Thread by @JuliusGoat

The way they’re all calling for civility and attacking ostracism, you might almost get the impression that civility helps them and ostracism harms them, weird.

Asking people to make peace with an abuser while the abuse is ongoing is itself abuse.

Watching people who have spent their careers murdering civility in politics suddenly bemoaning the lack of civility in politics, in service of crushing a Pennsylvania small business that insulted one of them, is quite a treat.

Like watching wasps swarm.

Lots of people with Stockholm Syndrome shaming lots of people without it for not having it.

Whatever we do we mustn’t anger dad.

Crazy idea but I think the way you win is by fighting for what you believe in without worrying about what those who believe the opposite think about it.

Before you decide to seek unity, you might consider what is you’re being asked to unify around.

Before you decide to be civil, you might consider the intentions you’ve decided to treat civilly.

And the people to whom unity hasn’t been offered, for whom civility is unavailable.

There have been in the past very unified countries that we no longer celebrate for their unity of purpose.

Politeness was not their problem.

Anyone who would turn to Republicans and Trump over an instance of incivility was never motivated by civility. This is entirely obvious, and you should mistrust the motives of anyone suggesting otherwise.

And framing Maxine Waters or the red hen against the lens of civility or politeness is an act of deliberate forgetting the daily toxic incident of powerful people and the enthusiasm of their followers over the course of many years.

What people centering civility right now are saying is this:

“We find the abuse that Trump represents less threatening to our own privileged positions than we find people taking a firm stand for justice, and we’re looking for an excuse for supporting what we know is wrong.”

“Yelling at racists is no way to convince them. Incivility is destroying this country” is in this context an argument designed to help the abuser.

They aren’t telling you that they’re worried “swing voters” will turn to Trump.

They’re telling you that *they* will, rather than stand for what they know is right.

They always start the same way: “I know you are mad about trump. I’m mad too.” Words to that effect. It’s followed by 20 reasons to not act mad.

They know it’s wrong. They want credit for opposing it. Just so long as they don’t actually have to, you know, oppose it.

They treat the maxim “all that is required for the rise of evil is for good men do nothing” as a prescriptive maxim.

Don’t listen to them. Stand for what’s right. Be courageous.

The scariest part of any horror movie is when you realize your friends are in on it too.

When people in danger see that you won’t fight for them, despair sets in.

fight or lose

Stand for what’s right.

Stand for what you believe in.

Act like you believe something that matters.

Show some courage.

They’re under investigation. Separating children from parents, putting them in cages. Trying to strip citizenship and deport naturalized citizens. Isolating us in the world. Dismantling elections. Lying. Lying. Lying. Lying. Lying.

We aren’t having a disagreement here.

The point isn’t that civility is bad.

The point is that centering civility is bad. When you make it the most important thing, then you make it a tool of abuse.

We are a people who have made heroes of figures from our past who refused to remain polite in the face of evil, even as we shame those who would stand in their place today.

The chips are down now, and people are showing where they’ve always stood.

Harriet Tubman was a lawbreaker and a threat to polite society.l

Rosa Parks was a lawbreaker and a threat to polite society

Martin Luther King Jr. was a lawbreaker and a threat to polite society

Southern slaveowners were law-abiding gentleman renowned for their courtly manners

They were lawbreakers, and threats, and the abolitionist and civil rights marchers who supported them were seen as on civil disruptors of the peace, and were blamed for the divide in the country.

And they did create a divide. But the divide was necessary and good.

We already knew which side of that good and necessary divide Donald Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders would have fallen upon. That’s why we wouldn’t want to serve their atrocious asses in the restaurants.

Now we also know which side Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi would’ve fallen.

Just because the truth hurts doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Stand for something or GTFO. There’s somebody out there who will stand for something, and you’re in their seat.