Okay, I took my timeout. And I apologize for the tone and messaging of my offending post. Maybe A Coordinator often is a wiser man than I, and his suggestion that I should have used the opening phrase of “imagine” before describing the scene that I did would have been the better route. And he’s right. And, I shouldn’t bite so hard on a troll’s trollgame. My bad. And apologies to the mods for making their Sunday a pain in the ass. I was a tad raw. Because, as noted by a few folks (appreciate the thinking, by the way), here’s how I’m processing last week:
1) Since the beginning, I’ve said that the most dangerous thing about Trump is his rhetoric of demonization of the other. By virtue of being a major party candidate, and now president of the US, he normalizes such rhetoric. Here, from today’s front-page story from the AP:
2) We've seen it coming. Many of us have pointed out the obvious: this WILL result in bloodshed. In one week, we have a man sending bombs to people associated with opposition to the regime, including the press, we have a man trying to attack a black church (then killing two black people at a secondary target), and then a man killing jews -- in a synagogue, during a holy rite -- for the bonus offense of being kind to brown refugees. This is EXACTLY what we've seen coming. And as noted above, there's more to come.
3) And the targets will be those who are demonized as "the other." Brown folks, who are rapists and murderers and MS-13, and jews, and black people, etc. etc.
4) I have the wrong last name in this country right now. My childhood best friend (still a dear friend) is Honduran. Some of our dearest friends are jewish. Most of the people I know and love are in the crosshairs right now.
Will today be the day that someone decides to attack the Catholic Church in the Valley, where some of my family members attend, because that congregation provides humanitarian aid to refugees? Maybe today will be the day that someone decides to attack the JCC, and kill my friend the Hebrew teacher. Shit, maybe one of the less creative types will just shoot up the Fiesta Mart on I-35 when my kids and I are shopping.
Trump, Lou Dobbs, Tucker Carlson, etc. etc. are given pass after pass for pouring gas on the fire. They are following the fascism playbook perfectly, and as always, the "other" ends up being the villain in the story they weave. And who else is the villain? The press -- that is, the people who call them out on the simple truth of their tactics. Today, I mean, RIGHT NOW, mouthpieces of the admin are disclaiming all responsibility, and INSTEAD are blaming "late night comedians" and the media. And tens of millions of my fellow Americans agree with them.
Because they aren't in the crosshairs. They don't have the wrong last name. They aren't jewish. So it's not their problem.
I shouldn't have wished death on anyone -- indeed, that's kind of the freaking OPPOSITE of the point I've been trying to make for two years now; we are engaging in rhetoric of hatred and death, and that will yield exactly what it promises.. But I truly can't put into words how frustrated I am. How appalled I am that we had 11 bodies, bleeding out on a synagogue floor, family members holding them as they breathed their last.....and nothing will change. This administration will, as promised, NOT "tone it down," but rather, will "tone it up." That is a murderous promise. And millions of my fellow Americans grin when they hear it, and cheer.
Oh, and the irony is not lost on me. I'm a nobody on a message board. When I say something inflammatory, many of the SAME FOLKS who support the President pouring gas on the fire, day after day, are APPALLED, and say that's unacceptable conduct. Yet the President -- literally the most influential man in the world -- incites violence and puts targets on people time, after time, after time.....and crickets. How about this -- how about we hold the President to the appropriate standard? Not "be disappointed," but rather say what you said about my post -- it's unacceptable. Period.
Stop rewarding it. Please. Stop.
I don't care if we disagree on policy -- for example, on immigration, there's a HUGE spectrum of policy ideas, which can and SHOULD be discussed. We can do so without painting brown people as murderous villains; we've done so in the past.
The path we're on is a path of death. And as I've been shouting from the highest mountain for a couple of years now, that's not hyperbole:
The body count is only going to go up. You're either part of the problem, or you're part of the solution -- there's no sitting on the sidelines on this one.
And to the extent that I communicated in a way that made me part of the problem, that's on me. I'll try to do better. And that's my last post on this thread, and this particular topic. But I'll be around to post on the next one. Which we all know there will be.