A Crack in the Facade

Having some thoughts today I just wanted to put out there

There's a lot to be said about how people work, how their brains work, about parasocial relationships and demagoguery. I'm not a psychologist, or sociologist, but there's an interesting thing a friend of mine pointed out about people, and I'm seeing it play out right now.

An awful lot of people in subs like r/aviation and r/flying and r/ATC are suddenly realizing, seemingly for the first time, that Trump is a partisan hack. I know, this seems like an obvious observation to many of us, but I'm fascinated by the deeper logic at work here.

There seems to be this thing with celebrities and politicians, a sort of logic to "well they're really smart/in touch with/an authority on this one topic, so they probably know what they're talking about on other topics too." It's often pretty benign stuff, but with politicians in particular that idea can get dangerous.

What I'm seeing right how in the (broadly conservative, white male dominated) aviation industry, is a lot of people seeing the guy that they would cheer for when he'd tear into all sorts of industries and government offices for being "woke" and "failed", suddenly having to look directly at it when he does the same thing to an industry and regulatory agencies that they know intimately, and many of them seem genuinely surprised by the realization that he actually isn't the smartest man in the room.

The immediate temptation, of course, is to point and laugh, or make snide comments about how they belong on r/leopardseatingfaces, but I think that this moment can't be ignored.

Trump is going to keep doing this, and it's going to be affecting more and more groups of traditionally conservative people. Aviation, the military, agriculture, finance, tech, every sector, every industry will be affected by his administration's reckless changes, and as more people wake up to the fact that he's actually not a genius in any field, we need to be ready to leverage that realization and guide people into the changes that will need to happen, the resistance that needs to occur to halt and undo the damage.

I don't mean we should give them a pass. Make them face it. Make them connect the dots.

"You believed him when he said that about X industry, but you know better when he says it about Y."

Use this realization. It's a crack in the facade, hammer on it.