When fascism is in power, if you support fascism, you are a fascist.
If you do it because you're enthusiastic, you are a fascist.
If you do it because you're indifferent, you are a fascist.
If you do it because you're confused, you are a fascist.
If you support fascism and you love your kids, you are a fascist.
If you support it and you volunteer to help the needy, you are a fascist.
If you support it and you are friendly and jolly to strangers, you are a fascist.
Fascism doesn't care about anything but the support.
People telling me that calling people "fascist" is wrong because I'm condemning them without getting to know them miss the entire point.
I know them.
Many of them are lovely people.
That makes it worse. So much worse.
DO YOU NOT SEE THAT
It's not the crazy or the evil that empowers the fascism the most.
It's the normalcy. It's the niceness. It's the good.
The good masks the evil intent of empowered fascism. That's what they always wanted it for.
There are books about this, dammit. We all read them in school.
The quote isn't "The only thing necessary for evil to rise is for good people to not say 'fascist,' that emboldens them."
It's not "We mustn't take sides. Silence always helps the oppressed, not the oppressor."
It's not "...and I said nothing—which was the right thing to do."
No country ever committed atrocities without first making itself complacent in its own goodness, convinced that they were far too good to ever commit atrocities.
We have to stop this addiction to our own narrative of goodness. It's death.
Difficult truths from here.
It's not the truth that emboldens comfortable or confused nice people further into their complacent or ignorant support of atrocity.
It's silence.
It's our acquiescence.
It's our normalization.
It's our willingness to see things their way.
This IS history's lesson.
We, their loved ones, have a duty to tell them that they are lending their moral authority and basic decency to evil people who intend to squander it on atrocity.
If that makes them double-down on their support, that reveals their deeper intention.
Some ignorances are chosen.
People decide what to align themselves with in times like these, and then they make their choice, and then we see.
It's not nice, but it's true. And it's time to speak truths. No more with our addiction to our narratives of goodness. It's death.
Uncomfortable truths from here.
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One of the biggest problems facing our country is that how at least 70 million of us are either genuinely malicious people or else don't know the difference, at a basic grade-school level, between right and wrong.
I mean, this is true, but it's not an exonerating observation.
If they prevail, we've seen what happens. A lot of people get excluded and harmed. Not a danger for them if we prevail.
And: abusive people always accuse their victims of the thing they themselves do.
If we won completely, they'd get free health care, their kids get educations, they don't live in a pandemic, they aren't subjected to a travel ban, or police brutality, and on and on and on.
So: so what about what they say? People who are wrong believe wrong things. Abusers lie.
Unless this means creating a national health care plan that takes care of all sick people, unless it means true equality for all LGBTQ people, unless it means neighborhoods free of police brutality, unless it means restoration of voting rights, what does it mean?
Unless this means independent commissions to investigate the crimes of the prior administration, so the truth can be told about the harm done and reparation made to those damaged, what does it mean?
That is very very very good. I am beyond relieved. Hundreds of thousands of people will likely now live who would have died. We will have basic competence and a certain minimum level of human decency and minimum level respect for human life in the executive branch again.
For the next four years at least, we won't be held hostage to the whims of a corrupt and ignorant white supremacist fascist.
Those who voted for Biden must accept this challenge over the next 4 years:
Realize even if Trump disappears, the active eager intent that summoned him to bring exclusion, harm, pain, cruelty, and death to already vulnerable people is still very active, intentional, and eager.
I really hope Joe Biden realizes A) it's the people who did vote for him that gave him the election, not the people who very obviously are never ever going to vote for him, and B) both sets of people will see their lives improved by the things the former want and the latter hate.
The problem with this theory is it put these things in the wrong order. Every single problem that drives bigoted insecurity has a solution that the bigot atavistically fears because they'd rather have death than share that solution with the people they hate.
But even if true ...
... even if true, my point is we're not going to achieve these solutions by working with people who want the problems.
We have to do it without seeking their support or their permission. They want the death. They'll fight for it.