What Everyone Really Wants to Hear

It's not what they say.

Photo by Tom Nagel on Unsplash

Ask anyone what they want, and they’ll eventually tell you:

I want to have my beliefs challenged.

I want to stretch my comfort zone.

I want to question everything.

I value critical thinking.

I want hard truths.

Most people say all this for one simple reason. It makes them feel smart. It makes them feel good about themselves. But when you actually try to stretch their comfort zone or share hard truths, how do they respond?

You already know.

These days, when you tell someone something they don’t want to hear, the first thing they want to do isn’t to thank you for voicing an idea that challenges them to see the world through a different pair of glasses.

The first thing they’ll do is tell you why you’re wrong, and why they’re right. They’ll cite their own hunches as evidence. They’ll turn to the same handful of experts who’ve been wrong about everything so far.

In reality, people want one thing most of all:

To preserve their self-image.

This one aspect of human nature explains almost everything that’s been going wrong with the world for decades now. It explains why people continue to consume news media that lie to them. It explains why they support political parties and candidates that can’t be trusted. It explains why societies make the same mistake over and over again, until they run out of chances. It explains why they ignore warning after warning, then throw their hands up and say:

"Nobody saw this coming.”

People don’t just want to be right. They want to be right with a bullhorn. When they’re wrong, they never admit it. Instead, they erase every last trace anyone ever tried to tell them otherwise.

The Epstein files are a great example.

Sure, it would be amazing if the Epstein files blew up Trump’s presidency and finally lit the spark that turned MAGA against their king. It would be the ultimate comeuppance. Right now, that’s what everyone wants to hear. If you tell them otherwise, you’d better have a jet pack.

We’re chest deep in Trump’s second term, and so many people still don’t want to realize we’ve entered a new political paradigm. They want to believe these Epstein files will save them from fascism.

It’s not gonna happen.

The Epstein files might very well blow up Trump’s presidency, but there’s a long list of contenders for the keys to the MAGUAR.

Here’s a question I don’t see addressed:

Why would a sexual predator with his name all over the Epstein files make “releasing the Epstein files” a campaign promise? He didn’t need to do that. It was Trump who threw that back on the table. So you have to wonder, is he really so politically flatfooted that he thought he could stuff that back in the box, or is something else going on that we don’t see?

If you look closely, you’ll notice that public discourse has shifted almost entirely away from the big ugly bill and now centers on the hope that MAGA will tear apart their own king over their own conspiracy theory.

Political influencers are telling everyone to avoid the “distractions” and to keep talking about Epstein. Wait, what?

What if the Epstein files are the distraction…?

A lot of people want to believe the Epstein files will save them from MAGA, but they also believe it will save them from having to support real politicians with real solutions. They believe Epstein will save them from grappling with the actual threat of the climate crisis. They believe Trump’s downfall will spare them from having to contend with genocide.

People also want to believe that growing kale in your backyard will save you from the collapse of industrial civilization. As someone growing kale in their backyard, I can tell you… it only provides so much reassurance.

People don’t want to hear any of this.

Every day seems to prove it.

But, fine.

Let’s tell everyone what they want to hear:

Democrats are totally going to pressure the Trump administration to release the Epstein files. It’s definitely not a distraction from anything else. MAGA is going to tar and feather Trump. It’s going to leave them without a leader or a viable contender in the 2028 presidential election, even though the constitution already forbids Trump from seeking a third term. (Shhhh, don’t tell anyone that.)

The Epstein files will squash MAGA’s chances in the midterm elections, too. Democrats will come back to power.

Gavin Newsom will run for president. He’ll choose “The Lesser Evil” as his official platform. Moderates will praise his wit.

He’ll win.

Everything will go back to normal. Democrats will attain a slim majority in Congress, but not enough to overcome the filibuster. If they do, just enough of them will pull a Fetterman. Of course, they’ll have no choice but to keep making compromises on Medicare and Medicaid in exchange for defense spending. Instead of one big ugly bill, we’ll get a bunch of little ugly bills.

Wait, that’s not what everyone wants to hear.

Let’s try again.

Zohran Mamdani will spark a major reform among Democrats. They’ll finally become the progressives we always wanted. They’ll tax the rich. They’ll stop funding Israel’s war crimes, and we’ll see a cap on net worth. We won’t prevent more global warming, but we’ll actually start responding to it.

Wait, that’s still not it.

Let’s try again.

Democrats will finally become progressives, but it won’t save us from the climate crisis. We’ll still have to brace for a population crash in the billions, brought about by a combination of climate disasters and famines. But don’t worry, just grow some kale in your backyard and you’ll be okay.

That’s still not cutting it.

Wait, I know the problem.

It’s almost impossible to tell everyone what they want to hear, because they don’t know what they want to hear anymore. So not only do you have to tell people what they want to hear, but you also have to learn this trick:

You have to tell everyone what they want to hear, and you have to figure out what they want to hear on any given day.

It changes.

What people want to hear shifts all the time now. They want to be told the lesser evil can win, but they also want to be told the opposite. They want to be told we’re all doomed, but they also want a reason to hope. There’s yet another angle here. You can’t just figure out what everyone wants to hear and then tell them. You have to be a particular kind of person. You have to be the right gender, the right color, the right age, and the right social class. If you don’t have any of that, you’ve got to have rainbows of charisma shooting out of every orifice.

Otherwise, it doesn’t work.

There’s only one way to beat fascism at this point, and it’s not the Epstein files, just like it wasn’t any of the other silver bullets.

You can only beat them with real policies backed with real action. Anyone who believed that’s what we were getting over the last four years was just letting someone tell them what they wanted to hear.

But if you just want to know the secret to power and influence, here you go: It doesn’t matter how many times you’re right, or how many times you’re wrong. Just tell everyone what they want to hear, while preserving the illusion that you’re telling them a hard truth. They won’t care if you were telling them something completely different a few days ago. Just tell them what they want to hear now, in the moment, and you’re all good. Nobody knows what they want to hear anyway.

They just think they do.