This Narrative is Killing Us

I saw a post on Bluesky today, some dad saying we have an adjudicated rapist and convicted felon in the White House and we can’t just let it stand, we have to “defy his ass.”

Somehow, this made me stop and take a listen to my inner self. Because yes, it’s messed up to have a convicted criminal as President of the United States.

Yet the crucible of social media creates whole new strains of fury, born of powerlessness, that shape our social discourse and become a plain old spreading-of-hate.

Trump is certainly a global embarrassment. Authoritarianism is indeed emerging. But half this country voted for him, and that is our system.

And it has failed us all.

I’m not talking about elections. The way that our government has truly failed us is that it has divided us, utterly and completely, into two mutually hostile camps, all pivoting around a man who has become a caricature.

We can’t bludgeon social media—it’s only a platform that speeds up and intensifies us being us. We are social creatures and stories shape our lives. If we want to fix our problems, we have to look at our stories.

What stories are we telling?

Here’s a Trump story: Corrupt criminal President Donald Trump is appointing crony billionaires to public positions of power and undermining our entire government and democratic system. He has “wrecked the old order,” according to the Economist. His platform stands in opposition to our best and highest values—freedom, equality, prosperity, and peace.

The first thing you have to notice about this story is that our government was already standing in opposition to these values, in significant ways, before Donald Trump came blundering onto the scene. Our government was already failing us. This was, in fact, the Republicans’ story a few months ago. The problem is that it’s getting worse.

Narratively, this is a great set-up. As any writer—and definitely any news organization—will tell you, this will sell some copies.

But since this is also reality, we are being asked to approach it with utter serious deliberation, and that means asking ourselves:

What is the best response to villains coming to power in a corrupt system?

Unless you’ve completely and utterly failed as a human being, never read a book, never seen a movie, never talked to anyone interesting, then of course you have some answers. Here’s one: Batman. We need a vigilante who is clever and powerful enough to start fighting back. (Social Media Dad is screaming for Batman.)

But Batman isn’t enough. We love the inspiration of the maverick. People secretly like that someone (ahem) would put on a hoodie and shoot the CEO of a health care racket, neglecting for the moment that it was outright murder and an injustice all its own, because people desperately want a sense of hope that things can be different.

The ugly truth is that it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, our government is dividing us, manipulating us, taking our money and not giving back. It does not have our best interests at heart—and on this, most of us agree.

It’s absolutely seditious that, because of this, we’ve come to hate each other.

But THAT is also something we CAN control.

Our best and highest values don’t lead us to hatred, they lead us to cooperation, negotiation, agreement, and mutual respect.

They lead us to believing that our government is FOR the people, and BY the people—and that means everyone.

In other words, democracy.

So what is the best response to villains coming to power in a corrupt system?

Fix the system.

And WE ARE THE SYSTEM. Literally. So we can do this.

First, we have to identify our highest goals, based on our highest values. To me, as an American, that would be equality, freedom and prosperity, which is another way of saying: Everyone gets what they want.

And that means everyone.

This may seem impossible. But it’s not.

This means that, if we truly believe in democracy, we actually have an obligation to seek cooperation and mutual understanding. And that requires holding space for all points of view, and being creative and resilient in our unified evolution.

And right now, our hate is standing in the way of that. And we’re letting it.

What to do, what to do?

My entire perspective is based on the principles of storytelling—not just because I’m a writer, but because these principles reflect essential truths about humanity.

The first thing we must do is stop the hate. Your anger is completely justified, and everyone knows it.

Anger is a message from you to yourself. It’s telling you that something is very wrong. But it’s up to you to interpret the message and come up with a smart response—and hopefully a solution that will lead to healing.

We can all do this.

Second, let’s talk about what we want. Let’s really nail it. And let’s be unapologetic about it.

You can want something that is based on abundance, like “I want fair pay.” Or you can want something that is based on lack, like “I want billionaires to be torn limb from limb.”

Let’s stick with abundance, which reflects our true desire.

Third, let’s talk about how to get what we want. This is where our storytelling skills really start to shine, because this is the essence of every story in creation:

How does someone get what they want?

I want to start by telling Social Media Dad that I hear you, I’m angry, too. I want a President—in fact, a whole system—that is trustworthy, responsive, morally admirable, innovative, and truly watching out for all of its people.

I want you and me to get together with a whole thundering mountain of other people and start talking about the ways that we, the people, can take our power back from a system that is thriving on our divisions.

And I want to make sure that, when we do that, everyone gets freedom, prosperity, and peace.