Perhaps against my better judgment, I'll offer some initial...
James Lindsay, anti-Communist@ConceptualJames
45 views
Sep 13, 2025
~18 min read
1
Perhaps against my better judgment, I'll offer some initial thoughts on what we can actually do to reduce radicalism now, like concrete action.
(Note: "we" means many things here and in some cases does mean your participation is required and in others is more royal and aspirational.)
Some disclaimers that will just get me in trouble with the mob on here, but whatever:
a) This is extremely initial, which will be sure to get me slandered, but the reality is that we don't actually know or else we would already have been doing a lot of it. Trump is president, after all, and we have a bunch of states with capacity and will to act.
b) As I said earlier to nobody's pleasure, this is a topic too big for an X post. It's a topic too big for a book, in fact, which almost none of us would be qualified to write anyway, maybe least of all me. This isn't going to satisfy people who want a concrete, step-by-step plan. If your response is "yeah, but how????", kindly stfu and start trying to figure it out instead of being a pain everyone's ass on the internet. You AREN'T HELPING with your demoralized whining.
c) There's also the fact that all of this is hard. Some of it is easier to do than other stuff. Some of it is easy even in practice but slow and painstaking. Some of it is extremely hard and unclear to what degree it's possible. That's just REALITY. It will not solve the problem tomorrow or by Christmas.
Disclaimers aside, here are some initial thoughts:
First, there are three domains that have to be considered: state institutional, private institutional, and private individual. What would have to happen in each of these is substantively different.
YOU cannot do the state institutional stuff. You can only inform and pressure state actors to do it. Trump can. Congress can. State legislatures and governors can. Local governments can. You, individually or as grassroots groups cannot except through advocacy. If your reaction is "but how????", there's your answer. Through advocacy and involvement; that is, the hard way in which our system works.
YOU can do the private stuff, individual for sure and institutional through participation. You are you, and your private institutions include your family, your community, your church, your workplace and other workplaces, grassroots and other organizations, and the likes. If you aren't participating in any of these institutions, don't ask how you're supposed to influence them. You're not even participating. Try writing a letter or something, or better yet, get involved.
That said:
Big picture, there are two big points in general that have to start happening. These are that we need our institutions (especially legal, economic, and educational) to start working again ASAP, and we need a civic virtue that sees radicalism as shameful activity, mediated through private individual and institutional means.
So, (1)
Our justice system and the other basic institutions of society at the level of security have to be a top priority to bring it back in line. Trump and governors have the power to do this, and they have indicated some willingness. They need more.
There will be NO deradicalization possible without these systems getting restored to functionality and equality before the law in ways that reassure the population that their basic security needs (within the state's purview: invasion, crime, organized crime, corruption) are covered by the state they have entrusted to secure them. Similar is true on a lesser scale for economic and educational institutions, both of which are emergency status.
In short, our systems actually have to work reasonably well at a basic level in order to get people to deradicalize. Consider it a prerequisite.
The main things you can do in this regard are to advocate for these changes through every reasonable and legal means, organize to enhance that advocacy, and engage in effective and responsible reporting to help the process of identifying individuals who need to be relocated from employment they're abusing for justifiable, concrete reasons. The personnel problem is likely the most substantial and hardest to solve, but it's also absolutely necessary to engage in.
None of those kinds of reforms, corrections, and improvements will even start to take place without understanding why they're necessary and specifically what's wrong. That requires study and informing. Private institutions are most suited to do this kind of work.
Beyond that, you need to bootstrap faith back into the system, which means you have to start believing that pushing on the system (especially while we have a responsive administration) can make a difference.
(2)
Cultivating a civic virtue against radicalism, which is incidentally identical to legitimate patriotism, is crucially important. It has to be considered generally distasteful for someone to be radical, no matter what they're radical in (in the sense of political radicalism that seeks to uproot and overthrow our system).
PS: "Radical" doesn't mean you believe it strongly with high commitment. It also doesn't mean you want to defeat profound corruption poisoning the system. Radical means you want to overthrow the underlying civilizational or societal system.
You cannot participate in this by being or becoming radical yourself. You can only make it worse. Radicalism begets radicalism; it cannot cure it. You have to do the hard work of taking the narrow way of playing hard by the book, loving and supporting the country and its foundational system (Constitution), and advocate for its correct and just application.
We have to spread this civic virtue against radicalism by all the usual social and cultural means: personal interaction, writing, art, comedy, memes, mockery, campaigns, events, organizations, blah, blah. Anti-radicalization should be the North Star, then all the things.
(3)
Some more practical, concrete things in the information domain.
We also need to get the rampant propaganda off social media and mass media. We are being driven crazy and radicalized, often by hostile forces both foreign and domestic, both internal and external in the foreign case.
One suggestion in this regard that's going around again now (thank goodness) is the incredibly important step of pressuring Trump and Congress to revise and restore the Smith-Mundt Act, likely under a new name (the Charlie Kirk Act has been suggested). That law was "modernized" by Obama-Biden in 2013 and went from prohibiting domestic media actors from propagandizing the American people to allowing it. It must be prohibited again. It's a leading cause of why everything went off the rails.
We need to start genuinely dealing with the foreign and domestic bot and bot-like accounts and networks problem on social media. These should be severely limited with strong consequences. Elon will not do it. Stop saying he needs to. That's bullshit. Cut it out. He can't, won't, or can't and won't at the same time.
With regard to foreign influence, our state department needs to start treating foreign bot-like accounts and networks as if they're hostile military operations against our citizens because they are. American citizens (and citizens of other countries, mutatis mutandis) are being targeted by military-grade propaganda and agitation campaigns deliberately by foreign militaries while they sit on their couches on social media. This has to be taken seriously. I have no idea what that looks like practically, but it needs addressing in a serious way.
We cannot deradicalize if we're being driven crazy day in and day out with propaganda and agitation (agitprop).
We need to designate openly hostile, foreign-sponsored groups like the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists and cut their influence in our country. Similar, though perhaps with less strict designation, should apply to other radical groups like the DSA and other Communist organizations. Chasing something like a Communist Control Act that can actually do something about seditious conspiracy to subvert the nation is important. Nascent Fascist groups and extremist political cults should be looked at with a tier lower scrutiny unless they openly declare themselves seditious or subversive.
We need to enact a plan like Trevor Loudon's to crush foreign national infiltration and domestic seditious groups. His plan in short is to establish a law-enforcement commission under the President tasked with doing a RICO-style (but not RICO) campaign against foreign agents and their domestic assets. Heavy investigative powers. Strong prosecutorial power. Offer amnesty for anyone who turns themselves in and spills their guts about everything they know or leaves the country within a time limit with incredibly harsh sentences for anyone who doesn't. Look him up for this plan. It's worth knowing and sharing. (Not my plan, so I'm not going into more details.)
On the individual end, we need to realize we're being propagandized and teach others to recognize and resist it. If you're on social media, you're being propagandized. If you can't recognize it, you're getting taken in by all of it. If you can, you're getting taken in by a lot of it. We have to become aware that this is happening to us here and take individual measures to resist it.
(4)
Crushing the NGO complex.
Leftism (and Reactionary Rightism) aren't just happening. They're heavily funded through complex networks of NGOs, some of which merely support radicalism and some of which actively participate in it. This is at a very advanced stage. It was deeply entwined with USAID, so it was deep in our system. It is integrated into many other systems, including state apparatuses like schools and universities through countless partnerships. Radicalizing NGOs need to be investigated and crushed for any of their illegal or untoward activities.
President Trump has already indicated his interest in doing this. He should be encouraged in doing it. Investigative journalistic work is going to be enormously important to making any such effort successful. Do what you can to help.
These institutions are radicalizing our citizens, especially targeting young people. We cannot deradicalize without dealing with the upstream sources of radicalization, and these NGO complexes are funding and facilitating tons of it.
(5)
Breaking cleanly from the global agenda monsters: UN, UNESCO, Agenda 2030, WHO, anything out of the WEF, taking on ESG and all that evil, all kinds of climate nonsense and accords, etc. These need not just to be pulled away from, defunded, and broken if possible but must be identified for what they're actually doing, much of which contributes to radicalization either directly/actively (say, UNESCO's Comprehensive Sexuality Education) or indirectly/passively (say, being beholden to stupid crap policy that hurts our country and our people that we can't seem to get out of no matter how obviously bad it is).
Much investigative and reporting work is needed.
To deradicalize, we have to cut the organizational sources of radicalization while solving the kinds of stupid problems that are radicalizing people.
(6)
Economic reforms.
I don't know anything about economics, so ask someone else what to do specifically, but we need an economy that actually works for our citizens, especially young people. Mostly, I think, this is going to mean getting away from bad and stupid regulatory environments, getting the illegal immigrants who are creating housing crises out (hopefully mostly by creating conditions for them to want to self-deport), and challenging Democratic controlled states and "leaders" for their idiotic, damaging policies. A lot of corruption, not just government waste (DOGE), needs to be addressed, like the crooked sweetheart deals between public-sector unions and state governments like in California. Corruption has to go to deradicalize the people.
(7)
Personal and civic changes.
We need to start cultivating a norm of spending less insanity-making time on social media on a personal level. Connect with people in person more. Get offline more. Don't believe any take that is temperature-raising and delivered within the first day or two of any "Current Thing" event. Consider content milling and engagement hustling around punditry to be shameful. Look down at the people who do it. Stop following them. Disengage. You are rotting your brain and making yourself insane and radical, not getting informed. You don't need to know every single thing that happened anywhere in the world right now unless it's literally your job, which for almost all of you it isn't. Again, disengage more.
Built community in person. Get involved in a church. Be a strong community member there. Discourage radical voices in the communities you're involved in, including your churches, which are starting to radicalize in reaction too. Get to know your neighbors and make some light or stronger bonds with them. Become a local at a coffee shop or hangout and build community there too. Join some clubs or something, even if they're political. Try to do something useful and not doomscrolling.
Take care of your health, both physical and mental, and that of your family. Then extend it to your community and organizations. Clean your room then start setting your local world in order. It can expand from there.
Get grounded in your spirituality. If your spiritual beliefs are radicalizing you politically, you're doing them wrong. I assure you. Read your Bibles. Try to really understand the message. Look for faith and trust and hope and share them when and where you find them. Be positive and helpful everywhere you can instead of negative and fearful. It starts with you.
If you're stressed out, find someone to help. I don't mean find someone to tell all the crazy shit you read on the internet to "help inform them." Help them with some real problem they have. Maybe it's something in their house or yard, maybe it's something in their business, maybe they're disabled and need a hand sometimes. Figure it out. You're not radicalizing when you're helping someone, but you are building community and networks of trust and commonality.
All of this is common sense. Most of it isn't online.
(8)
Deradicalizing THEM, you know THE OTHER SIDE, you know, the only part you actually care about which is why you're dooming and despairing and screaming at me "HOW????? THEY WON'T EVEN DO IT!!!!"
First of all, you're thinking wrong. Deradicalize YOU first. Be the example. If you're all crazy, how do you think people are going to respond to you? That's right, they're going to be crazy. Stop worrying about THEM and start getting yourself in order.
Are you picking fights with them all the time, or are you showing them some kind of humanity that even if they don't like you on principle they can't deny? One of those increases radicalism; the other decreases it. Can you guess which is which?
Deradicalizing someone else is HARD. Really hard. Like, you probably can't do it really hard. But you can set a tone and with it an expectation, and that tone and that expectation can spread to people who are just a little closer to the other side than you are through your example and your friendship and community. It can then spread further and further until the people who just won't let it go are pretty far at the margins. You can't fix them. Getting them to the margins is the win condition. Don't set your lights by their mental illness.
There are ways to help someone else deradicalize. Calm, thoughtful conversations you keep pulling them back to, conversations that might disagree but that aren't arguments. Want some examples? Charlie Kirk had thousands right up until literally the minute he died. Go watch him at his best, not for what he said or how he "OWNED the other side" but for how he engaged the other person, as a person, with humanity, love, concern for their well-being, life, and soul. Emulate that.
Churches and Christianity are modeled after a deradicalization model (yes, I know receiving Christ is a radical conversion, but it doesn't turn you into a lunatic to have a genuine indwelling of the Holy Spirit like getting politically radicalized does). Christians are firm and honest about what they believe and don't waver. So are Jews, by the way, great examples. They tell others what they think is right and live it. The example shines through and wins people over. They don't beat people over the head with moralizing beliefs or even judge people who are lost, but they offer the invitation to learn, repent, and heal. That's a good way to deradicalize. It's hard, it's slow, and your ego better get out of it.
Personally, all my life I've run into some Christians (not all, by any stretch) who decide to be really nice to me because they want me to convert. Then after a few months when I don't, they get mad at me like a loser dude who is super nice to a girl he wants to date until she won't and then goes misogynosperg on her instead. You can't do it that way if you want to deradicalize someone. It's not about you. It's about offering them a space of clarity and care where they can work through their confusion and anger at their own pace at their own time as they come to it. That works. The other thing doesn't.
(9)
Finally, schools.
Schools are a flipping catastrophe. They're radicalization mills. They have been converted into full-scale radicalization centers, particularly universities. That has to be fixed, but it's almost impossible because they're so badly captured, insular, and entrenched.
Trump is trying. He's coming down hard on Harvard and Columbia, but they're fighting back hard too. Lawsuits are landing, but the schools just don't seem to care. But there's something here.
You guys who want to teach the lessons with sticks? Lawsuits, fines, investigations, etc., are sticks. If you're working in one and the environment is hostile, file complaints or sue. If you don't, nothing will change. Enough of that, and something will change eventually. They cannot resist all that pressure.
But more immediately and practically, you have to protect the hell out of your kids from these environments. The strongest ways to do that are to have rock-solid bonds with them, which you can only get by spending time with them in ways that forges those bonds, doing things together, overcoming challenges together, mentoring and discipling, setting them boundaries the can't break and ones to test as they grow. Be a dad. Be a mom. Be present. Be involved. That all matters. And teach them, and disciple them in what's good and right and true.
Remind them that radicalizing is a fast track to a miserable life or a ruined life. How many Leftists have you met who are happy and thriving who aren't in the big political or money class? Zero. They're all miserable and angry. That kid who shot Charlie Kirk threw his life away at 22 years old because he radicalized. It will happen to you too, no matter which side you're on, if you go too far. That idiot "Pinesap" who yelled on a show that he's a Fascist got nuked from his job and will struggle forever after this. Lots (not enough) of the radical Leftists who celebrated Charlie Kirk's murder are getting fired and shunned. I know it's not all of them, but radicalism ruins 1000 lives for every one it improves. Those are your odds if you're considering it.
That goes for you too. Thousand to one odds your anger screws up your life, your family, your community, your church, your kids, whatever, if you decide to go full commando on this. Or worse. It might not happen at first, but it'll catch up to you.
Final word.
The most important practical points are that we have to use the available state power (Trump admin) that we have to work on our justice system and get it functional and fair, take on Communism and corruption, start taking on education, get control over foreign invasion both literal and digital, rein in our media and its ability to relentlessly propagandize, and do what it can with the economic conditions. We need the law to be enforced equally, fairly, and with a mind to justice, and we have to make whatever changes are necessary to make our border secure, our citizenry safe (and actually our citizenry), and to combat the crime, lawlessness, and corruption that decades of Communist infiltration of the Democratic Party have left us with, especially in our cities.
But we also have to change ourselves. We have to break our addition to outrage and "news." We have to kick a lot of agitators to the curb and get them out of our lives. We have to be salt and light in our homes, our families, our churches, our communities, and throughout our lives even with those who seem to hate us. We have to be involved but involved productively and proactively instead of like angry crazy people. Firm, steady, constant.
We must advocate for widely agreed-upon (widely, not universally) norms against any and all political violence. We must cultivate a civic ethic against radicalism, extremism, conspiricizing everything, and being crazy and angry. We have to be willing to disengage to stop driving ourselves nuts because deradicalizing others starts by deradicalizing ourselves.
Again, it's not going to be fast. You will not see results on the macro scale tomorrow or next week. These changes took years to get us into this much deterioration and will take years to mend and heal. That means we also have to be realistic.
Faith, says the book of Hebrews, is confidence in what we hope for and assurance in that which is unseen. Deradicalization comes from faith. Instead of wailing (or mocking me for not being your religion and saying faith is good, which you should want), why don't you go renew that for yourself and walk in it?
(Note: "we" means many things here and in some cases does mean your participation is required and in others is more royal and aspirational.)
Some disclaimers that will just get me in trouble with the mob on here, but whatever:
a) This is extremely initial, which will be sure to get me slandered, but the reality is that we don't actually know or else we would already have been doing a lot of it. Trump is president, after all, and we have a bunch of states with capacity and will to act.
b) As I said earlier to nobody's pleasure, this is a topic too big for an X post. It's a topic too big for a book, in fact, which almost none of us would be qualified to write anyway, maybe least of all me. This isn't going to satisfy people who want a concrete, step-by-step plan. If your response is "yeah, but how????", kindly stfu and start trying to figure it out instead of being a pain everyone's ass on the internet. You AREN'T HELPING with your demoralized whining.
c) There's also the fact that all of this is hard. Some of it is easier to do than other stuff. Some of it is easy even in practice but slow and painstaking. Some of it is extremely hard and unclear to what degree it's possible. That's just REALITY. It will not solve the problem tomorrow or by Christmas.
Disclaimers aside, here are some initial thoughts:
First, there are three domains that have to be considered: state institutional, private institutional, and private individual. What would have to happen in each of these is substantively different.
YOU cannot do the state institutional stuff. You can only inform and pressure state actors to do it. Trump can. Congress can. State legislatures and governors can. Local governments can. You, individually or as grassroots groups cannot except through advocacy. If your reaction is "but how????", there's your answer. Through advocacy and involvement; that is, the hard way in which our system works.
YOU can do the private stuff, individual for sure and institutional through participation. You are you, and your private institutions include your family, your community, your church, your workplace and other workplaces, grassroots and other organizations, and the likes. If you aren't participating in any of these institutions, don't ask how you're supposed to influence them. You're not even participating. Try writing a letter or something, or better yet, get involved.
That said:
Big picture, there are two big points in general that have to start happening. These are that we need our institutions (especially legal, economic, and educational) to start working again ASAP, and we need a civic virtue that sees radicalism as shameful activity, mediated through private individual and institutional means.
So, (1)
Our justice system and the other basic institutions of society at the level of security have to be a top priority to bring it back in line. Trump and governors have the power to do this, and they have indicated some willingness. They need more.
There will be NO deradicalization possible without these systems getting restored to functionality and equality before the law in ways that reassure the population that their basic security needs (within the state's purview: invasion, crime, organized crime, corruption) are covered by the state they have entrusted to secure them. Similar is true on a lesser scale for economic and educational institutions, both of which are emergency status.
In short, our systems actually have to work reasonably well at a basic level in order to get people to deradicalize. Consider it a prerequisite.
The main things you can do in this regard are to advocate for these changes through every reasonable and legal means, organize to enhance that advocacy, and engage in effective and responsible reporting to help the process of identifying individuals who need to be relocated from employment they're abusing for justifiable, concrete reasons. The personnel problem is likely the most substantial and hardest to solve, but it's also absolutely necessary to engage in.
None of those kinds of reforms, corrections, and improvements will even start to take place without understanding why they're necessary and specifically what's wrong. That requires study and informing. Private institutions are most suited to do this kind of work.
Beyond that, you need to bootstrap faith back into the system, which means you have to start believing that pushing on the system (especially while we have a responsive administration) can make a difference.
(2)
Cultivating a civic virtue against radicalism, which is incidentally identical to legitimate patriotism, is crucially important. It has to be considered generally distasteful for someone to be radical, no matter what they're radical in (in the sense of political radicalism that seeks to uproot and overthrow our system).
PS: "Radical" doesn't mean you believe it strongly with high commitment. It also doesn't mean you want to defeat profound corruption poisoning the system. Radical means you want to overthrow the underlying civilizational or societal system.
You cannot participate in this by being or becoming radical yourself. You can only make it worse. Radicalism begets radicalism; it cannot cure it. You have to do the hard work of taking the narrow way of playing hard by the book, loving and supporting the country and its foundational system (Constitution), and advocate for its correct and just application.
We have to spread this civic virtue against radicalism by all the usual social and cultural means: personal interaction, writing, art, comedy, memes, mockery, campaigns, events, organizations, blah, blah. Anti-radicalization should be the North Star, then all the things.
(3)
Some more practical, concrete things in the information domain.
We also need to get the rampant propaganda off social media and mass media. We are being driven crazy and radicalized, often by hostile forces both foreign and domestic, both internal and external in the foreign case.
One suggestion in this regard that's going around again now (thank goodness) is the incredibly important step of pressuring Trump and Congress to revise and restore the Smith-Mundt Act, likely under a new name (the Charlie Kirk Act has been suggested). That law was "modernized" by Obama-Biden in 2013 and went from prohibiting domestic media actors from propagandizing the American people to allowing it. It must be prohibited again. It's a leading cause of why everything went off the rails.
We need to start genuinely dealing with the foreign and domestic bot and bot-like accounts and networks problem on social media. These should be severely limited with strong consequences. Elon will not do it. Stop saying he needs to. That's bullshit. Cut it out. He can't, won't, or can't and won't at the same time.
With regard to foreign influence, our state department needs to start treating foreign bot-like accounts and networks as if they're hostile military operations against our citizens because they are. American citizens (and citizens of other countries, mutatis mutandis) are being targeted by military-grade propaganda and agitation campaigns deliberately by foreign militaries while they sit on their couches on social media. This has to be taken seriously. I have no idea what that looks like practically, but it needs addressing in a serious way.
We cannot deradicalize if we're being driven crazy day in and day out with propaganda and agitation (agitprop).
We need to designate openly hostile, foreign-sponsored groups like the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists and cut their influence in our country. Similar, though perhaps with less strict designation, should apply to other radical groups like the DSA and other Communist organizations. Chasing something like a Communist Control Act that can actually do something about seditious conspiracy to subvert the nation is important. Nascent Fascist groups and extremist political cults should be looked at with a tier lower scrutiny unless they openly declare themselves seditious or subversive.
We need to enact a plan like Trevor Loudon's to crush foreign national infiltration and domestic seditious groups. His plan in short is to establish a law-enforcement commission under the President tasked with doing a RICO-style (but not RICO) campaign against foreign agents and their domestic assets. Heavy investigative powers. Strong prosecutorial power. Offer amnesty for anyone who turns themselves in and spills their guts about everything they know or leaves the country within a time limit with incredibly harsh sentences for anyone who doesn't. Look him up for this plan. It's worth knowing and sharing. (Not my plan, so I'm not going into more details.)
On the individual end, we need to realize we're being propagandized and teach others to recognize and resist it. If you're on social media, you're being propagandized. If you can't recognize it, you're getting taken in by all of it. If you can, you're getting taken in by a lot of it. We have to become aware that this is happening to us here and take individual measures to resist it.
(4)
Crushing the NGO complex.
Leftism (and Reactionary Rightism) aren't just happening. They're heavily funded through complex networks of NGOs, some of which merely support radicalism and some of which actively participate in it. This is at a very advanced stage. It was deeply entwined with USAID, so it was deep in our system. It is integrated into many other systems, including state apparatuses like schools and universities through countless partnerships. Radicalizing NGOs need to be investigated and crushed for any of their illegal or untoward activities.
President Trump has already indicated his interest in doing this. He should be encouraged in doing it. Investigative journalistic work is going to be enormously important to making any such effort successful. Do what you can to help.
These institutions are radicalizing our citizens, especially targeting young people. We cannot deradicalize without dealing with the upstream sources of radicalization, and these NGO complexes are funding and facilitating tons of it.
(5)
Breaking cleanly from the global agenda monsters: UN, UNESCO, Agenda 2030, WHO, anything out of the WEF, taking on ESG and all that evil, all kinds of climate nonsense and accords, etc. These need not just to be pulled away from, defunded, and broken if possible but must be identified for what they're actually doing, much of which contributes to radicalization either directly/actively (say, UNESCO's Comprehensive Sexuality Education) or indirectly/passively (say, being beholden to stupid crap policy that hurts our country and our people that we can't seem to get out of no matter how obviously bad it is).
Much investigative and reporting work is needed.
To deradicalize, we have to cut the organizational sources of radicalization while solving the kinds of stupid problems that are radicalizing people.
(6)
Economic reforms.
I don't know anything about economics, so ask someone else what to do specifically, but we need an economy that actually works for our citizens, especially young people. Mostly, I think, this is going to mean getting away from bad and stupid regulatory environments, getting the illegal immigrants who are creating housing crises out (hopefully mostly by creating conditions for them to want to self-deport), and challenging Democratic controlled states and "leaders" for their idiotic, damaging policies. A lot of corruption, not just government waste (DOGE), needs to be addressed, like the crooked sweetheart deals between public-sector unions and state governments like in California. Corruption has to go to deradicalize the people.
(7)
Personal and civic changes.
We need to start cultivating a norm of spending less insanity-making time on social media on a personal level. Connect with people in person more. Get offline more. Don't believe any take that is temperature-raising and delivered within the first day or two of any "Current Thing" event. Consider content milling and engagement hustling around punditry to be shameful. Look down at the people who do it. Stop following them. Disengage. You are rotting your brain and making yourself insane and radical, not getting informed. You don't need to know every single thing that happened anywhere in the world right now unless it's literally your job, which for almost all of you it isn't. Again, disengage more.
Built community in person. Get involved in a church. Be a strong community member there. Discourage radical voices in the communities you're involved in, including your churches, which are starting to radicalize in reaction too. Get to know your neighbors and make some light or stronger bonds with them. Become a local at a coffee shop or hangout and build community there too. Join some clubs or something, even if they're political. Try to do something useful and not doomscrolling.
Take care of your health, both physical and mental, and that of your family. Then extend it to your community and organizations. Clean your room then start setting your local world in order. It can expand from there.
Get grounded in your spirituality. If your spiritual beliefs are radicalizing you politically, you're doing them wrong. I assure you. Read your Bibles. Try to really understand the message. Look for faith and trust and hope and share them when and where you find them. Be positive and helpful everywhere you can instead of negative and fearful. It starts with you.
If you're stressed out, find someone to help. I don't mean find someone to tell all the crazy shit you read on the internet to "help inform them." Help them with some real problem they have. Maybe it's something in their house or yard, maybe it's something in their business, maybe they're disabled and need a hand sometimes. Figure it out. You're not radicalizing when you're helping someone, but you are building community and networks of trust and commonality.
All of this is common sense. Most of it isn't online.
(8)
Deradicalizing THEM, you know THE OTHER SIDE, you know, the only part you actually care about which is why you're dooming and despairing and screaming at me "HOW????? THEY WON'T EVEN DO IT!!!!"
First of all, you're thinking wrong. Deradicalize YOU first. Be the example. If you're all crazy, how do you think people are going to respond to you? That's right, they're going to be crazy. Stop worrying about THEM and start getting yourself in order.
Are you picking fights with them all the time, or are you showing them some kind of humanity that even if they don't like you on principle they can't deny? One of those increases radicalism; the other decreases it. Can you guess which is which?
Deradicalizing someone else is HARD. Really hard. Like, you probably can't do it really hard. But you can set a tone and with it an expectation, and that tone and that expectation can spread to people who are just a little closer to the other side than you are through your example and your friendship and community. It can then spread further and further until the people who just won't let it go are pretty far at the margins. You can't fix them. Getting them to the margins is the win condition. Don't set your lights by their mental illness.
There are ways to help someone else deradicalize. Calm, thoughtful conversations you keep pulling them back to, conversations that might disagree but that aren't arguments. Want some examples? Charlie Kirk had thousands right up until literally the minute he died. Go watch him at his best, not for what he said or how he "OWNED the other side" but for how he engaged the other person, as a person, with humanity, love, concern for their well-being, life, and soul. Emulate that.
Churches and Christianity are modeled after a deradicalization model (yes, I know receiving Christ is a radical conversion, but it doesn't turn you into a lunatic to have a genuine indwelling of the Holy Spirit like getting politically radicalized does). Christians are firm and honest about what they believe and don't waver. So are Jews, by the way, great examples. They tell others what they think is right and live it. The example shines through and wins people over. They don't beat people over the head with moralizing beliefs or even judge people who are lost, but they offer the invitation to learn, repent, and heal. That's a good way to deradicalize. It's hard, it's slow, and your ego better get out of it.
Personally, all my life I've run into some Christians (not all, by any stretch) who decide to be really nice to me because they want me to convert. Then after a few months when I don't, they get mad at me like a loser dude who is super nice to a girl he wants to date until she won't and then goes misogynosperg on her instead. You can't do it that way if you want to deradicalize someone. It's not about you. It's about offering them a space of clarity and care where they can work through their confusion and anger at their own pace at their own time as they come to it. That works. The other thing doesn't.
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Finally, schools.
Schools are a flipping catastrophe. They're radicalization mills. They have been converted into full-scale radicalization centers, particularly universities. That has to be fixed, but it's almost impossible because they're so badly captured, insular, and entrenched.
Trump is trying. He's coming down hard on Harvard and Columbia, but they're fighting back hard too. Lawsuits are landing, but the schools just don't seem to care. But there's something here.
You guys who want to teach the lessons with sticks? Lawsuits, fines, investigations, etc., are sticks. If you're working in one and the environment is hostile, file complaints or sue. If you don't, nothing will change. Enough of that, and something will change eventually. They cannot resist all that pressure.
But more immediately and practically, you have to protect the hell out of your kids from these environments. The strongest ways to do that are to have rock-solid bonds with them, which you can only get by spending time with them in ways that forges those bonds, doing things together, overcoming challenges together, mentoring and discipling, setting them boundaries the can't break and ones to test as they grow. Be a dad. Be a mom. Be present. Be involved. That all matters. And teach them, and disciple them in what's good and right and true.
Remind them that radicalizing is a fast track to a miserable life or a ruined life. How many Leftists have you met who are happy and thriving who aren't in the big political or money class? Zero. They're all miserable and angry. That kid who shot Charlie Kirk threw his life away at 22 years old because he radicalized. It will happen to you too, no matter which side you're on, if you go too far. That idiot "Pinesap" who yelled on a show that he's a Fascist got nuked from his job and will struggle forever after this. Lots (not enough) of the radical Leftists who celebrated Charlie Kirk's murder are getting fired and shunned. I know it's not all of them, but radicalism ruins 1000 lives for every one it improves. Those are your odds if you're considering it.
That goes for you too. Thousand to one odds your anger screws up your life, your family, your community, your church, your kids, whatever, if you decide to go full commando on this. Or worse. It might not happen at first, but it'll catch up to you.
Final word.
The most important practical points are that we have to use the available state power (Trump admin) that we have to work on our justice system and get it functional and fair, take on Communism and corruption, start taking on education, get control over foreign invasion both literal and digital, rein in our media and its ability to relentlessly propagandize, and do what it can with the economic conditions. We need the law to be enforced equally, fairly, and with a mind to justice, and we have to make whatever changes are necessary to make our border secure, our citizenry safe (and actually our citizenry), and to combat the crime, lawlessness, and corruption that decades of Communist infiltration of the Democratic Party have left us with, especially in our cities.
But we also have to change ourselves. We have to break our addition to outrage and "news." We have to kick a lot of agitators to the curb and get them out of our lives. We have to be salt and light in our homes, our families, our churches, our communities, and throughout our lives even with those who seem to hate us. We have to be involved but involved productively and proactively instead of like angry crazy people. Firm, steady, constant.
We must advocate for widely agreed-upon (widely, not universally) norms against any and all political violence. We must cultivate a civic ethic against radicalism, extremism, conspiricizing everything, and being crazy and angry. We have to be willing to disengage to stop driving ourselves nuts because deradicalizing others starts by deradicalizing ourselves.
Again, it's not going to be fast. You will not see results on the macro scale tomorrow or next week. These changes took years to get us into this much deterioration and will take years to mend and heal. That means we also have to be realistic.
Faith, says the book of Hebrews, is confidence in what we hope for and assurance in that which is unseen. Deradicalization comes from faith. Instead of wailing (or mocking me for not being your religion and saying faith is good, which you should want), why don't you go renew that for yourself and walk in it?
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@RenOfMen I didn't want to write it lol