Thread by @JuliusGoat

Last night's fascist rally, one in a string of them, designed to menace people of good heart, puts me in mind of this piece I wrote just after the election.

"You wake up and the sky is gone. At times that’s how it seems." armoxon.com/2017/01/sky.ht…

This post contains perhaps the most widely-shared sentences I've written, which are these:

Here's what came next:

"What am I saying here? Am I saying we are Nazis? The answer, I suppose, has to be 'no.' Nazis are Nazis. We are Americans. But what that will mean in decades to come—'American'—has been thrown into hazard."

"What we seem to now be trying to redefine 'American' to mean seems like a rough beast, and omnivorous.

"Democracy reveals us by our choices and our actions, not our intentions. We are what we are.

"And Donald Trump will be president."

My conclusion was, and is, this:

Surviving this is going to require a fight, and that we're not going to get leaders who will fight unless we fight ourselves.

Those who support today's atrocities can argue whether they've earned the name of the monsters of the past—a pointless argument; monsters name themselves.

Soon today’s monsters will be the monsters of the past.

Whatever name they call themselves now—that’s what it will mean.

Here's the thing: You don't get to opt out.

Silence is not a neutral choice, nor indifference, nor ignorance.

Neutrality is not a neutral choice.

I'll end with these words from Elie Wiesel, who knew yesterday's monsters when they were today's monsters.

And with my poor words, which represent the only answer I have yet devised to the question "what is your solution?"