Reposting TheBirminghamBear’s essay here because the cowards at Reddit tried to delete it.
“Shame is a powerful weapon.
Because listen – every human being has an innate and powerful need for purpose within society. For brotherhood and sisterhood with his fellow man. This is one of our basest and most powerful drives.
Shame is a good thing in a properly constructed society. Our laws can be seen as a sort of elaborate extension of the more base shameful acts that would exclude one from society. People who harm or steal from their neighbor are met with the scorn of their fellow people. And thus we develop laws forbidding that behavior.
The “social proof” – an advertising word that means demonstrating to a consumer that other people are buying or using the product, is one of the most powerful methods for getting someone to buy or participate, because people want to do what other people are doing.
So yes, use shame. You see Trump supporters are under the delusion, maintained in large part due to their propaganda networks, that their behavior is right and moral and that they are in the majority. Republicans even invented the term “moral majority” in the 70s to convey that sense of unity.
But they are not. They don’t realize they are on increasingly vanishing islands. They don’t seem to understand they have almost completely lost every younger generation of voters in existence, because of their horrible, hateful rhetoric.
That’s why you see them repeating these memes and pathetic jokes shaming millennials – as if there’s something genetically wrong with that generation. As if their generations didn’t have the responsibility for teaching and nurturing the young.
They see the shame and revulsion in the faces of their children and grand children, and rather than admit their mistakes, they hide deeper in delusion, deeper in denial. This is their weakness. That shelter is not impermeable. And when it cracks, when the real world finally comes rushing in to meet them, they will feel that hard.
Most of them are still high off the 2016 victory. Nevermind that they suffered a crushing popular victory loss to a fairly underwhelming and unexciting Democratic candidate by almost 3 million votes. That victory deluded them into thinking their movement was much larger than it was.
We bring them back to reality. We, the people. Yes, use shame. It doesn’t have to be vicious. Just show people that their hate will not be tolerated. Choose not to associate with people that espouse it. Speak up in public when they do espouse it. Ask them if they believe it is mature or decent to treat people the way the Trump administration treats people.”
