Thread by @monaeltahawy

I wrote this in Sept and it applies today:

I moved to the U.S. in 2000. I’ve learned that many white Americans have a delusional amount of confidence in their government & its institutions feministgiant.substack.com/p/if-amy-coney…

They are childishly naive in believing that institutions will save them from state power, which they think will work for rather than ever hurt them. 

That stubborn belief in U.S. exceptionalism undergirds the refusal to see the fascism that #Trump brought.

Black, Indigenuous, and people of colour have no such delusions. They do not expect institutions to protect them because they are so often hurt by those institutions.

No matter how often those of us from authoritarian countries who know to be suspicious of state power, and those of us who’ve fought fascism -- be it via military rule/rule of religious fundamentalists -- warned, white Americans arrogantly shook their head it couldn’t happen here

2 days after election I wrote:

My concern if Biden wins: white liberals who spent the Trump era crying  “This isn’t my America” (sidenote: WHAT FUCKING AMERICA HAVE YOU BEEN LIVING IN?) will now celebrate “My America is back!” and go on amnesia overdrive feministgiant.substack.com/p/essay-femini…

As well as celebrating “This is my America again,” his white liberal supporters will take this as a chance to again extol nonsensical & toxic fuckery of “civility” & “unity,” which like toxic positivity, demands we delude ourselves into a lockstep that benefits white liberals.

The combination of naïveté and over confidence and insistence on”civility” and “unity” is an authoritarian and fascist’s dream come true.