Hope is Hard - How We Respond to Defeat
On elections in Argentina and the Netherlands
It is precisely in moments of adversity, where hate and fear seem to reign, that we find the essence of our work as social change activists. In this week’s substack, you will find resources and reading that will help anyone in a low moment personally or politically find some perspective and purpose - a path forward out of the dark - I hope.
Hope is for dark times
I first started talking about hope-based communications in precisely this sort of moment - in despair at politics after 2016/17. It was then that I realised something: Human rights and civil society were not invented in good times, but in the darkest times. This gave me renewed purpose. So I believe it has relevance for other people who feel their society or activism are in a dark place.
Like a candle, hope shines brightest in the dark times. When things are fine, we have less need for it. Hope is a source of resilience, but it is also a strategic focus on what we need to get done. Here are a few of those things:
1. Draw on your intrinsic motivation
When you run a race, your body doesn't like it and wants you to stop. Nobody who wins races does it because they want the extrinsic success, wealth, and fame that awaits them at the finish line. They win because they draw intrinsic motivation from the process. They are able to say: “Yeah, this hurts, but it also feels good.” - this is a value that can come from being in nature, connection to others, or just the joy of movement.
This is called “reappraisal”, and it allows us to control how we react to events, so that our ability to perform under pressure is not hijacked by fear, stress and anxiety.
The lesson activists can take away from this, is to think about what gives you meaning in life. For most of us, words like justice, freedom, and equality might come to mind. If we then ask why those things matter and dig a little deeper we will find it is things like kindness, curiosity, solidarity, empathy, compassion, caring, etc. It is not just because we know we are right and that our social justice world will be perfect: it is because in moments of hard times, we want to be there for each other.
So when we feel doubt and question ourselves, we can remember our intrinsic motivation, which might just show us that these dark moments are the times our work matters most of all.
But here’s the thing about the “positive self-talk” an athlete uses to keep running: it does not come naturally. They have to train themselves to use it just like any other muscle. They have to write down the things that motivate them and the phrases they will use when the going gets tough.
So right now, get a piece of paper and write down the reasons that motivate you to work for social change.
2. Don't let authoritarians and negativity change our brains and our communication
When the people in power spread hate, division, and fear, it is up to civil society to keep love, togetherness, and hope alive.
Even before America’s 2016 election, George Lakoff wrote:
“Even if he loses the election, Trump will have changed the brains of millions of Americans, with future consequences….Fear tends to activate desire for a strong strict father — namely, Trump.”
The actions of influential, powerful leaders affect our own attitudes and behaviour. A racist leader can plant subconscious bias in our minds - even if we don’t want them to. Even if we are avowedly anti-racist in our values. Quite simply, they are a bad influence on a profoundly deep level for everyone.
So we need to be a good influence.
And that’s why it is so important that our response is built on our values: love, openness, and kindness — and not just anger, hate, bitterness, grievance, and outrage that mirrors the populist. Because if we mirror those emotions, that is all that will be on the emotional menu for society. Who will provide love and kindness for us, if not us?
3. Tell your own story, instead of being part of the populist story
Populist authoritarians try to suck up all the attention in the room: they want to be the only thing on our minds, the only game in town. They want to completely fill up our horizon of possibilities so that supporters and opponents alike believe that there is no alternative. That they are inevitable.
The activist’s job in civil society is to show that there are alternatives. This narrative communications strategy toolkit provides some ways to do that, using solutions journalism and digital marketing to get out stories that show different ways of thinking about activism. The purpose of those narratives is to keep alive the (meta)narrative about the bigger story of how change happens in society. The story we need to keep telling is that WE, the people, make things happen, not some “strong man”.
4. Maintain our belief in the possibility of progress
In the aftermath of the Trump inauguration, Planned Parenthood started running ads to supporters with this video.
It gave people a sense of agency and motivation. Above all it told a story of progress: despite this setback, the Women’s March was part of a long struggle that continues to roll forward. That campaign mobilised people all over the USA to get involved in politics, beginning the fightback that led to victories at future elections.
We cannot let populists — and the commentators who love talking about them, or the centrists who want to adopt their policies — trick us into thinking that we are losing in the long term. That we have lost today’s election because of some flaw in our values or vision. Above all, we cannot let them trick us into believing that the people who voted for them are inherently bad, inevitably right-wing, and lost to social progress forever.
We must remain determined to keep moving forward towards social justice. We need new tactics and strategies, but we should always be true and proud of the basic moral values that drive us in our work.
In many ways, the victory of populists is a bigger defeat for conservatives — who not only lose the most votes to them but also lose the ability to hide their socially repressive beliefs behind a veneer of common sense. We have seen such incredible social progress in this century that suddenly views that were mainstream in the 1990s (LGBTQIA+ people should be punished, women belong in the home) are now so out of the mainstream that the only way to openly defend them is through extremism.
We need to recognise this progress to defend it and believe that we are capable of even more.
5. When space shrinks, create new space
Civil society is most needed precisely where space is shrinking. This idea is inspired by a Kathryn Sikkink article A Cautionary Note about the Frame of Peril and Crisis in Human Rights Activism (p 171 on the pdf).
Sikkink warns us that narratives about democracy/civil society in peril create a perception that we are ineffective while also harming activists' well-being and motivation. But she also points out that these narratives suggest that things are worse now than ever (a form of recency bias exacerbated by our constant exposure to the worst abuses happening around the world). But actually, our movements are stronger than before, precisely because we have gone through much worse, from WW2 to brutal suppression of anti-colonial movement to the Juntas in Latin America.
She uses the example of Argentina under the Junta. She points out that human rights organizations in Latin America have long been demonised by the powerful for their work, and have been labelled “communists”, “foreign agents”, “anti-national” or “traitors”. We have faced these threats before, and we persevered. We can do it again.
We must remember that the reason civil society exists in the first place is to create new spaces for humans to exist away from power. When civic space starts to shrink, we have to adapt quickly and start growing new spaces.
“As long as there have been civil society groups advocating social change,there have been smear campaigns against these organizations.” - Kathryn Sikkink
What I take from this is that we have faced these threats before, and this is exactly what CSO is for — to create a new space away from the dictators where we can build resistance and resilience against their beliefs.
(You can read more on this approach in this article urging activists to talk about their alternative future as a strategic response to shrinking space.)
6. International solidarity as shared narrative power
Activists in Argentina have given the world so much hope with the Green Wave in recent years. Responding to the Junta in Argentina, and other military, US-backed regimes in Latin America, shaped the human rights movement for decades to come.
Last week, Puentes gathered some inspiring messages from around the world - see here and here.
Populists like Javier Milei desperately want the spotlight. Light makes them grow, and the attention to their “strongman” rhetoric activates the authoritarian mindset in their audience. In an era of mass information overload, power goes to those who can stand out.
We need to elevate and amplify the voices of the resistance, whether it is the Mothers of the Disappeared, the Green Wave, or whatever comes next.
Being heard depends on feeding an algorithm, on engagement, clicks, and shares. This means that there are very practical things we can do. We can create surprising stories of solidarity, creators can help activists in Argentina make beautiful content that captures the imagination, and, quite simply, we can like, share, and comment on the content that is keeping social change values alive. It sounds simple, but when there are always a million things going on, it takes huge amounts of discipline to mobilise ourselves in an effective and strategic way.
CALL TO ACTION - New networks for simple solidarity
We have had so many moments like this around the world. And I have met so many activists around the world all facing the same kinds of attacks.
We need some kind of support group for people facing narrative attacks to learn from each other and help make their counter-message salient. People who have gone through similar attacks before can support people in that moment in very simple and practical ways: getting on a call to talk and being there for each other; to share their messages around the world (even if this is just posting a comment on their LinkedIn post so that it picks up more traction) etc.
Hopey, changey stuff
Events - Activist Book Club
The reading for our next book club is a classic: Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinksy. Sign up here.
Indeed, Kathryn Sikkink talks about him in the article I mentioned above:
“As community organizer Saul Alinsky reminded activists decades ago, pessimism and anger are not sufficient to maintain motivation over time; you also must have hope to believe that you can make a difference.”
On a call with the Puentes crew I realised we also need an Activist Film Club to share hope-based movies! What do you think? What movies would you recommend?
Quote of the week
First of all, thanks to Liz Vliegenthart who is editing these posts. Quote of the week comes from her mother, Marike de Nobel, re Dutch elections, who says it is important that she stays and fights this, with the values of the (Green-left) party values, because if everyone who has a different mindset (from the populists) leaves the country, hatred and negativity will remain.
You can't fight hate with hate, so we need to find a positive voice against what is currently happening, and spin the narrative around.
What’s making us hopeful
It’s nowhere near as good as Andor, but this conversation from Loki feels very familiar ;) (note the scpectical look at the end):
Next week, for human rights day, I’m finally going to write about rehumanization!
cover image: Nanda Mentesheva for Fine Acts
hey! your "sign up here" is not a live link-- can you add the registration link for the book group?