Threadjacking Non-Political Articles

To an extent, any individual's problem should be treated as everyone's problem. The longer that individual is stuck, the longer it's going to take for them to contribute at full capacity to the work of others. If one gear is gummed up, that can ripple through the whole machine and grind it all to a halt.

You'll often hear "The (President/GOP/Dems) need to hurry up and make a strategy to address (a specific issue)!" This is inaccurate, we all need that strategy. Instead of waiting, we should be contributing. The big difficulty arises in motivating others to participate, and before that just getting their attention focused on the problem.

Many "big stories" which are presented by the news during the election period are not policy-related. This is your celebrity news, movie reviews, sports updates, advice columns, and so on. When people go to those articles, it's highly likely they're not in the mood for politics. They want a break, some respite, or an escape from the drudgery of real life. Any attempt to hijack these kinds of stories onto a policy-related subject tends to meet very strong resistance. The audience in that case must be kneaded, massaged, or marinated onto the other topic.  Lobbing an info grenade only attracts passing attention.

Similar to the "Category Shifting" mentioned in the eBook, where you subtly and incrementally slide a political thread along a spectrum of political genres until it's on the subject you want, you'll need to "Inclusion Shift" people out of the current subject, then onto politics, then onto your selected issue. The tone of the post which initiates the shift needs to simply be an open-door invitation. You need to make it look like a party could be happening inside, and just needs some potential celebrants to step forward. The key to that step is using an open inquiry which is free of claims, embellished with some feigned ignorance so others can think they'll get to rub snide responses in your face and feel superior.

As a first example, if you were in a movie review which was getting a lot of responses, and you wanted to talk about budget cuts, you could simply start by saying "Did they make their money back? I didn't go, so I don't know if any real crowds showed up." Others will likely then start spamming back at you with easy-to-find Weekend Box Office Receipts and the movie's estimated budget while ridiculing your apparent lack of google skills.

You could then "respond appreciatively", highlighting the difference between cost and income, then muse aloud if anything could have been done to make that gap bigger; using cheaper non-union actors, outsourcing the computerized special effects to India, and so on. Others, then wanting to brandish any familiarity they have with production, in order to look savvy among their internet peers and again to mock your lame nebbishness of cinematic know-how, will begin either critiquing or clarifying your suggestions, expanding on the general pool of information in the thread.

At that point, you can simply "boggle openly" at "all the amazing things Hollywood can do", and then "wonder publically" if any of it can be adapted to things the government works on as a way to increase the gap between federal income and expenditures. In order to increase their value as a contributor, others will likely begin adapting their previous suggestions in order to show off how versatile their knowledge is, use their degree, guide your seemingly frail, ill-equipped mind to the light and get the warm fuzzy feeling of being a leader.

Everyone is now writing fixes for the economy. Make a copy of the thread and forward it to your Congressman.

You're welcome.