Broken

forsetti:

I’ve been trying to think of how to describe the GOP’s current ideology and it wasn’t until watching “Goodfellas” that it hit me.

You’re a student that has studied hard and received a degree but there are no jobs for you right now in the economy and the student loans you took out are going to see the interest rates double?  Fuck You!

You’re a female that is trying to be a responsibly sexual adult by not having unwanted children or trying to space out your children for the benefit of your own health or you need to balance out your hormone levels or you have a family history of ovarian or endometrial cancer and want to help reduce your risk and you would like your insurance plan to cover the medically prescribed drugs that would allow this?  Fuck You!

You are a young person whose parents came here illegally for one of many possible reasons, you’ve attended public schools, got good grades, graduated, worked at jobs helping the economy, paid taxes, etc. and would like some small gesture of appreciation for your hard work and dedication?  Fuck You!

You are an illegal immigrant adult who has helped build many of the houses in which we live, harvested much of the food which we eat, done jobs and worked hours in ways few people can for very poor wages that has allowed the costs of many things to stay low all while paying U.S. taxes so you would like to be able to have your sweat equity count towards becoming a citizen?  Fuck You!

You’re a woman who feels that if you work the same job as your male counterpart with the same responsibilities you should receive the same pay as he does?  Fuck You!

You’re gay?  It doesn’t matter what you want or do, Fuck You!

You believe freedom of religion should extend to other religions beside Christianity?  Fuck You!

You’d like tax loopholes that are designed specifically to help only a select few individuals and corporations that don’t need financial assistance to be closed?  Fuck You!

You’d like universal access to a minimum standard of healthcare and services like the citizens in thirty two of the thirty three developed nations have?  Fuck You!

You are someone who would like to see all economic groups succeed and rise like they did from the 1940’s until 1980?  Fuck You!

You want children in need of food, housing, medical care and schooling to be able to have access to a bare minimum of these?  Fuck You!

You’d rather invest in improving our own infrastructure than some other country’s that is only crappy because we bombed the hell out of it?  Fuck You!

You want some safeguards in place so large financial institutions cannot overleverage themselves and put the economy in jeopardy?  Fuck You!

You’d like to stop providing billions of dollars to companies that make even more billions of dollars in profits?  Fuck You!

You want…Fuck You!

You’d like…Fuck You!

You wish…Fuck You!

You need…Fuck You! 

Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck You!

forsetti:

[Editor’s note: as with my last blog post, this one is very much NSFW and an unedited stream of conscious.  There is probably going to be some overlap with the previous post.  Too fucking bad.  It probably bears repeating.]

I thought I could get away with one, five thousand word post about the election.  I was wrong.  Even though I’ve tried to stay off social media, not watch the news, and not listen to my normal list of podcasts, the fallout from the election cannot truly be avoided unless I go full Ted Kaczynski.  Even though I’ve tried to cloister myself off in a self-imposed exile, the idiocy about the election has seeped through the walls of my monastic cell like blood from The Amityville Horror.  Instead of getting into flame wars or long, drawn out back-and-forths with people who have no interest in learning a damn thing, I’m using this platform to vent.

Everyone who says, “We have to show respect to the new president-elect,” can shut the fuck up!  No,  I don’t.  And, as long as Donald J. Trump is Donald J. Trump, I never will.  It isn’t because he is a Republican.  It is because he is Donald J. Fucking Trump.  How does this not sink into your vacuous heads?  I know there is room for it. Even if it wasn’t Trump, I refuse to be lectured about respecting the president from people who have spent the last eight years calling President Obama every pejorative, every racial slur, every derogatory thing possible.  People who still, to this very day, believe he wasn’t legitimate because he wasn’t born in America don’t get to tell me how to treat a president.  People who did everything they could to obstruct him even if it meant not voting for bills they had previously written and supported don’t get to tell me how to treat a president.  People who went against standing traditions over and over again don’t get to tell me how to treat a president.  People who did the passed the fewest bills, held up appointments the longest, left the most jobs unfilled for no other reason than they were put forth by President Obama don’t get to tell me how to treat a president. Sorry, these people don’t get to lecture anyone about showing respect.  You don’t get respect, you fucking earn it and when it comes to respecting a president of the other party, Republicans haven’t earned it from Democrats.  We have a mountain of receipts from the past eight years and by God, we’ll bring them out every single fucking time you talk to us about “respecting the president.”

Everyone who says, “Trump has a mandate,” can seriously shut the fuck up.  In 2000 when George W. Bush didn’t win the popular vote and “won” the election thanks to the Supreme Court, every conservative chanted, “MANDATE!”   When President Obama easily won the electoral college and the popular vote, twice, conservatives said incessantly, “He doesn’t have a mandate.” Once again we have a Republican who didn’t win the popular vote but amazingly has a mandate.  See the pattern here?  See the hypocrisy? This is another example of the explicit view from conservatives is governing is only legitimate if they are the ones doing it.  This was the underlying belief when Republicans refused to give President Obama’s SCOTUS nominee even a hearing.  They made up some bullshit argument about how a lame duck president doesn’t get to make these decisions, it has to be the new president.  The curtain was pulled back on this bullshit argument when it looked like Hillary was going to win and Republican Senators were coming out of the woodwork to say they wouldn’t let her seat a justice if she won.    A new justice cannot be seated not because the president is a lame duck.  A new justice cannot be seated because the president is a Democrat. Conservatives believe they are the only ones who have the legitimate right to govern, rule.  

Everyone who says, “We lived with Obama, you can live with Trump,” can shut the fuck up!  Maybe we can live with Trump.  We don’t know yet. From what he stated he wants to do even the first hundred days in office, some of us might not.  Some of us are going to have their lives altered in very substantial ways that none of you did or was there even a threat of from President Obama.  Remember when Obama put white people on trains and put them into FEMA camps?  Remember when he took away the rights of white people?  Remember when he increased the deficit?  Remember when he fucked up the economy?  Remember when he doubled the rate of those without health insurance?  Remember when he put black nationalists in charge of his campaigns or in his administration?  If you said, “Yes,” to any of these, you are lying.  None of this happened.  None of it was ever considered or proposed.  You cannot say the same about Donald Trump.  In fact, you can say the opposite.  So spare me your bullshit false equivalence. The only thing white people had to be scared about when Obama was elected was a black man in the White House which is only scary if you have racist beliefs.  Many of the people scared of Trump aren’t scared of him because he is white.  They are scared by the things he has said, over and over again on the campaign trail, the people he has surrounded himself with, the people who have endorsed him and he has been perfectly willing to accept it.  Legitimate fears are not the same as made up bullshit ones.  Muslim-Americans, women, the LGBT community, people on Medicaid, Native-Americans, Black-Americans…have every right to be scared right now.  Their fears are based on real, tangible things.  Your fears in 2008 and 2012 were like a child being afraid of the monster that lives in their ignorant closet.  Just because you believed the bullshit pushed by the fear-mongering right about President Obama doesn’t make it true.  It only makes you gullible.  Which begs the question, “Why were you so willing to believe these lies?”  If you were truly honest with yourself, I’ll bet, “because he’s black” is at or near the top answer.  If only there was a word to describe someone who believes untrue things about someone else and treats them differently because of the color of their skin.

Everybody saying, “See, I told you we should have nominated Bernie, he would have won,” can seriously shut the fuck up.  Not only is it a counter-factual so you can never prove it to be true or not, it shows you complete lack of understanding not just this election, but the electorate for the past few decades.  If you think Bernie’s progressivism was going to win more votes, all you have to do is look at how progressive candidates did in swing states like Michigan, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Carolina.  I’ll tell you how they did.  They got stomped like a narc at a biker rally.  Russ Feingold in Wisconsin, a true progressive, running in what was once a very progressive state just a decade ago, lost to Teahadist Ron Johnson. Please explain to me how Bernie, who is more to the left of Feingold, was going to win Wisconsin.  Go ahead, I’ll wait. (*insert sound of crickets)  “But the election was against the status quo and Feingold had been a Senator.”  Yeah?  And?  The person Feingold lost to was the incumbent.  You do know what “incumbent” means? It means Johnson was the status quo.  Johnson was part of the least productive Congress in history.  Besides, if the election was a referendum against the status quo in Washington, how do you square the circle of Bernie being in Congress for twenty-five years not being part of the status quo?    The reason Johnson was reelected in Wisconsin had nothing to do with a backlash against the establishment or the status quo.  Johnson was reelected for the same reasons Trump was, a lot of white people believe their way of life is being threatened by non-whites.  Full-fucking-stop.  It doesn’t matter if it is true because they’ve been told it non-stop by conservatives for so long, it has become lore in many white communities.  Unless Bernie told white America the reason they are “suffering” is because of brown people, women, and the gays, he had no chance of getting their support.  If you don’t understand this, you really don’t understand what has been and is going on in America.  Another important reason Bernie would not have won is because he would have been labeled a “socialist” and if you don’t think that would have been an albatross around his neck, read up on how/why the Tea Party came to power in 2010.  The number one attack by conservatives against Democrats, President Obama, and the Affordable Care Act was it was “socialism.”  It doesn’t matter that it bears no resemblance to socialized medicine, the mere suggestion that it was sent a lot of white America into a rabid craze that ended up with Republicans taking over the House of Representatives, a lot of governorships, and state legislatures in traditionally purple and blue states.  These are the same people in these same states that voted for Trump.  Why on earth do you think Bernie, the self-professed socialist, would have done better than Hillary with the people who not only swept in power the Teabillies in swing states, but have re-elected them three times since?  Rainbow math in the land of unicorns can’t even make this scenario work.

Everyone saying, “This was an election about change,” can seriously shut the fuck up.  No, it wasn’t.  If it was about change, you would have seen Democrats take back the House, the Senate, and state offices. That’s not what happened.  The only thing that really changed was now one party controls all three legislative branches of the federal government.  I guess you can spin this by claiming now gridlock won’t hold back things getting done.  If passing bills is what matters and not what passes, then this self-delusional claptrap might make sense. In the real world, it means a lot of truly bad things can/will happen unopposed.  The main reason states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Kansas…have turned into one notch above Mississippi is because of complete Republican control for the past six years.  The last time Republicans controlled all three branches of government at the same time was 1928.  Their unopposed, balls-to-the-wall enactment of their agenda led to the Great Depression one year later.  We have learned a lot since then about how to handle economic crises and there are certain systems in place that exist now that didn’t then that can help avoid the level of damage done by horrible economic policies, but there will be serious damage, especially with the lack of experience in key positions being suggested for the new administration.  Kansas is completely fucked because of conservative policies.  These same policies are not going to suddenly work when applied nationally.  If this was truly a “change election,” then the people who have been in charge of the Congress and the majority of states would have been thrown out.  Instead, they were rewarded. Why?  Because the election wasn’t about change.  “Change” is the cover given to the irrational, racist-inspired fears of white America.  “Change” allows everyone to keep up the pretense that white Americans are good, moral, Christians and not self-centered, immoral bigots.

Everyone who doesn’t understand this was an election about the white patriarchy needs to shut the fuck up.  This election was a backlash to the black president and the fear of a female one.  This election was about throwing everyone not white, not male, not Christian, not heterosexual under the bus of white supremacy.  If you don’t understand this, if you don’t accept this, if you don’t come to terms with it, you are part of the fucking problem.  Many white liberals were guilty of this too.  When it came time to stand up for the groups they say are important to progressivism, they opted to sit down and not be counted.  Even with a lot of progressives, white trumps everything else.  This is why many of our non-white brothers and sisters don’t fully trust us to have their backs.  Because, when push-comes-to-shove, we haven’t had their backs.  This has never more true than this election.  On one side of the aisle was a bigoted racist who was supported by every white supremacist, white nationalist, xenophobic, homophobic….groups around and on the other side was a white female and a lot of self-described progressives decided there was no difference between the two and sat out leaving the people who will suffer the most from a Trump presidency holding their dicks in their hands.  Bra-fucking-o progressives!  Bra……fucking…..o!  You had the chance to stand up for all the groups you claim you really care about AND elect the first female president in our history, a progressive twofer, and you couldn’t be bothered or found some bullshit reasons why, not this time, not this candidate. Un-fucking-believable!  It’s like asking progressives to spell “cat,” spotting them the ‘c’ and the ‘a’ and they don’t just fuck up the last letter, they refuse to even venture a guess because that would be labeling and speciesism and it goes against their conscience.

Everyone who at one time the next four years has buyer’s remorse for voting for Trump can seriously shut the fuck up.  Already we see he is toying with the idea of not repealing Obamacare.  I’m okay with this since it has reduced the uninsured rate to the lowest levels, EVER. Slowed healthcare inflation to their lowest rates in decades.  Is the single largest deficit reducing bill EVER passed by Congress.  But, to his rabid, racist base, this is going to piss them off like nothing else. Boo-fucking-hoo!  When you vote for a carnival barker, don’t get upset when Jo Jo the Bearded Lady turns out to be some woman with fake whiskers glued to her face.  Those who voted for Trump who gets upset when he doesn’t live up to his campaign promises can fuck off because the promises you are upset about not being fulfilled were horrible.  You voted for horrible policies which makes you a horrible person so if you are upset, fuck off.

Everyone who says, “You shouldn’t label all Trump voters as racists,” can seriously shut the fuck up.  Do I think everyone who voted for Trump is a racist?  No.  Do I think racism was THE major factor for his support?  Yes.  The problem is I don’t know how to separate the wheat from the racist chaff.  I didn’t see too many Trump supporters at his events, on social media, in public…stand up against the anti-Semitism, the anti-immigrant, the anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-Hispanic rhetoric by him, his surrogates or other supporters.   When YOUR children are now going around their schools  putting up “Whites Only” and “Blacks Only” signs over drinking fountains, chanting, “Build the wall!” to their Hispanic classmates, feeling emboldened to act out of racial animosity towards non-whites, it is really impossible for me to determine which of you belong in the racist pile and which ones don’t.  The reason why people telling me not to label Trump supporters can shut the fuck up is because the burden isn’t on me.  The burden is on his supporters who aren’t racists to stand up to the ones who are racists.  Since this hasn’t been and isn’t happening, I am left with no reasonable alternative but to lump you all in the same deplorable basket.  The rub is, for me, even if you start taking a stand against the racists in your party, it won’t mean as much because you didn’t do it when it was needed the most.  Doing it now, after Trump has been elected, is like the guy who comes in after the fight is broken up and says, “Let me at him!”  To be honest, taking a moral stand after-the-fact isn’t really taking a moral stand.  It’s a show to make yourself and others feel good about you.  I’m not saying you can’t make amends for your lack of moral courage, but it is going to take a lot of effort on your part and a lot of time for my anger towards you to die down.

Everybody who says, “Democrats failed to address the concerns of the white working class voter,” can shut the fuck up.  You’re damn right they did!  Hillary constantly talked about an economy that works for everyone.  She laid out detailed economic policies that would have specifically helped the white working class.  Her opponent, on the other hand, offered no detailed policies.  He offered isolationist rhetoric and racially charged accusations as to the reasons for the plight of the working class white.  Deporting eleven million people isn’t going to help our economy and the white working class.  Trade wars with China and Europe are not going to help the white working class.  Building a wall, banning Muslims, repealing Obamacare….none of them are going to help the white working class economically.  The only thing is going to help them with is feeling superior because it doesn’t matter how badly white America is doing just as long as non-whites are doing worse.  It doesn’t matter if 79% of Medicaid recipients are white, it must be rolled back because of the other 21% who, unlike the white people, don’t deserve it.  Donald Trump tapped into and hyped up the racial animosity behind a lot of white working economic anxiety.  The white working class doesn’t want answers/solutions for their economic situation, they want someone to blame because the reality is they are responsible for their own economic situation.  They’ve supported the party whose policies have decimated middle class, white America and done so for thirty plus years.  The only way Hillary or any other Democrat was going to win over these white working class voters wasn’t by providing policies for their woes, but a scapegoat.  Hillary’s positions-”An economy that works for everyone,” will never play with the racists.  They don’t want it to work for everyone.  They only want it to work for them.  Trump gave them their scapegoat and promised them exclusivity to any economic gains.  Saying, “Democrats needed to address the concerns of white working class voters,” plays into the economic anxiety bullshit narrative.

Everyone who says, “Democrats need to have a more progressive agenda,” needs to shut the fuck up.  Yeah, the Green Party, who can barely win anything above county assessor in deep blue areas is who progressives should emulate to win national elections.  That sounds like a terrific strategy.  I wonder if we can get Jill Stein to take time out from her busy schedule of leading a drum circle against vaccines to help us draft out this new, wonderful, winning platform?  What Democrats have to do is get out and fucking vote.  Period.   When progressives vote, they win.  They have the numbers in most states and nationally.  The problem isn’t the platform.  The problem is too many progressives won’t come out and vote unless every little detail about the platform and candidate doesn’t meet their precious hothouse orchid demands.  Hillary’s platform was the most progressive platform in my lifetime.  Where were the progressives supporting it? They were carping about “Wall St. speeches, email servers, and not being inspired.”  Meanwhile, Donald Trump has floated JP Morgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon to head the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Makes your petty bitch about Hillary getting paid by Wall St., money that went to her foundation that has helped millions, seem pretty fucking petty doesn’t it?  If it doesn’t, it fucking should.  The problem isn’t the product.  The problem isn’t the candidates.  The problem is the lack of pragmatic strategy on the part of too many progressives and their lack of support.  They want to elect Captain Saint Socialist to the presidency but not do a damn thing about giving him support in Congress or at the state level.  They want FDR-like progressive results without giving FDR-like support.  This isn’t complicated.  It is basic fucking math.  FDR had large majorities to work with all three terms in office.  Today’s progressives have not given any Democratic president large majorities, if majorities at all.  Yet, they DEMAND FDR-like progress.  That’s not how it works.  Stop thinking all you have to do is elect a progressive president and all your progressive wet dreams will come true.  You build up progress from the ground up not the top down.  Get progressives elected locally, at the state level, in Congress… have a support group in place for a progressive president to work with and get things passed.  This means voting for people who will support you 75% of the time because having an ally who will support you 75% of the time is 100% better than having an opponent who will support you 0% of the time.  When Hillary lost to Barack in 2008 in a campaign that was way more contentious than this year’s, her supporters lined up behind him on election day because moving the ball forward, not letting Republicans win, was the main objective. If Bernie would have won this year’s primary, you can bet Hillary’s supporters would have come out and voted for him, even though he wasn’t their choice.  Why?  Because not letting Republicans have power is the primary goal and the only way any progress will get done.  For reasons I cannot comprehend because they are devoid of logic and common sense, a lot of progressives believe the primary goal is to get everything they want.  In this, I see absolutely no difference between the far left and the far right.  It is either all their way or no way.  Compromise is seen as “selling out” and “abandoning principles.”  No, fuckwads, compromise is how things get done in a multi-cultural democracy.  When you don’t understand this, democracy fails.  When democracy fails, you get the government you deserve and it will NEVER, EVER be progressive.  Get this through your naive, purity-driven, skulls!  The main reason conservatives keep winning elections and moving the country to the right even though they have fewer numbers is because they vote for the Republican on the ticket.  Period.  When they get majorities, they then start putting more conservatives in to replace the moderates.  Until progressives start doing the same, they will continue to lose elections.  Progress will be rolled back even more.  And, most importantly, they will continue to bitch about the system not working cuz it’s in their whiny, bitchy, hothouse orchid nature.

Finally, every single white, Christian, heterosexual American can seriously shut the fuck up about how people not like you are supposed to feel and react right now.  You have NEVER…FUCKING…EVER…been second class citizens in this country.  You have NEVER…FUCKING…EVER…had your rights denied/taken away.  You have NEVER…FUCKING…EVER…not been the privileged group.  Billy Bob Red Neck from Bumfuck Arkansas will get a cab easier than a black surgeon in even the most liberal city.  He won’t get his resume thrown away just because of his name.  He won’t be stopped and frisked, just cuz. He won’t be arrested and held without being charged.  He won’t be shot in the back when he is unarmed and his hands up in the air.  He won’t face as serious a charge or as long as a sentence if he’s caught with contraband.  He won’t make less money for the same job with the same experience.  He won’t be beaten to death because of his sexuality.  He won’t be denied a job because of who he is married to. If he goes off and kills a bunch of people it won’t be labeled “terrorism” no matter what the motive,  I could go on with examples like these for days.  But, what does happen, is no matter how much privilege white Americans have, they’ll be damned if someone else should be treated even closely to the same if they aren’t white, aren’t a man.  It doesn’t matter how hard the other person worked for what they have, how smart they are, how good of a person, it will always be ignored, denied, rationalized because white superiority has been etched into the belief systems of white Americans, conservatives a lot, progressives not as much but it still exists.  Your damn right these people are scared and upset right now because a large chunk the country views them as a threat and not legitimate members of society and another large chunk won’t stand up for them when they really need them.  I’d be scared and pissed too.  All the people telling them they are overreacting are either too fucking stupid to understand this, are heartless human beings, and/or blatant racists.  I really can’t think of any other possibilities.  To each of these groups, I say, in order, “Shut the fuck up,” “Shut the fuck up!,” and “SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!”  

forsetti:

“In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.”- Edmund Burke

There is much consternation going on right now with many Trump supporters because they are upset at being labeled, “racists” and “bigots.” I’ve read a few dozen, “I supported Trump and I am not a racist/bigot” posts from friends and family.  Every single one of them misses the larger, more important point about why so many people are upset and concerned right now.  Are all these people, even my friends and family, racists and bigots?  Maybe.  Perhaps, to some level.  I would hope not, but I don’t know what is in their heart-of-hearts.  I don’t know what their motivations or intentions were for supporting Trump.  All I have to go on is what they do say, what they don’t say, who they stand with, and who they don’t stand with.  In a lot of cases, their reassurances they aren’t a racist/bigot, are not all that reassuring.

Telling me you’ve done a lot of soul-searching and you’ve come to the conclusion you aren’t a racist/bigot, isn’t very reassuring.  If you ask the most ardent racist in a Klan meeting if they are racist, they’ll say, “No.”  They’ll say, “No,” and honestly believe it.  Being a racist is a bad thing.  It is something that just about every single person in society things is wrong.  Yet, it exists quite a bit at varying levels in society.  How is this possible?  People don’t believe they are racists/bigots, even when they are because people don’t view themselves as being bad people.  Pretty much everyone thinks and wants to believe they are good.  Since there are a lot of racist/bigoted behaviors going on, even more now that Trump’s been elected, there is a serious disconnect between what people believe about themselves and what is really the case.  This is why someone’s self-analysis about whether they are/aren’t a racist/bigot is not very reliable or reassuring.

Telling me that the real racists/bigots are not that prevalent in society because the number of Klan, white supremacist, white nationalist..groups are not that many, doesn’t address the issue of whether or not an individual is racist/bigoted.  You can really like Taylor Swift, know all her songs by heart, buy all her albums, go to her concerts…and not be a member of her fan club.  Being a member of the Klan makes someone a racist/bigot.  However, just because someone isn’t a member of the Klan doesn’t make them not a racist/bigot.  To put it in logic parlance: All Klan members are racist/bigots but not all racist/bigots are Klan members.  Granny might not be a member of the Klan or be a subscriber to Stormfront, but if she gets upset because “the blacks moved in down the street” or because “a couple of lesbians bought the house next door,” she is a racist/bigot.  Racism and bigotry aren’t about what group you belong to.  Racism and bigotry are about what you believe, what you say, what you do towards people who are not like you.  Trying to make racism and bigotry not that widespread because the number of groups that openly, actively profess it is not that many completely misrepresents the issue and problem.  If the only opposition to blacks was from white supremacist groups, there wouldn’t be voter suppression in predominantly black voting districts.  There wouldn’t have been redlining.  There wouldn’t have been Jim Crow.  These things existed/exist because of both broad acceptance and tacit approval from a lot of people who don’t belong to extremist groups. During Hitler’s reign of power in Germany, only 850,000 out of 66 million Germans were members of the Nazi Party.  A little more than 1% of Germans were Nazis, but when we talk about Germans during WWII, you don’t say, “They aren’t anti-Semitic.  Only a small portion of the country are Nazis.”  The reason we don’t say this is because the problem wasn’t so much the horrible beliefs of the 1%, it was the tacit approval, agreement, and support of a lot of the other 99%.  I have a problem with white supremacist groups, but I have a bigger problem with people who agree with a lot of what they believe.  Just because you don’t agree with the methods of the Klan and aren’t a member doesn’t mean you don’t agree with some of their beliefs. Beliefs that are rooted in racism and bigotry.

Okay, let’s say, for argument sake, you aren’t a member of a white supremacist group and tell me you don’t subscribe to any of their beliefs.  Great.  So far so good.  Now, what if you both support and vote for the same candidate?  What am I suppose to think now?  Does supporting the same person as the Klan (or any other white supremacist group) mean you believe what they do?  Perhaps.  At worst it means you and the Klan are simpatico.  At best it means some of your beliefs, your motivations, your attitudes and the Klan’s overlap.  If this doesn’t give you pause and lead to some serious soul-searching, it should.  From an outside perspective, if you support the same person the Klan does, I know your views overlap.  I just don’t know how much.  Telling me you aren’t a racist/bigot when you and the Klan’s views overlap is not very reassuring.  Am I supposed to believe the Klan’s “economic anxieties” are rooted in rational arguments and data and your overlap with them on this issue is somehow separate from their racist views?  I can’t because it isn’t. Their “economic fears” are rooted in, steeped in racist attitudes and beliefs.  Their economic plight isn’t because they are mostly undereducated white men but because blacks/immigrants have taken their jobs and because the government is spending their hard-earned, white tax dollars on minorities.  Supporting the same person as the Klan might not mean you support the Klan but it sure as hell means you aren’t standing up against them.  At the very least you are giving them your tacit approval.  

Don’t try and “both sides” this with me either.  There are no examples you can give where hate-filled, fear-mongering, racist, bigoted groups on the left exist to any level as those on the right nor have progressives stood in support of candidates they do.  

“I voted for Donald Trump because of his economic policies, not because of his views towards Mexicans, women, Muslims, immigrants…”  This would be a good argument if his views towards these groups were not inherently linked to his economic policies.  You can’t campaign on a nationalist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant platform blaming others for the economic plight of white working class America and neatly and cleanly separate the economic parts from the racist/bigot parts.  It cannot be done.  When you buy the one, you buy the other and no amount of telling me, “But I don’t agree with his views towards the groups he’s denigrated,” somehow magically makes the inherent link disappear.  All this tells me is you either don’t see the link or you are willing to overlook it.  I’m not a big fan of ignorance, especially with regards to racism/bigotry and I’m even less of a fan of people who can look it right in the face and say, “Meh.”  If you want to have a discussion about a specific policy, I will gladly have that discussion.  It the policy is tied to racism and bigotry, you cannot pretend it doesn’t exist or talk about the policy sans the racism and bigotry because then you are not dealing with reality.

What I’ve seen recently from my Trump supporting friends and family is more an effort trying to convince others they are not racists/bigots and very little time recognizing why some people might think they are and even less time worrying about and standing up against the words and actions of Trump, his surrogates, and other supporters.  Whether or not you personally are a racist/bigot on some level isn’t really worth my time to suss out.  Again, I can’t get into your mind and see what lies in its darker corners.  What I can do.  What I will do is look to see who stand up against racism and bigotry, who sits idly by, and who gives cover for it.  Actions are the only things by which I can judge whether or not you are a racist/bigot.  This doesn’t just go for Trump supporters, this goes to a lot of people I know on the left who opted out of the election for one ridiculous reason or another.  I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what your political affiliation, I don’t care what your religious affiliation if you don’t stand up against racism/bigotry, you are on the side of the racists/bigots.  I know this might sound harsh and too cut-and-dried a position to take but it has to be done.  The single greatest failure in American history was giving wiggle room and moral cover for the Confederacy after the Civil War.  Instead of eradicating the beliefs and attitudes behind slavery and sedition, America allowed the South to retain their culture and honor.  We allowed them to push the idea the War was about “states rights” not about racism.  We allowed them to cloak their racist/seditious views behind “cultural heritage.”  We allowed them to still display the flag that represented their racism and treason.  We let them pretend that Confederate soldiers were good, honorable, Christians.  The result of not having a cut-and-dried approach to these treasonous racists was seventy years of Jim Crow.  Because white Northern America didn’t want to hurt the feelings of white Southern America, millions of blacks suffered and died.  From an ethical point-of-view, I cannot think of a single action outside the Civil War itself that led to more pain and suffering caused by immoral beliefs than the failure of Reconstruction.  This is why there is no leeway when it comes to racism and bigotry.  This is why I hold people accountable not just for their actions but their inactions.  When you don’t stand up against racism/bigotry, you are lending support.

How does all this apply to the election of Donald Trump?  On the right, a lot of people willingly voted for or willfully ignored the racism and bigotry not only from his campaign speeches and policies but personal choices of who he would align himself with.  If Trump’s campaign speeches and policies were not enough of a red flag, his actions spoke louder than his words.  When it comes to anti-LGBT bigotry, it is hard to find a politician more so than Trump’s selection to be his VP, Mike Pence.  When it came time to get a new campaign manager, he could have selected any of a dozen, highly qualified, highly regarded individuals.  Instead, he chose the CEO of the most popular, anti-Semitic, conspiracy websites, Steve Bannon from Breitbart.  Once elected, Trump could have easily distanced himself from Bannon and his white nationalism.  Instead, he tapped him to be Chief Strategy Officer in his administration.  These are just some of the people who Trump has surrounded himself with.  You can talk about this specific policy or that specific policy all you want, but the people close to Trump are deeply bigoted and racist.  Then there’s the support of groups like Stormfront, the KKK, Alex Jones, and every single major white supremacist, white nationalist group out there.  They aren’t supporting him because of his tax plan. They are supporting him because of his racist/bigoted talk and promises.  No amount of linguistic or mental gymnastics can make it so you can disassociate Trump and all these.  

The real problem which is being intentionally ignored by some and denied by others is how all the racism, bigotry, and hate, all the blatantly white supremacists and anti-gay bigots around Trump have been and are being normalized.  Steve Bannon isn’t described as a white supremacist, he’s a “provocateur.”  Mike Pence isn’t described as an anti-gay bigot, he’s a “concerned Christian.”  This should be very concerning to everyone who claims to not be a racist or bigot. When you normalize these kinds of behaviors among those in power, this is how a little over 98.8% of Germans allow Nazism.  Racism and bigotry are problems.  Racism and bigotry in power are dangerous. I’m not equating Donald Trump and his supporters with Nazis so don’t Goodwin’s Law me.  I’m saying when racism and bigotry are normalized and have control of the political and legal systems, very bad things happen to very good people.  I’ve already seen many Republicans, the media, and even a lot of Democrats start the normalization process of racism and bigotry.  This scares the hell out of me and makes me very concerned for the groups who have been marginalized and demonized by Trump and his supporters.

A lot of my liberal friends tell me I need to not be so angry, so mean, so hateful.  I need to understand those I disagree with and “find some common ground” from which to work towards peace and understanding.  No, I don’t.  Sorry, I don’t Kumbaya when it comes to racism and bigotry.  No amount of online group therapy is going to get me to be okay with people not just willing to do physical, legal, and economic harm to others but do it will glee.  I cannot comprehend a situation where I’ll ever be okay with people mistreating others, period.  I will never be able to rationalize the powerful punching down on the powerless.  I’m not intellectually or morally constructed to do this.

I had a philosophy professor in grad school who had been hounded by Joseph McCarthy and the FBI because he was a vocal opponent to McCarthy’s witch hunts.  He was threatened by the FBI.  His wife was threatened.  His office was bugged and ransacked multiple times.  The FBI demanded the president of the university fire him (luckily, the president at the time had some cajones and said, “Absolutely not!”) I asked him one day why he did what he did and if he ever regrets it. He told me he never regretted a thing and the reason he felt compelled to speak out against McCarthy and his supporters was because of what he termed, “The Silence of the Professors.”  He told me in the 1930s, professors in Germany were held in very high esteem.  Their opinions had a very special place among the German people.  When Hitler started his rise to power, most of the professors in Germany were very worried about his rhetoric, his methods, and his policies but they didn’t speak out.  They kept silent.  After the War, a lot of these same professors publicly rued the fact they didn’t step up when they had the chance.  My professor told me he never forgot this and swore he would never be in the same position where he had to apologize for horrible things being done because, in part, he didn’t use his position and speak out against it.  It is a lesson I took to heart and told myself I would live up to to the best of my ability.  This is why I feel the need to speak out more now than ever before.  I’m watching racism and bigotry being normalized and put into power.  I’m watching a good chunk of the country really okay with this.  I’m watching another good chunk play along because they don’t want to come across as “mean” or “angry.”  The pox on both of them!.

If you are a Republican and you tell me you are not a racist or a bigot, then I’m going to expect you to stand up against members of your party and policies that are.  Being silent isn’t going to cut it.  So far, a lot of you have failed this basic test.  If you are a progressive, you have a lot to atone for.  When the groups you proudly say are members of your Big Tent, who are the ones who you claim to care about and defend needed you the most, you failed to stand up for them when they needed it the most.  We live in the most powerful, greatest economy in the world but when it comes to helping those who need it the most, protecting the defenseless, making sure everyone has equal opportunities, we as a country SUCK and suck royally.  This is both a moral and cultural failure.  We can either make it better or a whole lot worse.  Right now, the scales are heavily tipped to a whole lot worse.  It is going to take a concerted effort to move the scales back in favor of justice and equality.  I am going to do everything I can.  I will encourage and support anyone who wants to help.  I will not tolerate for a second anyone who chooses the other side or who remains silent.  If you tell me you aren’t a racist or a bigot, the time has come to put up or shut up.

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”-Edmund Burke

wtfzodiacsigns:

1. Taurus are willing to capture any opportunity they see and make the best of it.
2. No matter how hard others try, they can never be as sexy as Taurus.
3. Taurus have a way of knowing things before they happen.
4. Taurus hate being judged by people who know little about them.
5. If you betray Taurus once, you will lose their trust forever.
6. Taurus can instantly size up any situation.
7. Taurus are so far above most people that it takes a really worthy opponent to get under their skin.
8. Reason Taurus can be hard to handle : They can be prone to…

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