This lullaby idea came to me way back in 2013 — almost two years before Donald Trump had even announced his candidacy for President.
But this old idea filtered to the top a couple of weeks ago, inspired by current events. I only added the chorus in recent weeks.
Play or Download “Political Lullaby (original song)” on SoundCloud >>
I thought of calling this something like “Confirmation Bias Lullaby,” “Polullaby,” or “Lullabias.” For awhile I settled on “Ideo-Lullaby” mostly because I got tired of thinking about the title. Then I went for the obvious: “Political Lullaby.”
And even though I didn’t originally have Trump in mind, here is a quote from a recent interview with historian Timothy Snyder that kind of gets at the same idea:
Part of the new authoritarianism is to get people to prefer fiction and inaction to reality and action. People sit in their chairs, read the tweet and repeat the clichés: “yes, they are thugs” instead of “it is normal to get out in the streets for what you believe.” [Trump] is trying to teach people a new behavior: You just sit right where you are, read what I say and nod your head.
Timothy Snyder
Photo Credit: Ted Johnson (CC BY-NC 2.0)