hence the minority begins to be more and more distanced from a place where they are comfortable to voice their opinion and begin to experience the aforementioned fears.
Let us NOT let this work against us. Let us rather harness it, and gently and unapologetically stand up in public and announce that we rebuke Trump and support Clinton. We all have something to lose. But we’ve got a lot more to lose if we don’t take a stand. So off to Facebook I go.
Thanks, diarists, for getting me in the game.