HB Technology Editor Dan Brochstein recently uncovered the rarest of 21st Century creatures: the thoughtful internet post. Let’s exhibit in the wild, not shit on its natural habitat, and share the beauty of its existence. (And note the eerie parallels to Abrahamic religions.)

“…Republicans see the world via a top-down power structure and this top-down power structure and stratification of people into this structure is at the core of the Republican identity.

The reason we often compare the Republican party to a cult is because they both share the same fundamental power structure. To the Republican voter, this hierarchy is critical to their identity and how they understand their place in the world. Without the structure, they have no power. If you ran into David Koresh or Charles Manson on the street, they would just be normal people. Anyone outside of this cult can easily see them for what they are: entirely powerless human beings like anyone else. But within the cult, they are god-figures with their own mythologies (Trump the successful businessman, Trump the master negotiator, Trump the genius, etc.).

Progressives have figures like Greta Thunberg, Bernie Sanders, AOC, and so on. They are respected as people who advocate on behalf of the whole. But none of these people are elevated or worshiped as god-figures because it’s the antithesis of a bottom-up way of looking at the world; they are simply individuals representing the people.

If you understand this, then it’s easy to understand the modern Republican voters and the unrest that we see in society right now. In the Republican worldview, Trump sits atop this power structure and is not to be questioned in the same way that a cult leader — however crazy his claims may seem — is not to be questioned. He is all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful. Even people like Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham fall in line after chiding Trump and even despite being personally spited by Trump.

If you understand this, you can understand why the Karen phenomenon has seemingly exploded and why racism has as well: In the Republican hierarchy of power, if you are white, you are automatically higher in this structure than a person of color, a minimum wage worker, a barista, a teacher, an Uber driver, a custodian, an immigrant, etc. They see the abuse as a matter of fact; simply the order of things. Why did Ted Cruz fall in line despite Trump’s insult of this wife? Because it is Trump’s right to dole out abuse as the leader of this hierarchy. Why has police brutality gone off the deep end? For the same reason: the police see it as their right because they see themselves as higher in this power structure. Accountability is the exact inverse of this top-down power structure; accountability assumes that those at the bottom of this structure can control those at the top.

The racism, the bigotry, the hatred, the refusal to follow simple guidelines like wearing masks. They all come from the same place: These people believe that they are empowered because of their alignment to this hierarchy of power.

In contrast, progressives and Democrats tend to see the world in a bottom-up hierarchy. Movements like BLM and Occupy don’t have actual leaders because they are not organized as top-down structures. Constructs like unions — while there are leaders within the organization — are really meant to be a bottom-up organization of workers to counter a top-down hierarchy. Compare NPR to Sinclair broadcasting and you see the same dynamic at play. Concepts like community organizing, equality of the sexes, civil rights, equal pay for equal work, protections to ensure equal rights for LGBT, universal healthcare: these concepts all disrupt this hierarchy.

This fundamental difference in worldview is the heart of why it seems impossible to reconcile your Fox watching parents, coworkers, and friends. They see this top-down hierarchy as key to the order in this world. They vote for people seemingly against their own interests because they seek to preserve this hierarchy and those candidates promise to do so. Stripping protections for LGBT, building the wall, treating immigrants harshly, the sub-human detention of undocumented migrants, the racism, the sexism — it’s just a matter of putting people in their place in this hierarchy. They’re not doing it to “stick it to the Libs” or “own the Libs”; they are doing it to preserve this power structure. Republican voters may be poor and near the bottom of this hierarchy, but in this hierarchy, they are still — in their minds — better than a person of color or an immigrant or a gay person.

To convince them to think otherwise, you have to understand how to disrupt this way of looking at the world but that also means that they have to come to face a reality where the lot of us are more or less pretty much equal. This is also why they are so fervently (Second Amendment) and why they love to play dress up when they “protest”: because the gun is another symbol which they believe places them higher in this power structure. To change the mind of a Republican whose whole identity is bound to this structure is to reveal to them that they are not nearly as powerful or as socially and economically empowered as they think they are and this is really scary for a lot of people.”