They were always here.
I escaped from the south to the coasts, but I always tried to warn people how vile the worst of us were.
Nobody coukd believe it, but remember, Hitler wrote about the south as the model for Germany in mein kampf, and the nazis copied the Nuremberg Laws from Jim crow almost verbatim.
They also took inspiration from the Catholic Church and the inquisition. The Church did ethnic cleansing long before the Nazis.
The also took inspiration from the Catholic Church
Not just inspiration but also direct material support.
Nazi legal theorists saw the U.S. as a “pioneer” in racist legislation.
James Q. Whitman, in his book “Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law”,
Wherever there is a state, there is fascism.
I’ve lived in much of the country, and I’m not white.
There is racism everywhere.
But the South is like going from Lebanon to the deepest reaches of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
They’re monsters, and proud of it.
The hell of living as such a shitty person is far worse than anything anybody could do to her.
Without a doubt this is the worst part. It was an immediate and irreversible swing from being an optimist who believes in the good of people to the complete opposite. I now believe humanity is fundamentally flawed and will destroy itself.
Watched too much Star Trek as a kid I guess.
I used to think similarly. The outright hatred, apathy, hostility… its sickening.
But I stand by Mr. Rogers’ message. Look for the helpers.
Humanity has always grappled with its angels and demons. No fictional evil could ever compare to the cruelty and apathy of real humans being real shit. But despite all that, humans keep trying, and have always kept trying.
This isn’t the worst it’s ever been. This isn’t even the worst it’s been here. This isn’t even the worst it’s been, here, in living memory.
If you know someone over the age of 60, you know someone older than the civil rights act.
Even in a life where discrimination wasn’t possible so much as it was fundamental in society, John Lewis and MLK Jr. still had faith in humanity. They still believed in its potential. They still had faith in the face of all of that hatred and ignorance. Faith that a better nation and a better future could be forged in their lifetimes.
And you know what? They were right.
Even today, with all of these threats to return to a time when America was “great”… even now, this is still a better nation than the America of 1963. That is undeniable truth, and it is in large part thanks to heroes like them.
If they could believe in the potential of humanity, I think it’s arrogant of us to disagree.
I really do appreciate the words and the sentiment. I would normally agree but right now my faith is still shattered. I think there are good and amazing people, who have done magical and wonderful things. I just think that small and petty tyrants are more common and more indicative of humanity as a whole. That the righteous have to look up from underneath the bootheel of those who deserve to be crushed under one themselves. Instead, those type get to run the show, and obviously always have.
This weekend has been bad mentally. I hope I can find some optimism again. I’m just so tired of expecting the worst and being proven right.
“John Lewis and MLK Jr. still had faith in humanity”
Those guys were under the boot heel, and had no direction but up. I’d be more optimistic for the future of humanity if they were white dudes with everything to lose, agitating for an oppressed minority.
That’s the entire point. They were under the boot heel, but still looked up.
To suggest that a bunch of agitated white people would be more inspiring than those historical heroes is… it’s beyond words. It really is.
Please reconsider… everything.
I once proudly said “when the internet is cheap and easy, everyone will have full access to all information and it will be effortlessly easy for people to stop believing falsehoods and it’ll start a swing towards reason!”
I just want to hug teenage me.
To tie star trek into an admittedly foolish level of hope: I believe there was a catastrophic war and social failing that, eventually, led to their pseudo-utopic future… right?
It didn’t take Trump to make this real for me.
I remember how our country treated Muslims after 9/11. I remember how we treated people with AIDS and HIV when I was little. Right now I’m watching Nazi salutes on national TV and no one’s getting punched even though the room is packed with the supposed opposition, and the people who consider themselves progressive are unironically enjoying people’s families inability to afford food staples.
Progressives are becoming more radical as a response to right wing extremism.
I was raised republican and was completely caught up in their propaganda. During that time I would’ve let you starve to death while holding food if I was told you were part of the ‘bad’ group. You need to treat Republicans as the dangerous entity they are, don’t bother being empathetic, they won’t ever reciprocate.
don’t bother being empathetic, they won’t ever reciprocate.
If your statement is true, then you are evidence that we need to at least leave the door open to allow people who come to their senses a path to redemption.
You’re not wrong but they have to be the ones to take the first step. If they don’t want to we can’t force them and we don’t have time for that nonsense anymore. There should be Redemption paths but if someone’s just awful that’s their problem and we have to defeat them
The ‘progressives’ who voted Democrat remind me of abusers who punched their SO in the face and then got angry that they broke their hand.
For four years the vast majority of voters got poorer. Then, they ran Biden knowing his brain wasn’t working and when he embarrassed them, they crowned a weak candidate who looked at all of these poorer people and said she’d change absolutely nothing. Even worse, she told them to be joyful about it. Just absolute political stupidity.
Trump did not broaden his coalition on extremism. He broadened it on Democrats’ political priority to give more money to the rich at the expense of the poor. It’s just stupid politically to be seen rooting for people’s misery, because those votes are ripe for the picking thanks to Trump’s unilateral wrecking of the economy.
The message shouldn’t be: “Your vote was stupid and we hate you.” It should be: “Hey, there’s an election next year, and if you vote for us we’ll fucking stop this shit.” (Granted, that’s hard to believe watching Schumer and co do nothing, but that’s still the message they need to run with.
I grew up in these toxic conservative cultures. It became very clear to me at a young age that there was something deeply wrong with them. I’ve heard exactly what they talk about when they only think that the people in their fucked up tribes are listening.
These aren’t potential allies to reach out to. They are enemies to overcome.
Yeah, the aftermath of 9/11 was shocking to me as well and, in many cases, deplorable. The use of the terms “sand n-word” and things like “rag-head” were flying around all over (at least in my part of Ohio), Sikhs and others were getting targeted by racists, and the whole thing was such a surreal time.
The small town I grew up in did have a fair amount of anti-semitism (uncool things were referred to by some as “that’s Jewish”) and I’m sure I heard slurs around that as well. I didn’t expect the big, farther-left cities to descend into that.
“Basket of Deplorables” – as I’m tired of repeating, Hilary was right.
She was. She was John the Baptist but wanted to be Jesus. Opinion on her was fully established so even if she was 45% positive you could never move the dial on the 6% you needed to push her over the top.
She would have been an outstanding attack dog for a fresh candidate if she could have put her ego aside and accept that it wouldn’t be her.
She was trying to follow eight years of Obama that had primed an electorate for a radical change candidate. She was not going to be that and in fact personified that her Party would unfortunately not be the one to change.
She was also a terrible candidate in the same way Kamala was, which is something people still don’t accept. They both had terrible PR and were establishment pro-corporate candidates. Those two features guaranteed they wouldn’t extend past their base. At the time Bernie was offering a populist agenda, which is what Trump used to win both times. The DNC still to this day cannot shed corporate influence enough to do what’s necessary to win.
This is it. I never got it until I read this. Obama was a work horse president. He actually overcame the conservative ratchet system and turned the dial towards liberal. He made the ACA and it was overall decent, even Conservatives liked it. They hate Obamacare if you mention it and want it destroyed, but will not want anything to happen to the ACA.
Hillary just didn’t bring this vibe. I believe she was just a republican in democrat skin that was being put forward. Kamala gave me that same vibe.
We need to hear some batshit crazy stuff. The next democratic president needs break rules using executive orders just like Trump did. Abolish Citizens United and then arrest any judge that dares rule against the order, all the way up to the SCOTUS … it seems the president has this authority now.
Nobody else seems to remember the Hillary is 44 movement. It was an early version of foreign mischief and tried to do to the left what the Tea Party did to the right.
When I said she was John the Baptist I was actually thinking of her first run at president when she and John McCain were doing vodka shots in Moscow laughing about how one of them was going to be president.
She could have been a herald for a rejuvenation of the Democrats with a younger face. Instead she fought it all the way down.
She said she’d have a map room to fight climate change. She declared fucking war on climate change. You know that big existential issue that all the leftists say they care about and would surely turn out for, right?
No, she wasn’t.
If they hadn’t rigged the primary for her, we never would have had a Trump.
Or in 2020 when they rigged the primary for Joe Biden. Or in 2024 when they rigged the “primary” for Joe Biden (yes, a primary did happen, and I voted for Williamson).
