A few thoughts on the Trump Administration, the war in Iran, social media, and individual intellectual responsibility

Like every single one of you, I have a life to live. Currently, I am putting many hours and lots of effort into what I hope will be a somewhat meaningful album release. Many of you have families, demanding jobs, personal goals and difficult situations to work through. We are all living our own lives but feeling the weight of an irresponsible, erratic, and unpredictable administration who has launched an attack that feels, at best, majorly out of step with their prior messaging around "forever wars" and global super-heroism. The volatile nature of this administration combined with an AI revolution, climate change (worsening weather patterns and events), an unprecedented attack on immigrants and so much more is constantly bombarding us from a screen we cannot turn off that lives on our person every moment of our waking hours. A cloud of anxiety hangs over our lives, threatening a catastrophic storm while we are forced to carry on business as usual.

Many people feel totally powerless, resorting to nihilism, hopelessness, constant distraction, and a lack of trust in our institutions and politicians. The current situation feels about as bleak as it has ever felt in my lifetime. I am writing this to let you know that during a time of personal accomplishment and ambition in terms of my music, I absolutely know what is going on and I am shocked and disturbed.

Because I’m claiming to be aware of what’s going on, it makes sense to prove it and set the stage here, while making my position clear. A sitting president of the United States threatened to wipe out an entire country if their government didn’t comply with his demands. We all saw the Truth Social post. It was one of the most unpresidential, undiplomatic, deplorable, and deeply irresponsible public statements we have seen from Trump, which is saying a lot. I don’t even want to think about the kind of scrambled and frantic response the post generated among Iranians, lawmakers, journalists, foreign diplomats, military officials, and even Trump Administration officials. None of us really knew what would happen. Thankfully, Iran is still here, although I can only imagine the kind of suffering all Iranians are experiencing, as well as civilians across the region.

It took years for former president Obama to forge a Nuclear agreement with the Iranian government. There were, of course, critics of that agreement, some arguing that even with strict American oversight, Iran could still be hiding their real progress with the enrichment of Uranium. Another criticism of the JCPOA had to do with the timeline and some felt that long term, the deal wouldn’t serve American interests. However, many lawmakers and foreign affairs experts felt the agreement was the best we could do, considering it a success. The Iranians were seemingly compliant, and that was mostly a win from the perspective of our government.

In his first term, Trump dismantled the agreement and began to apply economic pressure in the form of sanctions on Iran. This is one of many, many things that previous administrations worked hard to implement that Trump burned to the ground. You may recall his handling of climate change initiatives, his efforts to delegitimize NATO, among attempts to disrupt or demolish many other programs, institutions, and foreign agreements.

It feels to me, if I may, that Americans on all sides of the political spectrum have grown tired and distrustful of their government, their institutions, the “establishment”, and the status quo. The burn it down agenda of Donald Trump seems to have been quite appealing to many voters, one of many reasons he was elected for a second term in my mind. This is where I’d like to make a few claims that I believe are connected, though maybe not in a straight line type of way.

The first claim: For plenty of different but compounding reasons, many Americans stopped believing the systems in place were viable, capable of progress, and worth sticking with. An example of this for the somewhat far-left would be the Defund The Police movement of 2020. An example from the somewhat far-right would be its outrage toward DEI initiatives in academic and professional spaces. The reality is: some parts of our law enforcement are broken, underfunded, and mismanaged. As for DEI, some parts of our hiring and school admission systems are also broken, sometimes excluding marginalized communities, underpaying women in the workforce, and discriminating against LGBTQ individuals. But our collective inclination to throw the baby out with the bath water or burn it all down is unjustified and misguided. We need law enforcement just like we need fair hiring and admissions laws. The last thing I’ll say here is that in my opinion, you don’t get to the burn it down phase without the kind of political polarization we have been experiencing since the mid 2010’s (which happens to coincide with the introduction of social media).

The second observation I’d like to make: Amid a constant, unending news cycle, with so much bombarding us at all times, we have become radicalized in our politics. Because there is so much happening and because the social stakes feel so high, many people resort to spreading false or misleading information on their social accounts. It’s too hard to dig into any one event or issue. So long as a specific political or social issue falls in line with their worldview and political standing, folks seem comfortable sharing outrageous half truths on their instagram stories, never bothering to read an article before doing so. Until we become more responsible for what we digest and regurgitate politically, we can expect our political division to intensify. I have friends whose social media posts make their politics look much more radical than they actually are. In my view, this is because we all want to be on the “right side of history”, we all want to feel a part of something. What I’m suggesting here is that dogmatic, black-and-white, and all-or-nothing thinking is incredibly unhelpful, and my hope is that folks become more responsible for their own education while refraining from reposting outrageous borderline conspiracy theories online. We know that the loudest and most viral content preys on our most primal emotions, yet many of us proceed with this kind of content anyways. I personally feel we all play a small role in how divided and radical our politics has become, not just those at the top.

Another claim: many people possess a nihilism and a lack of trust in almost every direction, often resorting to apathy, blanket statements, and emotionalism which isn’t consistent with the real mechanics of how the world works. I understand this disposition because power and wealth is so concentrated now. People feel a lack of agency because they see how so few people seem to have the biggest say in how this country should run. I think this view leads to flawed thinking and an assumption that everything is corrupt and designed to keep us poor, silent, and confused. I personally reject this notion, though it’s one I am sympathetic toward. This just hasn’t been my lived experience in the world. I believe this country and its people have made incredible progress across plenty of social issues, implementing legislation designed to make our lives better. I believe the infrastructure we have built over many decades is simultaneously strong while also in need of major repair. But those repairs take time, are costly, and require civilized and productive discourse.

And finally: The truth is almost always more boring and more complicated than we think. Think of a difficult situation in your own personal life. Maybe it’s a romantic relationship, a frustrating or sad dynamic in the family, a career hiccup. Chances are what makes that challenging situation difficult is that it is incredibly complicated, containing many layers, some of which you aren’t even privy to. So why do we approach our politics as if they are simple? This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t possess strong opinions, moral outrage, activism, or anything of that nature. But what I am saying is that there’s a difference between feeding your ego because you want to feel right, and committing yourself to learning about the complexity and nuance of any given issue, and then deciding where you stand.

Because these claims seem to be bleeding into one another, I will state them clearly so as to help differentiate them.

1. Burning down our systems and institutions is not the answer. Fixing them is.

2. How we engage with media and what we choose to share on social media matters. We are all responsible for our own critical thinking. If you don’t know enough about what you’re posting, either read about it or stop sharing false content. Preferably both.

3. Apathy, conspiracy, and distrust are incorrect responses to the challenges we face.

4. The truth is usually boring and complicated.

So, yes. I am aware of the goings on of our world and our government. I pay attention. But I have made the conscious decision to stay out of hot button Instagram politics.

I’ll close with one last thought.

I remember a musical peer of mine posting to their story a few years back. It was a repost of a meme that caused me to unfollow them that day. I saved it.

The photo is a white man holding a sign that says, “We can disagree and still be friends” and below it reads this critique:

“Who is this mindset for, really? Who does it benefit? Should trans people get coffee with people who want to strip away their healthcare? Should black folks hang out with people who vote to ban black history from public schools? Should Palestinians break bread with the people who fund the murder of their families? Of course not. This mindset is created by and for a specific type of white person who ultimately has nothing to lose by passively enabling oppressive politics.”

The peer who reposted it (who I unfollowed) added something like this to their story: “If you don’t agree with this post, fuck you, unfollow me”. I’m paraphrasing because it was a long time ago, although I think my memory serves me well here. But I remember seeing this story and being really taken aback. The post is making a moral emergency claim, designed to outrage its audience and go viral. At the heart of it though, is a collapsing of many different issues into one neat little ideology. That’s the hard part for me. All of the groups and issues the meme scrunches together have very different histories and complexities. Plus, it relies on the conflation that agreeing to disagree is equal to the enabling of oppression, which is very broad claim. Aside from all of that, of course you shouldn’t be expected to hang out with people who don’t respect your right to exist. But agreeing to disagree is clearly a different thing than working against someone’s rights and freedoms. The meme is not interested in exploring social issues and creating a more fair world, it is only interested in provoking disgust and hatred by boiling things down to a very wide open but divisive "us vs. them" argument.

Do you see what I mean? This feels to me representative of my concerns with our current political landscape, social media, our inability to critically think, and our disinterest in really engaging with real problems and solutions.

So, yes. I know what’s going on. I care deeply about the issues of the day. But I’m not interested in performing my virtues online and engaging with content designed to outrage its audience. I think we should take more responsibility for what we choose to say. 

Oh and last thing - good journalism is still very much alive and well. If I could make one simple recommendation, it would be this: be more concerned with what’s actually documented, verifiable, and true than demonstrating your politics online. We should have healthy debates about the conclusions and implications of a set of facts, but we shouldn’t be arguing so much about what the facts actually are. They are there. You can find them. People work really hard to get them right. 

And that my friends, is why I stay far away from politics on social media.