“Influencers”
Please note “ADDITIONS” at the end of this post. If it’s been your inclination to sit this one out, get off the couch. Our future as a democracy is at stake, and we’re the only solution.
INFLUENCING
Every now and then a new word crops up and has its day in the headlines. A current one is “Influencer“. If you search the internet you will find numerous definitions. Here’s one I selected, from the Oxford English Dictionary.
Today, it seems, you have to go viral to consider something successful. Or have a very large boatload of “followers”. whatever that means.
I want to propose a new definition of “influencer”: first each person has to convince him or herself that he or she can make a difference as an active individual wherever he or she lives….
Since November 2024, when my ‘side’ ‘lost’ the election, I have said that 75,000,000 of us agreed on an alternative outcome, but we were a tiny bit short of a plurality. There was no “landslide” “victory” or “loss” last November. Every one of us were “influencers”.
Of course this also means that 77 million influencers voted for the opposing candidate, as were the 90 million or so who didn’t vote at all, or the free who voted for minor party candidates with no chance of being elected.
In short, every single one of us who were qualified to vote, whether voting or not, is the only ‘influencer’ who makes any difference.
If each person takes on the task of helping one other person make up their mind, change can happen pretty dramatically…there is no ‘yah but’.
As we’re all learning the hard way, elections are no spectator sport. All of us are the “team”, period.
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Re the Team, I’m really no different than anyone else. First, I have to talk myself into taking some unfamiliar action – in other words, to change customary behaviors.
The viral bunch is always an annoying noise in the background, like those fine-tuned ads for the perfect pet food for the perfect dog or cat.
For all of us, perfection is a dream, and we clomp along trying to do our best.
My challenge, become an influencer, just by doing a little bit more every day, getting a little out of your comfort zone.
You read this this far. You are an exceptional person. Keep on keeping on.
POSTNOTE: As I was drafting this I thought back to a workshop I’d attended in Grand Rapids MN in the late 1980’s. The speaker, Don Keck, was an organizer for the National Education Association, and his talk was about Power, In my memory, his talk had five bullet points about Power and who has it. The first four were obvious: Knowledge, Position, Money, Information. There were other sources of power, but these were primary examples.
It was the final power that caught my attention, and that he spent the most time with: Referent Power, the power of relationships, which he called “Referent Power”..
In my blog archives, there are nine that include the word “Referent” in one way or another, At the end of my post for February 10, 2011, I expanded a bit on the word, as follows:
Message to the Proles March 10 2010: ** – Power defined. I once heard an excellent talk about some of the many kinds of “Power” in plays in all of our lives. As I remember them: there is the power that comes with authority (“I can fire you”, or variations usually involving money); there is the power that comes with the capability of defining the rules of society (“I can make laws”). Power comes with family connections – a family marries into a family with power. The list goes on.
But there was one power I paid most attention to, and the speaker called it “referent power” or “the likeability factor”. For people immersed in the other kinds of power, this is the scary one: this is the problem of relationships, and builds outside, and independent of, the others.
ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS:
Some things you can do:
Facilitate helping with registering to vote: Joyce Vance October 7, 2025
Check out and participate in No Kings Day on October 18 (we’re signed up). In the lower left corner of the home page is a box. Enter your zip code and find the nearest group in your area. Additionally, take time to watch this 10 minute Tim Snyder video Who was who in Weimar Germany; and a three minute one, No Kings – Freedom
Check out “No data day” here. This is very interesting.
Lori Sturdevant, long time highly respected commentator on politics in this area, had a must read column in the October 8 Minnesota Star Tribune: Lori Sturdevant STrib 10 8 25
I have added several references after “Do something” in the Darkness or Light post.
POSTNOTE: I think back to my most recent visit to Niagara Falls three years ago, this time of year. I visualize the people in a barrel, an occasional stupidity there, where someone thinks they can capitalize on surviving a trip over the falls. It is one thing to read about it; it is another thing entirely to stand there, at the lip of the falls, and imagine what it would be like.
At the moment, America – all of us – are in a barrel, about to go over the edge. If you’re excited about that, be very careful what you pray for. Odds are against victory.
Dad at Niagara Falls 1972
Once again, in my opinion, you are spot on, Dick. I was a community organizer, teacher, and mental health therapist. In those roles, I had read the research about human interactions and loneliness before the Surgeon General gave his report re: high rates of loneliness and how to combat it. From that background, I’d like to add to your comments: yes, referent power is definitely POWER, and, at its best, it is healing, inclusive power. If we approach people, not to change them but to listen to them, better know them, and show them our positiveness (and we Democrats are good, even at our best, when we are positive toward others), we will be helping to heal the loneliness that so many are feeling these days. And wouldn’t the lonely rather feel safe, secure, and valued with us, even if we don’t agree with them politically, than to feel the opposite? (After all, while anger feels powerful for awhile, negativity doesn’t REALLY feel good.) And maybe those lonely–nonjudgmentally listened to–may choose to be included with us, we positive and hopeful? Maybe some day, when invited, the lonely will come to a No Kings rally too? or consider voting in kindness rather than in authoritarian, fearful reaction toward others? The power of a referent is in kindness, listening, inclusiveness–and in-person communication. (Unlike many of today’s influencers, who use distance, divisiveness, and anger as their tools.) Like many of other parties, Democrats rightly feel anger and fear. However, instead of using our power to try to control others, as authoritarians do, I believe that the power of the Democratic party is created by references who are neither naive or nor milk toast, but who quietly channel their anger into kindness, listening, and inclusiveness. It feels good to be among you.
Agreed but then again, I realize that Trump is doing exactly what he said that he would do during the 2024 campaign and the voters said with the votes that is exactly what they wanted donnee to do when elected. With the congress and the SCOTUS in his pocked, Trump can do and will continue to do any damn thing that he wants with no one or thing to stop him. The voters will decide n 2026 if they are happy with what donnee has done or not. There is not great indication at the moment, at least, that a lot of voters are upset with what he has done so the Democrats winning big in 2026 is still very, very problematic. Klobuchar can pee and moan about donnee but given that donnee has the votes and control of Congress and the SCOTUS there is not a damn thing that she can do about it other than asking for more money.
I had to decide whether I should add to this one. But, I really felt something was missing. As an independent voter I have questions of the democrats. Did you really listen to Ms Harris who wanted to make us fully socialist along with a goofy guy who could only have been elected in Minnesota. If Minnesota elects him again I will not believe it. The two of them lost that election, no one else. I would really like to see a woman President, but she’s got to be more toward the middle.
Yes, of course, that doggone Harris wanted to preserve Social Security and Medicare let alone Medicaid as a safety net. and low care health care coverage cost. And the non-weaponization of the DOJ let alone adequate funding for the IRS and the FAA. Yah, just cannot have such socialistic things in America, by golly! In addition, in order to MAGA you have to mobilize the military against American citizens aka fighting the war within. Yah, just cannot have any citizen protecting the actins of government as everyone should think and believe the very same to MAGA…again, by golly and dad burn it anyway!
Absolutely we must fight the first wanna-be dictator in the White House in my lifetime. And we can’t count on our ND Congressional delegation for any help. They are as bad as the bootlickers in the administration. I applaud the efforts of Senator Klobuchar from your state, Dick. But she needs some help from the mice hiding under their desks.