Bypass Surgery
Originally posted on Facebook 3/26/25:
I've been mulling over a recent Sarah Longwell podcast clip. She's a Republican strategist and editor for The Bulwark who is well known for running focus groups with various segments of voters to better understand their behaviors, values, motivations, what they're drawn to, what repels them, and what messaging is breaking through. In this particular clip, Sarah was sharing the responses and reactions to Trump's current presidency from the folks who voted for Biden in 2020 and then voted for Trump in 2024.
This may or may not come as a surprise, but these folks are still generally happy with Trump, DOGE, and the slash-and-burn approach. The overall sentiment was, "At least we can see/hear/feel that he's doing something." It didn't particularly matter if that "something" had positive or negative effects. In their opinion, perceived action, even if tumultuous or momentarily painful, is preferable to the perceived inaction of more typical presidents and politicians.
While this kind of data has obvious implications for what the Democrats need to do to counter-message in the coming months and elections, I personally spent a lot of time over the past few days mulling over how to deal with the echo chambers that exacerbate the dual realities in which our country seems to be living.
Can we break through our own echo chambers? Can we enter into other people's echo chambers? Can we invite or drag them into ours? Can we find the magic bullet that creates a broader echo chamber with more ideas flowing and more folks listening?
The answer to all of the above is a tentative yes. I say "tentative" because the solution to every one of these is deeply uncomfortable. It requires personal growth, expanding our own perspectives, creating new habits, and embracing a group-project mindset while most of the folks who are a part of this project may have no interest in participating.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for each of us working on ourselves in ways that have an eventual impact on improving the situation in our country, BUT I think one of the frustrations many of us are feeling is the deterring effect (within ourselves and others) of the inherent and inescapable challenges that personal-growth-oriented solutions pose.
I fully believe that there are solutions to most problems, and the best solutions are those that are simple to understand, easy to execute, and require the least amount of internal resistance to taking action (i.e. doing something without having to talk ourselves into it). Unfortunately, any solution that requires "personal growth" rarely checks these boxes.
After mulling over ALL the permutations of entering, sharing, or invading each other's echo chambers, I've come to the conclusion that the easiest solution is to just bypass them completely. To be clear, I do NOT mean ignore or leave our own echo chambers. In fact, we must stay in them to inspire and support each other. By "bypass," I mean where are the places we cross paths with those outside of our typical circles? Better yet, where do we cross paths without coming face-to-face with a trigger-happy, "All Libs must die!" person?
I wrote about the need to impact the Zeitgeist in my most recent Substack article for Pockets & Sedition, and now in hindsight, I’m realizing that most of the ideas outlined in that article work because they "cross paths" with others by bypassing the echo chambers.
Two of these ideas in in particular:
* TRUMPFLATION. Trumpflation is my preferred word to describe anything related to high prices, inflation, the economy, or any other financial pain. It's NOT about explaining calculus-level concepts like rates of change, or the teaching of subtle nuances and global forces affecting micro and macro-economics (even though we nerds REALLY want to explain all the things). Trumpflation is a single word that marries Trump and the GOP to folks' financial pain. It's a word that's atypical, but easy to remember, say, type, and hashtag.
The word Trumpflation has the ability to bypass the echo chamber by "crossing paths" in our IRL conversations AND our outward-facing online posts. Even if our conversations and online posts stay largely within our own echo chamber, the more we say it, the more people hear it, which means that more people will, in turn, use the word Trumpflation in their everyday conversations and posts. With that kind of critical mass, the more likely (and more quickly) uncommon words will enter a more common and widespread lexicon.
* STICKERING: Regardless of what kind of echo chambers you and others in your town hang out in, all y'all eat, get groceries, buy gas, buy eggs, visit parks, etc. These habits and errands provide ample opportunities for folks to "cross paths" in the same places even if they aren't doing it at exactly the same time. A while ago, P & S started creating outdoor, vinyl stickers to use as a form of civil disobedience. Stickers in the grocery store, stickers on the gas pumps, stickers for anywhere the DOGE cuts have affected our hometown communities. They are inexpensive, can hide in our pockets, and can be easily replaced if removed or covered. Even if one isn't comfortable stickering the stickers, getting them and giving them to friends to do the stickering provides cover for ALL the other stickerers stickering their stickers. Even taking photos and sharing them on social media, when you run across a stickered sticker in the wild, helps the message cross even more paths.
After listening to Sarah's focus group results, there is hopeful news. There seems to be two types of folks where the Biden-turned-Trump voter indicated a growing impatience, thus exposing some potential chinks in Trump/DOGE/GOP armor:
1) Folks who were feeling the direct effects of the cuts. Even if they were (and most still are) willing to sacrifice for a spell to give Trump a chance to enact his promises, that grace period and their pain tolerance are both finite and beginning to wear thin.
2) Folks with a growing uneasiness regarding the rising costs of...well...everything. Campaign promises broken, coupled with pocketbook pain--it's a combination that has started to erode the blind loyalty.
Trumpflation, Stickering, and other forms of echo-chamber-bypass, put these frustrations and pain points front and center. Not only reminding folks about WHO is causing the pain, but it reminds us all that the frustration and pain are universal regardless of how we voted. No matter what echo chambers we all prefer, these pain-points are the slivers of common ground that live outside of the echoes.
These are not the only ideas in this vein. Feel free to read about a few more of these on my Substack:
Snag some Stickers for Stickering:
https://h60qqg-g6.myshopify.com/
Whether or not you get them from Pockets & Sedition (although we sincerely appreciate everyone who has), just get out there and sticker the s#@t out of the literal common ground we all share.
One last time for good measure before I sign off:
