A too familiar Confederacy of hate

 

The lesson of January 6th is this: If you are committed to liberty and justice for ALL, there will never be rest. 

As long as there are forces that push back against equity and equality those principles are in peril. Period. Persuasion, education, forgiveness is all fine and dandy if that’s what makes you feel good about yourself. But the truth is that the enemies of freedom have persisted since the beginning of the republic. The republic itself was founded by men who were profoundly schizoid about liberty. Some of the time I don’t think they even considered that the “for all” they proclaimed was a pile of horseshit. That speaks to the nature of American exceptionalism; you know, we always mean so fucking well. And if we fall short of our better angels, well, we can hardly be blamed because we’re a beacon or a shining city on a hill or whatever self-flattering nonsense white men with money have convinced themselves of. 

There was a Civil War. I’ve heard it argue that it wasn’t about slavery. It was about state’s rights. Sure, the state’s right to allow slavery. The result of the Civil War was that the slaves were “freed.” If it were only so easy. Yes, there were sincerely motivated Caucasian men who intended that Reconstruction truly be about building a new America. Then-candidate Rutherford B. Hayes traded Reconstruction in for a few electoral votes from Southern states. Sorry, black folks; maybe things will work out. And as for our prodigal sons of the South? Well, welcome back, assholes, murderers, rapists, child abusers, and profiteers. Feels good, doesn’t it to use the right words to describe the ones who upheld slavery and Jim Crow. This is why we must call the Republicans of January 6th insurrectionists, seditionists, and murderers (their actions led to five deaths that were not otherwise going to happen that day). And not ‘protestors’ or, God help us, ‘patriots.’

When Jim Crow, seventy-five years of Slavery-lite, was challenged, new hope sprung in the hearts of African Americans and allies. The former slaveowners responded with segregation academies and voter suppression (poll tax, Mach II). It never ends. And we’re never going to convince a high percentage of these deluded, entitled racists to change their hearts. They’ve had four-hundred years. Like it or not there will forever be numbers, large numbers, of white people who are challenged by the other: the Blacks, the immigrants, women, the educated, the Jews (always, the Jews), the Muslims and - and – and - and their response to this Death house mirror internalized challenge is whatever the fuck they can get by with. So, since these people are going to believe hateful nonsense remorselessly, THEY WILL REQUIRE A BEATDOWN WHEN THEY ACT UP. Let them, sadly, harbor evil in their souls. But when they act upon that evil against the rights and freedoms of their fellow citizens they need to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Including the President of the United States. There is no peace without justice. There is no reconciliation without truth. 

And how about that President of the United States? It’s scary enough that 73,000,000 of my fellow Americans saw fit to vote for someone so transparently hollow and depraved as Donald Trump. Kids, I traded the future of the republic for a $300.00 tax cut!  Fiscal conservatives (which means people stingy and crabby about money) were content with Trump’s racism. It was gaudy, but maybe he’d tone it down. After all, they’ve been drinking 2% racism all their lives. Let’s just leave things as they are racism. Let them have their gangster rap as long as the slave patrols (er, police) pull them over if they get lost and drive down my street conservatives. Those church picnic asshole hypocrites account for the majority of the Trump constituency. 

Sure, there’s a substantial minority of folks who don’t have shit and can’t figure out who’s to blame. And they are easy marks for race-baiting and hatred. Do they ask themselves if anything of substance, anything that benefited their fucking lives happen on Trump’s watch? Yeah, don’t all speak at once, eh? As the man himself let slip when his first round of tax chopping was done, speaking to his rich “friends” – ‘I just made you a lot of money.’ So, he’s a Republican. Prosecuting the same class war as Reagan and the Bushes Two. Trickle, trickle, trickle. 

The insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th were not a bunch of Hatfield and McCoy hillbillies, though, friends. They’re Cleveland programmers, remodelers from Colorado, optometrists from Virginia, cops from Kansas – they have homes, insurance policies, families, golf club memberships, pricey dentistry, and a garage full of paratrooper crap. But they feel put upon. They rage when the Dreamer kid gets on the honor roll and their piece of shit kid doesn’t. They feel a loss of control when black shoppers walk on the same side of the street. You know these people. Honestly, and thankfully, most of them keep it to themselves. But their ‘vanguard’ doesn’t. Their vanguard is intent on insurrection. So, when stupid does as stupid is … CLAMPDOWN.

“Jews will not replace us!” So they chanted in Charlottesville. No shit, Adolf. Jews represent 2.2% of the population. You (i.e. an enormous subset of Trump voters) are, unfortunately, about 45% of us. Replace you? Replace you as what? Dickheads? Not a chance. That exemplifies the insanity of these insurrectionists; they imagine an enemy of vast power. But it’s them marching down the street with torches terrorizing people. Oh well, they kept Ace Hardware in business. 

I ramble. What I really mean to say is that unless you consider yourself someone striving to be an ALLY to Black Lives Matter, the Anti-Defamation League, the LGBTQ+ community, the First Nations of America, immigrants, you get the picture … Fuck Off. Your little world of privilege and presumption is something I want miles away from. I don’t have a lot of empathy for your absurd rage.

I re-watched I Am Not Your Negro last night. Again, I was amazed by the clarity and courage of James Baldwin. And saddened by the sheer applicability of everything he said, fifty years later. As I looked into the eyes of the hate-filled white faces taunting children for going to school in Little Rock, I couldn’t help but think what white privilege does to all of us. 

Hey, don’t cry for the white man. But what emptiness of the soul, what terrible, crazy fear that drives this hatred of the other. Where else but from animal shame for dehumanizing people. People believe lies and swallow poison. After the Second World War in Germany, there were millions of Germans who had become convinced of the rightness of Nazi barbarism. Kool-aid drinkers, embodying what Hannah Arendt dubbed “the banality of evil.” What Lou Reed sings of when he sings about the “goodly-hearted made lampshades and soap.” What an excruciating price we pay for believing lies. Not just lies. But evil lies. Evil, evil, evil. At my ripe old age, I refuse to be resigned to it. But damn if the insanity of hatred doesn’t beat your ass down. We CANNOT let the shit espoused by Donald Trump and amplified by the likes of Fox News, Josh Hawley, and Ted Cruz be seen as just another point of view, another political perspective. It’s lies. The lies are driven by torrents of hate. When these lies are acted upon terrible, terrifying things happen. Those lies need to be called out, condemned, and when those lies are acted upon justice needs to fall like a hammer on those who perpetrate crimes against humanity and the nation. 

So, ignorance enflamed by evil is eternal. If you want to fight it, there’s no rest. Because if we don’t it will overcome and engulf us. 

Have a nice day.

I HAD TO ADD THIS:

AOC SPEAKS