Thread by @nicholasmasyk

Yes, let's continue to infantilize, downplay and mitigate the virulent, violent racism, anti-semitism and bigotry of these domestic terrorists.
They're just a bunch of good folks, misled by The Evildoers.

https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/1347241554545577984

https://twitter.com/DavidWalker1201/status/1347279100902215680?s=20

This feeds into another lie, that leftists and liberals (and everyone, really) have to be really, really, really nice to these white people, and other white people who are maybe on the fence about moral imperatives, because we'll "push them into the arms of the enemy."

The idea is that these people literally cannot tell right from wrong and must be led on the nose to the correct answer by benevolent liberals/centrists, or else evil right-wingers will corrupt their blank-slate souls.
And if we're mean to them, THEY WIN.

Now aside from the obvious paternalism, elitism and arrogance of this idea, it treats bigotry, racism & anti-semitism as being symptoms of right-wing politicians. Remove those politicians, and the symptoms magically disappear. This is a wonderful thought if you're a six-year-old.

These are the thoughts of the ultra-privileged, for whom the ideal political state is a neutral one between two "extremes" - those extremes being, of course, "stop fascists from murdering people" and "murder everyone who isn't us."

Trump et al is the symptom, not the disease. America - and Canada, for that matter - are colonial settler states founded on Indigenous genocide and Black slavery. They are founded on the ideals of white supremacy. It's in our foundational texts and documents.

So this idea that if you just remove whatever politician is currently enacting whatever new horror the day has brought, everything will be fine and dandy, completely ignores that this is the way the system is supposed to work and has been for 400+ years.

Of COURSE the DC police did nothing while domestic terrorists ran rampant through capitol hill; police as an institution exists to uphold the very systems of power that enfranchise those domestic terrorists to acts of violent insurrection.

Police as an institution has never been about protecting The People and has always been about protecting The State. And yesterday The State explicitly, in no uncertain terms, told The People to storm the hill. And they did.

The national conversation about yesterday's coup attempts is already mired in the rhetoric of "unity" and "togetherness." Nobody of any significance will face consequences.

And it will happen again because when white militias storm government buildings it's a "protest" and when Black people beg the police to stop murdering us it's a "riot."