#hatred | #WhatTheyVotedFor
Click for subtle poison.
Congratulations, assholes.
I need my fellow Americans to understand something:
These are Republicans. Learn the goddamn lesson.
Nothing a conservative tells you should ever be trusted. Ask yourself a question: What is a fair sales job? If I point to the fuel efficiency, the new transmission, the interactive communications station with GPS and a wi-fi, maybe I can sell the average consumer a car without them asking about that
Consumer Reports assessment on braking. Then again, the review could have been worse.
Now, then: If the customer asks,we have a preset answer about the brakes:
Lie and say the other company's cars explode into flame when you apply the brakes.
And if you were caught doing that with the car someone just bought, they would complain.
If you just did that with their civil rights, a Republican will vote for you and blame Democrats for stealing civil rights.
When they told us they were worried about undocumented immigration delaying and interfering with legal immigration, they were lying.
This cruelty is precisely #WhatTheyVotedFor. Any Republican or self-identifying conservative pretending otherwise is lying to you. We've been through this over and over and over again for at least twenty-five years, and here we are, and quite clearly the destruction not only of "American values" but also the United States of America.
Do not allow the identifying conservatives and Republicans around you to squirm out of the question of when they decided to oppose the United States of America. Not one of them who takes offense and tells you they didn't or don't is representing truth.
For over a quarter century, now, my personal political sphere, the decisions I as a voter, citizen, and member of community am asked to make, has included a large and influential political movement, and its associated political party, hoping to make it legal to murder me. Pretty much anyone who supports this movement or its party organization announces themselves a mortal threat to me and many others. Here's the sick part: As a subject bloc, mine is about as well off as any group Republicans and conservatives would seek to inflict suffering upon.
That is to say, yes, they want to murder me and people like me, but, hey, my particular bloc is in good enough shape right now that we'll be participating in the defense of other target blocs.
And all those people who demanded others lighten up on conservatives and traditionalism, who bent over backwards and tied themselves in knots trying to hamstring the human endeavor according to some pathetic pretense of being fair, have precisely no credibility left in such matters. There are plenty who will say they knew all along that their conservative and Republican neighbors really were bloodthirsty antisocials, and some of them were right, and some were just following on, and some are just making up braggadocio for whatever reasons, and
nor did anybody actually mean what they said↱.
But one thing is clear: When the Southern Strategy meant a pretense of offense—(
"Why is everybody who disagrees with you a racist?")—it was as much of a lie as it sounded and read. The fallacy is clear; I cannot recall anyone ever saying such things to me while opposing the racism on the table. Still, though, the fallacy has effect; indeed, variations arise in other discourse about bigotry and supremacism, and altogether seem instrumental to the reactionary context of sympathetic narrative explaining why certain ranges of voters buried their own interests in order to vote for Donald Trump. This cruelty is what they want; it is what they voted for; it is, within its range, definitive of character insofar as any would attempt to justify themselves. They ran out of excuses for how this is an accident a long, long time ago. The hatred they show has become what it means to be an American conservative.
Congratulations, indeed.
Here's a tougher question, though: To a certain degree I'm just fine with saying what I've said in this post because I am confident about the history; what feels considerably less certain is at what point making the point is mere fishwalloping, because at some point, if we cannot convince these people to be ... what, what do we want to say about them here? ...
useful?
decent? ... we still need to find a way to move forward. It is absurd to me that the heart of traditional Americanism would, in the first place, and, moreover, should have such power as to even conceive to attempt, call the whole thing off.
That is to say, this is a very difficult time for these United States of America, but there is no way we surrender the Republic and actually validate the fact of the lie. Here's a fun fact: The one portion of the U.S. Constitution that is not actually binding and effective under law is the part that tells us what it is for.
But as we read through the
Preamble↱—
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
—it becomes clear that Republicans really haven't been in on this part of the social contract for a while, now. Conservatives, traditionally, have never been in on this part of the social contract, and no, not even when Democrats were the conservatives. Think back to Maryland. The Catholics wanted to be different from their Protestant persecutors, so they passed a religious tolerance law for Christians. Protestants plantationed a majority, struck the tolerance law, and began persecuting Catholics.
We recall Abigail Adams: "Remember the Ladies!"
Her husband's response↱—
As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our Struggle has loosened the bands of Government every where. That Children and Apprentices were disobedient―that schools and Colledges were grown turbulent―that Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their Masters.
But your Letter was the first Intimation that another Tribe more numerous and powerfull than all the rest were grown discontented.―This is rather too coarse a Compliment but you are so saucy, I wont blot it out.
Depend upon it, We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems. Altho they are in full Force, you know they are little more than Theory. We dare not exert our Power in its full Latitude. We are obliged to go fair, and softly, and in Practice you know We are the subjects. We have only the Name of Masters, and rather than give up this, which would compleatly subject Us to the Despotism of the Peticoat, I hope General Washington, and all our brave Heroes would fight. I am sure every good Politician would plot, as long as he would against Despotism, Empire, Monarchy, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, or Ochlocracy.―A fine Story indeed. I begin to think the Ministry as deep as they are wicked. After stirring up Tories, Landjobbers, Trimmers, Bigots, Canadians, Indians, Negroes, Hanoverians, Hessians, Russians, Irish Roman Catholicks, Scotch Renegadoes, at last they have stimulated the to demand new Priviledges and threaten to rebell.
—for some reason, is not nearly so famous.
Okay, that's not fair; we need not wonder why.
Indeed, I should clarify: That traditionalism should have such power as to even conceive to attempt calling the whole thing off is not
surprising, merely absurd. We are, after all, Americans. Quite often we point out that the dumbing down of society bears a bitter harvest, but at the same time we might recall the prospect of enlightement always did violate the delicate sensibilities of traditionalistic sleights of rhetoric.
It precedes the Republic. The
trial of Anne Hutchinson↱ reminds this subtle poison has been with us since before the whole time. It is not subtle, anymore; all my life, the one thing we were supposed to not accept was happening is what is happening right now, and it can't be happening right now if it wasn't true the whole time. This is not
ex nihilo.
At some point, the obvious logical thing to do is believe what we're seeing. Meanwhile, regardless of what you or I might think of their psychomoral priorities, pretty much anyone wearies of perpetual fishwalloping.
____________________
Notes:
Adams, John. "John Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 April 1776". Adams Family Correspondence, eds. L. H. Butterfield et al. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963. HERB.ASHP.cuny.edu. 17 October 2017. http://bit.ly/2gN3rt4
Perdurabo, Fr. "Onion Peelings". The Book of Lies. 1913. BibliotecaPleyades.net. 17 October 2017. http://bit.ly/2pWgPxe
Trial and Interrogation of Anne Hutchinson . 1637. Swarthmore.edu. 17 October 2017. http://bit.ly/2kXa6RJ
Constitution of United States of America. 1992. Law.Cornell.edu. 17 October 2017. http://bit.ly/2ik6HzQ