Steve Bannon is using the recent immigration ban as a "shock event" to divide society and distract from his true goals. Shock events are unexpected, confusing events that create chaos and allow those in power to consolidate control by blaming opponents. While the immigration ban has divided people along partisan lines as intended, we do not need to respond this way. Instead, we could unite across old divisions in opposition to those creating the shock event, like Lincoln did in forming the Republican party in response to the actions of the "Slave Power". The goal of a shock event is speed and chaos, but if people realize they are being played and work together, it can be turned to challenge those in power.

1. VERY IMPORTANT INFO AT THIS
VERY MOMENT FOR ALL OF US:
From Heather Richardson, professor of History
at Boston College, Friday, 1/28/2017
"I don't like to talk about politics on Facebook-- political history is my job, after all, and
you are my friends-- but there is an important non-partisan point to make today. What
Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night's ban on immigration from
seven predominantly Muslim countries-- is creating what is known as a "shock
event.”
Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos. People
scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for
the event can widen by claiming that they alone know how to restore order.

2. When opponents speak out, the authors of the shock event call them enemies.
As society reels and tempers run high, those responsible for the shock event perform a
sleight of hand to achieve their real goal, a goal they know to be hugely unpopular, but
from which everyone has been distracted as they fight over the initial event.
There is no longer concerted opposition to the real goal; opposition divides along the
partisan lines established by the shock event.

3. Last night's Executive Order has all the hallmarks of a shock event. It was not
reviewed by any governmental agencies or lawyers before it was released, and
counterterrorism experts insist they did not ask for it. People charged with
enforcing it got no instructions about how to do so. Courts immediately have declared
parts of it unconstitutional, but border police in some airports are refusing to stop
enforcing it. Predictably, chaos has followed and tempers are hot.
My point today is this: unless you are the person
setting it up, it is in no one's interest to play
the shock event game. It is designed explicitly
to divide people who might otherwise come
together so they cannot stand against
something its authors think they won't like.

4. I don't know what Bannon is up to-- although I have some guesses-- but because I know
Bannon's ideas well, I am positive that there is not a single person whom I consider a
friend on either side of the aisle-- and my friends range pretty widely-- who will benefit
from whatever it is. If the shock event strategy works, though, many of you will
blame each other, rather than Bannon, for the fallout. And the country will
have been tricked into accepting their real goal.
But because shock events destabilize a society,
they can also be used positively.
We do not have to respond along old fault
lines. We could just as easily reorganize
into a different pattern that threatens the
people who sparked the event.

5. A successful shock event depends on speed and chaos because it requires
knee-jerk reactions so that people divide along established lines. This, for
example, is how Confederate leaders railroaded the initial southern states
out of the Union. If people realize they are being played, though, they
can reach across old lines and reorganize to challenge the leaders
who are pulling the strings. This was Lincoln's strategy when he joined
together Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, anti-Nebraska voters, and nativists
into the new Republican Party to stand against the Slave Power.
Five years before, such a coalition would have been unimaginable. Members of those
groups agreed on very little other than that they wanted all Americans to have equal
economic opportunity. Once they began to work together to promote a fair
economic system, though, they found much common ground. They ended up
rededicating the nation to a "government of the people, by the people, and for
the people."

6. Confederate leaders and Lincoln both knew about
the political potential of a shock event. As we are in
the midst of one, it seems worth noting that Lincoln
seemed to have the better idea about how to use it.”
DON’T GIVE INTO THIS SHOCK EVENT!
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