Ever since the news broke about the murder of the UHC CEO Brian Thompson, I’ve been trying to put it all together in my head and find a way to explain the overall feeling I’ve been getting for quite a long while. It dates back to well before this event. None of the examples I am going to use here are any kind of endorsement by me for what the people in question have done. Please don’t take it that way.
January 6th. QAnon when that was relevant. Two assassination attempts on the President-elect. The murder of this CEO. There is a prevailing thread, and I don’t mean that they were all right wing or conservative because they weren’t. I’m not here to indict anyone specifically. But the common and prevailing thread between all of these things?
We’re not listening.
It’s so easy to entirely dismiss and ignore the feelings of people we don’t agree with. Too many of us like to surround ourselves with an echo chamber of those who are going to support and agree with everything we say. I’m guilty of it too. But my point is these are things that happen when people feel like they aren’t being heard, right or wrong. When people are made to feel like they aren’t important or their feelings don’t matter, things like this are going to become more likely to take place.
January 6th. A group of people felt like their concerns over election fraud were not being heard. In many circles, those people were being laughed at and ridiculed. Whether you believe there was or not, that’s not the point here. A large swath of people didn’t feel like their voices were being heard, like they were being minimized. After 2 months of it, many of them responded with what we saw unfold on that day.
It doesn’t necessarily always end in violence. When people don’t feel like they are being listened to, some begin searching for people who do listen and hear them and believe them. Look at QAnon. That was a following of people who felt like the government was working against them, and they sought to find like-minded people. It goes back to that echo chamber. And when they find those people, some of them have even wilder beliefs that cause others to start questioning things even more. I’m not saying not to question things, don’t trust any major media outlet at face value. Always do your own research. These are people who felt not enough people they knew were listening to them, and they wanted validation. If you look hard enough, you can find people who will believe absolutely anything.
Two assassination attempts on the President-elect. Whether you like him or not, there’s no justification for what those two men attempted. It’s another case of them not being heard. In the case of both and what we’ve heard since then, they found themselves in some dark places online and that’s likely because those around them dismissed them. As a result, they felt like they were backed into a corner. When that happens to any creature, they’re going to lash out.
The UHC CEO murder is another example. This one hit the closest to home for me, because I’ve seen like so many of us how uncaring and cruel the health insurance industry is. Their goal is never to care for their clients, it’s to take their money and give them as little as they can in return. Insurance is a racket all its own, but that’s a blog post for another day. We all have a story about someone we know or love who didn’t get the care they needed because some insurance company didn’t feel it was necessary. But those people weren’t being listened to by their government (because it’s bought and paid for by insurance lobbyists), and it was only a matter of time unfortunately before something tragic took place.
The point I’m trying to make to you is that we don’t have to agree with all these people. But I do think it’s important that we listen to them and let them know we hear them. The feeling of not being heard or that no one wants to hear what you have to say has a chilling effect. I always want to be known to my friends as someone who will hear them out even when I don’t agree with everything I’m hearing. The best way to make sure these people are, at the very least, being heard is…
Listen.
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