Notes, references, & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-pick-battles-on-someone-else
My general rant monologue that as a constituent writing reps, or a citizen doing civic engagement, you don’t have to doing 8 dimensional chess based on op-eds or what politicians are saying. We can prioritize based on our own interests, and we might be on the same page with others more than we think.
(Transcript below)
References:
(Further information on concepts and issues mentioned.)
https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/writing-letters-to-elected-representatives
https://youtu.be/b_jGgTJycaM?si=UCCU92viH0HXKsCi
https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/north-of-48-podcast-on-election
https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/behind-the-scenes-hopium-peddling
https://teamshuman.substack.com/p/repeat-the-truth-dont-lead-with-a
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/225469
https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/the-same-problems-continue
https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/grass-is-not-much-greener-on-blue-sky
https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/energy-production-pollution-for-no-purpose
https://wat3rm370n.tumblr.com/post/768535041532952576
https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/thoughts-on-scranton-times-tribune
Transcript:
I'm Chloe Humbert and don't pick your battles based on someone else's say so. I'm recording this Friday, December 20th. And today I heard a politician interviewed and they were talking about needing to pick their battles. And that is entirely sensible. That is a sensible thing for a politician to say and to do. But I think it's important to talk about that that's not what constituents should be thinking as far as framing how to advocate for ourselves. We don't have to go in lowballing ourselves or taking our own needs off the table before we even get to the table. We don't have to compromise before we get anywhere. And that's not something someone in movement politics should be doing. Organizations, of course, may need to pick battles as an organization, depending on whatever the priorities are. And, you know, the average person writing to elected representatives, obviously, you can't spend all day, every day writing letters about every single thing that might affect you. Frankly, this is the point that - the reason we have a society, supposedly, and a government so that we don't need to do that. But obviously, we all need to prioritize in our own lives, you know, depending on what kind of limited time we have or what's most important to us. But as a citizen doing civic engagement or a person as a part of a movement, an activist or just a person, a constituent, I triage based on my own priorities. I'm not self-censoring or picking my battles based on what some congressperson says or what some political pundit or what some op-ed says I should take a backseat on or whatever. That's not how this should work. So when a politician is explaining their rationale for their approach and their strategies, that's great. I'm all for having politicians who explain themselves and explain their rationales and be transparent about their decisions. And that's great. But some of these people who have, you know, are going to tell people, oh, you need to pick your battles, what they're really trying to do. I mean, some of them mean well, but some do not. Some are deliberately trying to demoralize us out of speaking up about certain things. It's good that politicians are picking their battles and finding common ground with other people in their caucus or even reaching across the aisle. That's all well and good. But as a constituent, that's not how I make my priorities on what to advocate for, for myself. I advocate based on my own priorities, what I think is important. So, I mean, this is important because I know a lot of the better politicians have learned to be influencers. And that's good. That could be very good. And it's a successful way to communicate in our modern information landscape. But the influencer parasocial model can make you feel like they're going to take care of you. So there's a double-edged sword there. And it could be a successful way to create influence, but not as successful in gathering momentum for a movement. So it might make people vote for them. And that can be good if they have good policies. We want that. But it could also make their most likely movement movers be complacent and lead to inaction waiting for somebody up high to do something behind the scenes. And that's not good because... Almost always, if they're doing something behind the scenes, it's because they don't want us to see what's going on and how we're going to get screwed. Like, so, yeah, not the way we should be thinking of things. There always needs to be a movement on the ground to get movement in the halls of power. The right wing knows this. I mean, unfortunately, I've heard people say, well, my congressperson is a Democrat, so they'll do the right thing. I don't need to do anything. Bzzz. Wrong. The right wing is right now organizing people in church basements right now to write to your Democratic senator about stuff that they want. And that's why your Democratic congressperson is always reaching across the aisle, because that's who they're hearing from. I saw this with my own and I heard about it. I heard about it with my own representative in Congress, is that there were constantly people on the right. So he just expected them to vote for him. And I'm sure it's been a shock for him that they didn't. I'm sure some people did. But yeah, just, if we don't speak up, they don't know we exist. That's the catch 22 there, is that you can vote them in, but if they don't hear from you, they assume the people they're hearing from are the ones that voted for them. It's a really sticky situation. So you can't just assume that, like, oh, well, they're picking this battle, so they don't want to hear about that from me. No, if you think that that's a battle that they should be picking, that is, I am within with my rights to say, hey, this is something I think you should care about because I care about. They work for us. Representatives in government, it's a government for the people, by the people. The representatives are supposed to represent the people. I'm not saying that happens in practice enough. Certainly not. But that's the way it's supposed to be. You have a right to speak up. That is a guaranteed right to be able to have redress. You have an opportunity to tell them. So I also hear from people on the left who say, oh, well, my representative, they're all Republicans or they're shitlibs or whatever. But most likely it's, oh, they're just a right winger and they won't listen to me. And again, maybe – maybe not. That's true at times. It's some issues, some reps, but you don't know for sure. You just don't know. So if it's something important to you, write them about it, it's going to go into a tally for most of these people. At least they will have it on the radar or something. It could be that some Republican is on the fence about something because he's already hearing from people he knows to be Republicans. So there are times that Republicans, I had a Republican congressperson who did go against the Republican Party on a number of votes. I'm not saying it was always a good thing, but that was really the case. And I think that it probably did have to do with the constituency. making a tipping point and you don't know where that tipping point is. Like you just have to make your decisions on, is this important to you? Well then write, write them about it. Sometimes it could not just be that they're going to vote for something. It could be that just that they don't want the issue of like to get attached to them and attack ads. And even if like they're in a safe seat, that could be still an issue in a primary election. So they could still be concerned about that. And sometimes these politicians are coy. They don't necessarily hear constituents hate this bill and then vote against it. Maybe they just don't show up for the vote. These governing bodies, they have people who are figuring out exactly how many people are going to be absent for a vote, how many votes they need to pass, and which way it'll go. This is definitely a thing I've heard about. So sometimes there are politicians who just don't want to touch something. They don't necessarily want to abstain. They don't want to vote against it. But they just don't show up and they know it'll pass without their yes vote. So that is a thing. And if somebody asked them later, they could say, well, I wasn't there for that vote, sorry. And they could say, I guess they were indisposed or whatever. But it could be a strategy. So whatever the policies, whatever the issues, whatever influence we actually think we have or don't think we have, we don't always know that because pluralistic ignorance is always going on in the information landscape. You cannot look out on social media or in op-eds in the corporate media or pundits or even elected representatives. You can't look at what they're saying and assume that there's not enough support to tip the scales on this or that thing. You just you can't because the information is all messed up out there. It's just messed up. People think that things are more popular than they really are. People think that things aren't as popular as they really are. This is a big problem. And it's because a lot of people aren't speaking up and the people who are speaking up have big microphones. Because they have money behind them and platformed and whatever, or they're just good at clout chasing and getting themselves out in front of a microphone or whatever the case may be. But it's just, you cannot trust that. So there's no reason to take your cues from some op-ed and say, oh, well, I guess we have to pick our battles so I won't write my... No, don’t, don't fall for that. Don't fall for it. Because they're trying to silence you, maybe. Like, that could really be a thing. You don't have to pretend that you don't care about something because this or that has to come first. Like, if it's important to you, write about it. Don't let somebody demoralize and neutralize you. I try not to let that affect me because it's a cognitive attack. It's a cognitive attack that's been very successful. And people actually do it as like an own goal. They do it as a self-sabotage own goal, too. People are tricked into it, I should say. And you see this with so many subjects, especially in like the hot-button political discourse. I mean, everything public health, war, foreign policy, domestic culture wars. And I can't help but notice. I don't see right wingers falling for this. I don't see the right wingers falling for these out of bounds pitches as much as I do. Garden variety liberal democratic politicians and even pundits and people in the news. So, for example, you don't hear a right-winger saying, well, I know the unhoused need aid and I care about them, before launching into their demonization of the poor and saying they're all criminals and they choose this. No, they've launched right into their framework. They launch right into their framework. But you will see, especially Democratic politicians, but also pundits and these historians and these people with platforms, and they'll be saying, well, I agree with this horrible person with terrible ideas on this one tiny little thing. Before actually making the case that, you know, is absolutely different than that. Or they'll say, I'm not with... Well, I'm not this or that. And insert whatever bullshit label that some propagandist has painted onto them. Even though that's not anything remotely true. Maybe not even related. You can see this all the time. An example of this type of bullshit is like... Take some dipshit book ban and the defunding of a library. And then you see the politician, instead of just saying, I'm for funding the library and the ban, I want the library funded, and the book ban is bad. Instead, they lead with all the lies of the opposition instead. Instead of just saying, let's fund the library and the book ban is bad, they lead with the lie and say... Well, I'm not for LGBTQ+ explicit erotic literature with. When of course that isn't, that's never been a thing. That's just not a thing. That's just not what's happening. They're banning books. They're banning books for no good reason. Because of religious church and state lack of separation stuff. Well, I don't need to explain. But that's just not what's going on. But the people are buying into that by leading with the false frame. So they lead with the lie like that, it’s undercutting their own message, and this is the trap these people fall into. So if you have to address all the garbage before actually doing effective communication, you're actually sabotaging your own communication. So don't fall for those things. Like, gosh. But they do. And they will keep falling for them because they're afraid. Either afraid to just say, hey, let's talk about this. They have to, you know, quantify it with every propagandist spin from the opposition that's been laid on the whole thing. It's like there's no point. I don't need to say 20 different things that are based on nonsense from like QAnon or the right wing or corporate neocons or whatever. I don't need to go down a litany of stuff before I try to make my case on something. Like I don't need to address any of that propaganda. Don't. Responding is losing. Responding is losing. You're just a gift, you know, because you're repeating what the opposition wants, their message. You're repeating their framing. It's just terrible. But they're going to keep doing that. You don't have to. You know, maybe they will do that. Let's try to get better representatives in, that don't do that bullshit. I mean, there are many who don't. There are ones that don't fall for that. There are savvy people, and there's also good pundits and people speaking out that don't do that nonsense. But some will, and you don't have to. As a regular person writing your representative, you don't need to start with... Well, I'm not for blah, blah, blah. That has nothing to do with anything. You just go right into what you want. Just skip all that and just stick to a simple: This is what I want. This is what I have a problem with. This is the solution I want. And that's it. You don't have to get into the mud with these other framings and stuff. And, of course, organizations get messed with all the time. So they get co-opted. They get infiltrated. They get derailed. Maybe they start prioritizing funding over the mission. Who knows. So organizing can be good, but you have to know when you see that there could be these problems. So you accept the limitations and you say, okay, well, in the organization, maybe they're doing this or that or maybe they're saying this or that. But you, when you're writing your representative, you don't need to do that. So this is the one way we can avoid this whole mess of the warped media landscape or all of this bad framing and all of these: you need to pick your battles. No, let them pick their battles. Let them pick their battles. That's good. That's fine. I mean, if you're in a position where you have to negotiate something, Or you're in an organization or the politician is in Congress and they need to negotiate and they're doing their trades and whatever. Okay, that's their job. But as an individual, as a constituent, as somebody who's doing civic engagement... You don't need to prioritize based on their pronouncements or some journalist's personal opinions about what's most important. I'm not saying don't take input and say, you know, read about an issue and, you know, maybe you could change your mind on something like tmaybe you thought that this was more important than this, but now you're thinking, no, maybe I should devote more time for that. But don't base that on because somebody told you that it's unpopular or that, well, it just can't come to pass. You know, that it'll never happen or everything never could happen before it happens. And then it happens. And then, you know, of course, it happened. So... Change is real. Change is happening all the time. Of course things can change. And we don't know what that is because the information landscape is just that bad. And it doesn't matter which platform it is. It just doesn't matter. Like out there on social media and the corporate media and even independent media can be skewed to this and that. You can end up in information silos. And this is actually a tactic that oppositional forces will deploy upon their targets is to try to silo the target into an echo chamber so they don't see certain information. It's, you know, create blind spots. And even to the point of demoralizing people. Or just, yeah, keeping people in the dark about something. Or keeping them easier to control. Because when people are kind of corralled and kettled, they're easier to control. So this happens, ironically, this seems to happen more on the big social media platforms where there's just all a big mishmash of people, and then there's the people who come in with their bots and their targeting campaigns and their influence operations, and they come to target people. And then there becomes these artificial silos, and people don't even realize they're in echo chambers. Like, you don't know... And ironically, it's almost better if you just choose your community somewhere and, find a forum, find some friends, get together a group chat, form a little organization, get involved in an organization and then have a sub group of pals within that organization or whatever the case may be. It's almost better if you choose because it's natural for people to group. But then you're not exposed to other things if there's like a wall. So it's good to have people who are in hubs and nodes. So then there's people who cross those boundaries and are in multiple different groups of people. But as it stands, people are not doing that because it's so easy just to go on and just, you know, doom scroll and not even pay attention to how people are being manipulated i warned uh last month maybe about how the block lists and the subscribe lists are used to manipulate people and of course i see that the irony about it is that i'll see people saying well this block list has people i like on it and they still just don't get it that it it's like they're being manipulated. Uh, so yeah, don't, don't fall for that. Don't, don't assume that just because something seems popular that it really is. Don't assume that something's unpopular because you don't see anything about it. Trust your own priorities. That's what I do. I say, well, this is what's going on in my life and this is what I'd like to see. Or I see something reported in the news and I think, well, that doesn't sound good and I want to help those people. I don't live in Carbon County, for example, but I see what's going on with that Panther Creek, where it's a power plant that serves no other purpose than for this crypto tycoon to print crypto. And it's their pollution, they're planning on burning tires, they're already burning coal and construction debris, whatever doesn't sound good, but not super local to me. But if it can happen there, it can happen near me. It's not that far from me. So I don't just assume that because it's not making front page news everywhere on all of the, you know, on the local Scranton Times-Tribune, which was bought by a hedge fund, and it's only being reported on the local PBS WVIA station. A lot of people aren't seeing that, but it is something. So I might not be the only person writing about it. So I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to just assume that because I'm the only one that's posting on tumblr about it, that it's not important. It's important. And me doing that little bit, I might be the difference between reaching a few people and we're all writing to our reps about it and something, maybe will budge. We just got to try. And if you don't do anything, then you're definitely not getting anywhere. So maybe nine times out of ten, what you write about might not do anything. But ten things won't be getting anywhere if I don't write at all. So don't assume that you know what other people are thinking and writing about. You don't have to be in part of an organization. You don't have to get involved with partisan politics in order to write your reps. You just don't. And those things could be good, getting involved in organizing. I'm not saying don't do that, but you don't even have to. This is something you can do regardless of whatever else is going on. So write your reps. Do it now.
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