I’m sure some slave owners were civil to their human chattel.
Civility with reparations -- that is, measures to repair the damage from discriminations in the past such as the FHA needing to commit to redlining in order to get the support of southern politicians to get it passed similarly Social Security.
Fuck civility -- actual civility as opposed to submitting to the wants of some sort of psycho -- without anything more such as before, let’s say getting Porky to behave, to get rid of stand your place laws (or narrow them, and so and so forth is BS. Indeed, civility in this context is the equivalent of a serial abuser claiming that weren’t deliberately abusive.
In case you missed it, the singer Billy Bragg got involved in a very astute way! He noted that if you want to be a really good songwriter in the protest tradition, you can't both-sides it between rich guys and impoverished people. Then he went so far as to rewrite the OA song -- he made it miiiiiles better, and I hope OA understands and learns from it.
The myth of the "happy, dancing slave" is the "Gone With The Wind" version; the reality was "Roots": rape your slave, impregnate her, then sell her (and your) child to the highest bidder.
It was indeed a great essay, especially his delineation of the terms humanist and supremacist.
Really what it boils down to is wanting us to tell them they're OK, that what they think and believe and do are all OK. Criticism, overt or implied, may nudge them toward self-reflection and that's the last thing they want.
A good analogy is the controlling, violent spouse dynamic. A couple come out of a restaurant and discover a 15 year old kid trying to break into their car. The husband beats the shit out of the kid. After doing so, he looks at his wife's horrified face, becomes annoyed, and demands "what the hell is the matter with YOU?" It's the same dynamic with supremacists. You'd better tell me I'm OK, RIGHT NOW, or there will be trouble.
He consulted most of Human Nightmare-from-which-I-am-trying-to-awake, which told him that he'd a right to do what he'd done and she had no such corresponding right.
Wm Gibson wrote that The Future were already here, just unevenly distributed, but the same might also be said of the Dark Ages.
They were never about Law, except maybe as an excuse when it just happened to be on their side. Because the law is written down, it applies to everyone (or at least it’s still not acceptable to say it shouldn’t), and if you think it should be changed the process is spelled out clearly. But Order--conservatives are WAY into Order. Because they’re on top of the order, none of the above applies.
I remember being 10 when Nixon resigned and thinking "If they'd just lied their way through it like I lie when my mom asks whether everything went OK at school today, they'd have gotten through it." Many Republicans took the same lesson, starting with Reagan and Cheney, of course.
They're into fascist "Law", which involves vaguely written legislation open to interpretation and individuals willing to interpret it case-by-case. A chilling effect on society, opportunities for corruption, and a convenient excuse to crack skulls if need be. W's all around, really.
That's exactly what's happening in Florida, where every absurdity of their hate laws is responded to with a veiled "Well, if anything stupid comes up we won't go that far, but we'll make those decision ourselves outside of public view."
Or, as the saying goes, the rules are vague but strictly enforced--another echo of an abusive household.
They long for a Law which knows to whom it's supposed to apply….
EDIT: Who was it who had that great statement about the Law being intended to bind some and loose others?, the one that I've linked in the past to my hobby-horse, Vulgar* Calvinism.
Frank Wilhoit: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.“ Is that the one?
I'm not a The Who fan, and especially not of their later stuff, but I've a soft spot (on my skull?) for 'When I say "I love you." say "You better.".'.
—and wasn't there a comedian who said that Americans want to be liked more than other nations do, and react much more violently if we're not? EDIT: I think it was Wm Burroughs.
Hell, it's like the husband sees a 15-year-old black kid walking by his car and beating the shit out of him. Let's not pretend they even need to see a crime before flying off the handle.
As I commented on the original column, I'm often accused, as an abortion rights activist, of not being civil to my opposition. I'm not. And I'm proud of it. People like that don't deserve civility.
Also, my best friend since kindergarten, more than 50 years, is a Trumper. We don't talk about politics. And yet we're still friends. It's almost like adults who care about each other can put that shit aside when necessary.
But some dude on a sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood who thinks he controls women's bodies because sky daddy says he does? Fuck him. Well, no, let me say it a different way, since the odds are greater that I'd fellate the QAnon Shaman. 😉😘
I live down the street from a hospital/medical complex that houses the workplaces of professionals who offer health services to women which are none of my business. Most Saturdays there is a group of (mainly old white male) Christian warriors marching out front carrying gruesome signs. Some of my neighbors will tell them off in colorful language, but I think they like that. Any attention is good attention, and it proves the Lord's work isn't easy. I just grey rock them -- don't look their way, don't respond to greetings, get past them as quickly as possible. But if one of them reaches out to pet my dogs, well then I tell them to get their creepy fucking hands away from my sweet pets. But I'm unfriendly like that.
I doubt if I could do that with a friend who is a Trumper. Politics as Brecht said somewhere is simply life. Being a Trumper means they want to destroy so many rights of so many people that it becomes beyond the pale and there is no possible way.
On the other hand I haven't completely cut all ties with my brothers, but we do not interact, now that our parents are dead, more than once a year or so. Or to smile when the one brother posts pictures of his St. Bernards I guess.
100%. every interaction in life is political by its very nature. I no longer have friends who are trumpers or even republican. my attitude toward my trump brothers is much the same. I cannot hate them, but I surely hate what they espouse. there is a bare chance of reconciliation, but they have much penance to do before that can occur. and as they dig in even further, the chance of that diminishes exponentially.
One of the points that A.R. Moxon makes in the original post is that all of us (at least all of us white folks) probably already have friends and family members on the Trump Train, and they're already enough of a pain in the ass to deal with, you seriously expect us to seek out NEW relationships like that?
Still debating about how if not whether to explain to Dad that President Biden is not my "friend", and still unsure HOW. How do you explain green to someone who's been blind all their life?
But Berthold Brecht was an icky commie, so what does his opinion matter? Never mind Orwell basically said there's no such thing as apolitical media, and the creeps just LURVE him because something something critical of Soviets.
Same. It always bugged me that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia were friends, and went to the opera together. Or that James Carville and Mary Matalin were (and I guess still are) married. It suggests a cheapening or devaluation of the values I thought we shared, or that they "really didn't mean it," when I did really mean it. I can see how that reaction can be called juvenile or immature. But this is Moxon's point: Politics is not just a group of abstract opinions, like what the Fed should or shouldn't do. It's about who controls the machinery of power, and therefore about who suffers, who is exploited, who lives and who dies.
As they say in Jamaica, dog run for him character, pig run for him life. Thinking of politics as a civilized pastime means you have to overlook the real life pain of the people getting hurt by budget cuts.
Well, *spoiler alert* at the conclusion of the novel, an upstanding conservative member of the so-called “white trash” community (“white-trash” being, clearly, a racial epithet aimed at an out-class of poverty suffering white peoples) is, in fact, killed by the coward, and likely liberal disabled rights activist, Boo Radley, merely for the act of defending the honor of his family by terrorizing and threatening small children with murder.
Part of the conservative mind trick is to cast "politics" as something alien, and separate: the Orange Excrescence isn't a "politician" but a businessman...Mitch grinning and sayin' "it's just politics" to shiv Obama's appointees.
THe Civil War was politics: Jim Crow and the KKK were politics as was it's Confederate memorialization and the rise of "Southern Heritage" hisory: Anita Bryant's anti gay crusade was politics: the anti Trans moral panic is politics, most foul.
I remember Gore Vidal goggling at a Catholic Monsignor on the Crossfire gabefest claiming that opposition to gay and women's rights wasn't politics: "Well, then why are you trying to pass legislation.??"
If they don't think you are fully human (and by extension Un American) they thinks it's ok to do whatever:
and that's abuse and quietly destroy and kill the offending. After all, they don't count.
Ramaswamy has described capitalism as a "sanctuary" where people of all different political beliefs can come together to consume and produce. And sure, I get it, McDonalds doesn't check your politics before they sell you a Quarter-Pounder, but dude, seriously? The oil industry is a "sanctuary" from politics? Or the chemical industry or the telecom industry or... ? Because capitalists would never dirty their hands by stooping to engage in POLITICS, it's beneath them.
Well, when you're apparently convinced "government" isn't so much by, for, and of the people, and is instead a giant alien mind-control brain that landed on Earth in 1967, I suppose it's natural to assume "politics" is entirely a quality of said brain and therefore alien and EVIL.
I was in Florida this past weekend. There's an awful lot of White people who are intensely angry that they can't say the n-word in public without being looked at as racist troglodytes. It is sooooo unfair that Black people can call each other the n-word, but White people can't call Black people that word. So unfair!
Many--perhaps most--of these shitheads think that the prohibition on using that word is actually written into law, and thus is their constitutional right to free speech abridged. And it was obviously liberals and democrats who wrote that [nonexistent] law. Thus, race traitors.
No, you can't be my friend and think this way. In fact, we can't even be on friendly terms. As for civility, well, first you have to demonstrate that you can treat other people like they're also humans. Then we can talk about civility.
I am in rural SW Ohio. I have been surrounded by these people my whole life. I've actively hated white evangelicals since about the seventh grade. I've got in-laws I haven't spoken to in 40 years. I'm not shy about it either. They start in I let them know right away I don't want anything to do with that happy horseshit. I'm not rude- neither am I uncertain.
I can't recall the last time somebody tried to convince me otherwise .
Yeah, I've ghosted a long-time friend over 2016 and I struggle over it. She's a Trumper-by-default - voted for Stein because Hillary is a crook. But good times in the past don't seem to count so much weighed against the willful disregard of all logic and political reality.
Decades ago I used to exchange fluids with a woman who was a Berniac during the 2016 primary cycle, voted for Stein in November after his rightful nomination was “stolen” from the Sage of Burlington, had climbed aboard the Trump Train before the end of 2017 (she would post Ben Garrison cartoons on social media), and presently went full QAnon. We had some testy electronic exchanges on the subject. As guests at a wedding last spring, first time I’d seen her in years, we were each at pains to maintain a physical distance, and when our eyes chanced to meet, we both glared.
A brother-in-law was a Trumper before Trump, owing to a striking affinity in personal characteristics: a pig-ignorant bigot, a cheat, a mendacious braggart, the kind of man who will cut someone off in traffic for the sheer gloating joy of it. I overheard him relating to his sister in a phone conversation the other day how he had billed a client for substantial expenses he had not actually incurred. There are reasons for supposing that the basis for that family connection will have ceased to obtain within another year or two, and I will certainly not be maintaining any sort of contact with him after that.
There's an old friend from college who called me in like 1998 and, during the conversation, opined that the forthcoming Star Wars prequel should show that the Empire was actually a force for order (and therefore "good") against the decadent corrupt Republic, prompting me to never speak to him again. I'm assuming he's balls deep in Trump and/or Christian Nationalism, but I don't care to find out.
Meanwhile there's that friend from my childhood I've mentioned that follows Vivek, who I certainly wish has had a rude awakening with the comments as of late, but I'd be afraid not and anyway I uninstalled Xitter and don't care to trod into that toxic swamp to find out.
I don’t think friendship has much to do with the right wing authoritarian demand that we acquiesce to their bigotry as a condition of having a civil society. Brooks, as clueless as he unquestionably is, doesn’t want us to be friendly, he wants us to ignore the racism, misogyny, homophobia, religious intolerance that form the basis for the RWA world view. That’s his idea of civility. At the risk of repeating myself, Bob Altemeyer took analysis of the RWA personality beyond anecdotes and opinions with his years of research. His book is free at theauthoritarians.org
Well, he knew there'd be the correct targets at Dollar General, because that's how their fetid minds work. True Americans would, after all, shop at Walmart.
Perhaps, tho I'd hazard a guess that a generous handful of the folks we rubbed elbows with on Lake Superior last week were supremacy-curious, at least...
Certain people known as "psychopaths" can choose to believe anything they say, in the moment when they are saying it. The words come out of their mouth and into their ears and they hear these words being said by them and believe, instantly. If, 5 minutes later, they say the completely opposite thing, they believe that absolutely, but not now, just 5 minutes from now when they say it, right now they absolutely believe the thing they're saying NOW.
My take that no one asked for is that he equates his having acquired great wealth to having great wisdom. And he loves (fawning) attention, but in today’s conservative environment you’re only gonna get that if you’re willing to be the craziest motherfucker in the room. He is.
Neither. He's following Trump's lead: Pander to idiots with flagrant lies. He's like an Evangelical pastor, but without the inconvenience of Christianity or having to know Bible quotes. Everything bad in your life is somebody else's fault: liberals, universities, Hollywood, politicians, media. He's--or hopes he is--Trump 2.0.
He was on all the Sunday Shows, he's the Hot New Property as far as the media's concerned. The clip I saw was him saying Mike Pence "missed an opportunity" to use his massive power as PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE to force massive changes in how we vote (only on election day, no absentee voting, all paper ballots). Like he doesn't understand (or, more likely, doesn't give a shit) that election procedures are set by the states and not by the U.S. Senate (which can apparently now pass laws all on its own?)
Just ridiculous nonsense, but none of the political reporters discussing this clip saw fit to point that out, just blabbered about how "eloquent" he is. These fuckers will just NEVER learn, because they really don't care.
This. As with Trump, the media don't know how--and don't care that they don't know how--to deal with shameless liars. Either they want to maintain "access," or they think they don't have the time to get into a verbal mud wrestling bout over what's true, or (for those reasons) they tell themselves it's not their job to "fact-check" their guests. It all leads to the same thing: Flooding the zone with shit under the pretense of informing the public.
One tactic that seems to work for Ramaswamy is to propose things so outrageous and impractical that reporters seem to think, "Well, that's never gonna happen, so why waste time questioning him about it?" Like "How are you going to get a constitutional amendment passed to raise the voting age to 25?" LOL, who cares, not gonna happen, right?
OTOH, if you're proposing something like Single Payer Health Care, then they got a million questions about the details of its implementation, including "How will you find jobs for all the insurance-company bureaucrats who will be thrown out of work?"
I don't think that the media don't know how. It has been going on so long that they certainly could try certain tacks to see what worked over time, but they don't do it.
They know just what they are doing and want to keep doing it. I suppose they are afraid that they could lose their jobs and money and influence, so I guess that helping destroy democracy (such as it is) here is simply a minor side effect. The only good thing about this whole thing is that they have to live here to.
I don't know. I've said before, the New York Times attitude is, "Yes, there are vile forces attempting to destroy U.S. democracy, and when they do we'll cover it." As though they won't be implicated. But you're right. They have to live here, too.
Yes. The most rabid Trumpers I know adhere strictly to "everything bad in my life is someone else's fault." These are dudes who end up in court over bar fights and alimony payments, but never believe it's their fault. One of these guys got pulled over going 65 in a 25, then sassed the cop who asked him to step out of the car because there was a warrant due to a previously unpaid speeding ticket, and this cop then noticed the guy had been sitting on a baggie of illegal weed. Anyway his license got suspended, and his lament was "It was just bad luck, it could have happened to anybody." Pal, there are a lot of ways you can cut down the angle of bad luck's shot at you, and you didn't try any of them. But go ahead, get madder at Hollywood and gays and "the terrorist Kenyan" President Obama.
It never ceases to frost me that alla them life-threatening drivers don't bow down to those of us just driving steady and straight. If it were no for us dependables they would all be dead.
Ha. Yes. As always it is only our society that enables their fantasy of no society.
Well us rule-follower milquetoast granny drivers aren't real men -- according to the real men who tout respect for the law above all... and who have been hauled into court waaaaaayyyyy more often than we have.
It's a mentality with a lot of tension wherein the value of a life is both in how strictly it is spent inside the rules AND in how wildly it violates them, asterisk footnote second part does not apply to brown people.
I'm starting to think folks don't believe what they're saying at first, but the repetition sneaks in and breeds those worms. "What I tell you three times is true"
There's a PSA that I've seen that seems to come from this same warped thinking: A young woman and her daughter are headed to the car when they see a swastika has been spray-painted on their garage door. She glances over to see her neighbor, a White man in his 50's, goateed, ball cap, they exchange no words and she hustles her daughter into the car and leaves.
Later, she returns and finds the swastika has been painted over. And there's Neighbor Guy, the camera pans down to his boots and you can see splotches of white paint on them THE END.
I mean, WTF? Destroying evidence of a crime is now a neighborly act? And what's the REAL message here? That we shouldn't assume goateed White men of a certain age are racists - in fact, how DARE she jump to that conclusion while hurrying her daughter to safety! It's so UNFAIR. Some us are the Good Ones happy to use a paintbrush to literally cover up evidence of antisemitism, but NOOOO, she has to assume we're in on it.
Well, to be fair, all devout white Christians, who stand before Jesus, washed in his blood, born again in his love, look alike to members of the ZOG. And he did have a goatee. (I may be assuming facts not in evidence)
I agree wholeheartedly with your viewpoint. I would add that the fringe of Trump’s MAGA cult aren’t even aware how fascist the diehards are. I have friends who aren’t fascists, don’t hate blacks, Jews and the LGBTQ community, but actually think Trump did a great job as president.
Partially because they are brain dead, and partially because they get their news from the “usual suspects”; Fox News and the right-wing media ecosystem.
That said, I personally have dropped most of these people including some cousins and other family members. Life’s too short to waste my time with them. They’re the problem, not the solution.
Let’s not forget, these people think democrats are destroying their way of life. Think about how insane the Bud light boycott was against that trans spokesperson. Do these people have anything better to do than post instagram video’s of them blowing up cans of Bud-light with AR-15’s?
Like how exactly does hiring a Trans spokesmodel to gain additional market share, ruin their lives? Are these people’s masculinity that threatened by an advertisement on Twitter, that they have to jump into the abyss. They talk about small town values, when anyone who lives in a small town who can leave, will leave. And as values goes, they have crime, corruption and lots of drugs. In some cases, small towns are worse.
This isn’t about wanting to be friends, or not! Clearly, these people have deep anger issues, yet they take it out on the wrong people. It’s their party and media that is doing them a disservice, not democrats.
And their Christian values and religion don’t help, since evangelicals and Catholic teachings legitimize and promote the same hatred (religious texts and passages), that leads to these mass murders of innocents.
That said, like Trump, the MAGA movement is a collective of petulant five year olds, financed by right-wing billionaires who find anyone not like them offensive and use their money to divide this nation.
Vivek, says our culture is dividing us. No it’s not our culture, it’s your party of obtuse and parochial charlatans who continually tell us, it’s not your fault! Sorry, it is your fault.
And anyone who has studied genocides from The Holocaust, Armenian genocide to Rwanda, knows the propaganda is always the same. We’re here because of them; these immoral, crooked, lying thieves and sinners! Cockroaches and worthless souls, bringing diseases and problems, etc....
I have just two more words to say: “projection much?”
Re: unaware how fascist the die hards are. I think your rank-and-file MAGA believes that under the new Trump order they will finally be on top of the heap. They’re okay with suspending civil liberties because surely they won’t be on the receiving end.
Yeah my brother was a smart rich guy who liked his money and voted GOP. He knew very little about Trump, having never lived in the NY area as an adult, and assumed all the press about his greatness as a businessman was accurate-ish. He died before the 2020 election. I miss him terribly, but relieved to not have to possibly confront him as a post-Jan. 6 Trump supporter.
My brother as well. He thinks republicans are better for Israel and for taxes. That’s about all he has in common with the MAGA mob, and enough for him to vote for Trump.
I support Israel, but not the fascist government which is why I do t currently support them.
"Like how exactly does hiring a Trans spokesmodel to gain additional market share, ruin their lives?"
Well, sure, but what if you REALLY wanted to video yourself shootin' up some shit with your AR-15? Doesn't really matter what, but you REALLY want some attention when you do it! Could you - if you tried - convince yourself that you're REALLY OUTRAGED about this thing? So you can get out the gun and go blam-blam and get the likes and shares? Yeah, I'm sure you could.
'...these people have deep anger issues, yet they take it out on the wrong people.'
or as I told my right-wing brothers 20 years ago, these people you follow? they hate you every day of the year except voting day. you aren't wealthy, not do you have any real power, hence they have no use for you.
Trump in a nutshell. He’s a racist, but first and foremost a classist! If you’re rich, famous or powerful, race plays no role. If you’re poor, he couldn’t care less and has no use for you, except for donations and your vote.
Oh, the Dylan Mulvaney situation is so much more fun than that (for limited definitions of "fun"): Budweiser sent a SINGLE UNIQUE can of Bud Light to her, hoping evidently to get some free influence from an Internet Influencer And Significant Person; the transphobes could have just ignored it, as she wasn't a "spokesmodel" or anything, just Some Popular Internet Person, but, no, they had to shit themselves and go into berserker mode and make a big foofaraw over it, because 14 Words or something.
Because Everything I Know I Learned in Middle School, it's like a bully who's in a mood for a fight and thinks he can take you, so he takes some imagined slight and magnifies it into fightin'-words. Does he really mean it? Well, give him a couple of minutes to get himself worked up and he will.
These cretinous trolls are basically just screaming brats constantly acting out, yet expecting "mommy and daddy" (us, in this case) to accord them the unconditional love they feel entitled to.
Fuck that shit.
From Day 1, back in the early trump campaigning days, pre-"presidency "- when it seems the logs were rolled over and the rot and vermin were released, we we told to "just listen to them, hear their concerns."
This was obviously a way to make the lib'ruls play into their game. I and most of my friends refused this tack and have been rude and pointed to anyone who spouted racist or any other of this shit they shovel. Shut that shit down and let them know it's NOT acceptable, and that everyone on the left is not some patsy who will roll over and let them tantrum their way to full-on fascism.
You have to push back. Otherwise you're no better than those "everyday Germans" who just put their heads down and went about their business as their neighbors were systematically rounded up and dragged off to their deaths for not being "the right kind".
I’m sure some slave owners were civil to their human chattel.
Civility with reparations -- that is, measures to repair the damage from discriminations in the past such as the FHA needing to commit to redlining in order to get the support of southern politicians to get it passed similarly Social Security.
Fuck civility -- actual civility as opposed to submitting to the wants of some sort of psycho -- without anything more such as before, let’s say getting Porky to behave, to get rid of stand your place laws (or narrow them, and so and so forth is BS. Indeed, civility in this context is the equivalent of a serial abuser claiming that weren’t deliberately abusive.
Please.
Be civil! Don't make me hit you again!
They want the "friendship" of liberals the way slavers wanted to think of their slaves as loyal and obedient.
Maybe those of us who are particularly musical might be kept alive to provide entertainment on a warm summer night at the cotillion.
Guess the Oliver Anthony thing didn't work out the way they thought it would.
Ahhh, they're all pissed at him now because he doesn't have an accent when he's not singing, and said positive things about diversity.
Must be either the nanobots in the vaccine, or the fluoride in the water.
In case you missed it, the singer Billy Bragg got involved in a very astute way! He noted that if you want to be a really good songwriter in the protest tradition, you can't both-sides it between rich guys and impoverished people. Then he went so far as to rewrite the OA song -- he made it miiiiiles better, and I hope OA understands and learns from it.
Anyway the OA song is textbook conservative protest -- just bitching, no solutions offered -- and Bragg noticed too: https://slate.com/culture/2023/08/oliver-anthony-rich-men-north-of-richmond-billy-bragg.html
Happy and grateful! Like (lesser) members of the family! Educable even, up to a point. But keep a weapon handy, that’s just common sense.
The myth of the "happy, dancing slave" is the "Gone With The Wind" version; the reality was "Roots": rape your slave, impregnate her, then sell her (and your) child to the highest bidder.
Of course don’t hit me. Just whip me, whip me good.
When the cream sets out too long, you must whip it
If you follow this advice, I won't be eating your strawberry shortcake.
My next bumper sticker, an updated take on a classic: “FUCK CIVILITY, EAT THE RICH”
It was indeed a great essay, especially his delineation of the terms humanist and supremacist.
Really what it boils down to is wanting us to tell them they're OK, that what they think and believe and do are all OK. Criticism, overt or implied, may nudge them toward self-reflection and that's the last thing they want.
A good analogy is the controlling, violent spouse dynamic. A couple come out of a restaurant and discover a 15 year old kid trying to break into their car. The husband beats the shit out of the kid. After doing so, he looks at his wife's horrified face, becomes annoyed, and demands "what the hell is the matter with YOU?" It's the same dynamic with supremacists. You'd better tell me I'm OK, RIGHT NOW, or there will be trouble.
He consulted most of Human Nightmare-from-which-I-am-trying-to-awake, which told him that he'd a right to do what he'd done and she had no such corresponding right.
Wm Gibson wrote that The Future were already here, just unevenly distributed, but the same might also be said of the Dark Ages.
Anything about the conservative movement that can’t be explained by racism can be explained by the domestic abuse dynamic.
No longer Law and Order; now Crime and Chaos
They were never about Law, except maybe as an excuse when it just happened to be on their side. Because the law is written down, it applies to everyone (or at least it’s still not acceptable to say it shouldn’t), and if you think it should be changed the process is spelled out clearly. But Order--conservatives are WAY into Order. Because they’re on top of the order, none of the above applies.
Well, they pretended. That's why Nixon had to resign. Then they stopped, which is why Tubby fundraises off his indictments.
I remember being 10 when Nixon resigned and thinking "If they'd just lied their way through it like I lie when my mom asks whether everything went OK at school today, they'd have gotten through it." Many Republicans took the same lesson, starting with Reagan and Cheney, of course.
They're into fascist "Law", which involves vaguely written legislation open to interpretation and individuals willing to interpret it case-by-case. A chilling effect on society, opportunities for corruption, and a convenient excuse to crack skulls if need be. W's all around, really.
That's exactly what's happening in Florida, where every absurdity of their hate laws is responded to with a veiled "Well, if anything stupid comes up we won't go that far, but we'll make those decision ourselves outside of public view."
Or, as the saying goes, the rules are vague but strictly enforced--another echo of an abusive household.
They long for a Law which knows to whom it's supposed to apply….
EDIT: Who was it who had that great statement about the Law being intended to bind some and loose others?, the one that I've linked in the past to my hobby-horse, Vulgar* Calvinism.
*or 'Dumbed-Down'
Frank Wilhoit: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.“ Is that the one?
Thank-you.
I'm not a The Who fan, and especially not of their later stuff, but I've a soft spot (on my skull?) for 'When I say "I love you." say "You better.".'.
—and wasn't there a comedian who said that Americans want to be liked more than other nations do, and react much more violently if we're not? EDIT: I think it was Wm Burroughs.
Hell, it's like the husband sees a 15-year-old black kid walking by his car and beating the shit out of him. Let's not pretend they even need to see a crime before flying off the handle.
As I commented on the original column, I'm often accused, as an abortion rights activist, of not being civil to my opposition. I'm not. And I'm proud of it. People like that don't deserve civility.
Also, my best friend since kindergarten, more than 50 years, is a Trumper. We don't talk about politics. And yet we're still friends. It's almost like adults who care about each other can put that shit aside when necessary.
But some dude on a sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood who thinks he controls women's bodies because sky daddy says he does? Fuck him. Well, no, let me say it a different way, since the odds are greater that I'd fellate the QAnon Shaman. 😉😘
And for a dude that horny, that's sayin' somethin'!
Oof. (Welcome back!)
I live down the street from a hospital/medical complex that houses the workplaces of professionals who offer health services to women which are none of my business. Most Saturdays there is a group of (mainly old white male) Christian warriors marching out front carrying gruesome signs. Some of my neighbors will tell them off in colorful language, but I think they like that. Any attention is good attention, and it proves the Lord's work isn't easy. I just grey rock them -- don't look their way, don't respond to greetings, get past them as quickly as possible. But if one of them reaches out to pet my dogs, well then I tell them to get their creepy fucking hands away from my sweet pets. But I'm unfriendly like that.
"Killer don't take kindly to the pawings of such as you, but if you insist, I'll just let 'im off the leash for a couple seconds..."
Anti-White Dog
Thanks for the reminder.
I doubt if I could do that with a friend who is a Trumper. Politics as Brecht said somewhere is simply life. Being a Trumper means they want to destroy so many rights of so many people that it becomes beyond the pale and there is no possible way.
On the other hand I haven't completely cut all ties with my brothers, but we do not interact, now that our parents are dead, more than once a year or so. Or to smile when the one brother posts pictures of his St. Bernards I guess.
100%. every interaction in life is political by its very nature. I no longer have friends who are trumpers or even republican. my attitude toward my trump brothers is much the same. I cannot hate them, but I surely hate what they espouse. there is a bare chance of reconciliation, but they have much penance to do before that can occur. and as they dig in even further, the chance of that diminishes exponentially.
One of the points that A.R. Moxon makes in the original post is that all of us (at least all of us white folks) probably already have friends and family members on the Trump Train, and they're already enough of a pain in the ass to deal with, you seriously expect us to seek out NEW relationships like that?
Still debating about how if not whether to explain to Dad that President Biden is not my "friend", and still unsure HOW. How do you explain green to someone who's been blind all their life?
But Berthold Brecht was an icky commie, so what does his opinion matter? Never mind Orwell basically said there's no such thing as apolitical media, and the creeps just LURVE him because something something critical of Soviets.
Agreed except that I don't think I could continue a friendship with a trumper.
Just as I could not remain friends with someone who was a regular nazi.
Same. It always bugged me that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia were friends, and went to the opera together. Or that James Carville and Mary Matalin were (and I guess still are) married. It suggests a cheapening or devaluation of the values I thought we shared, or that they "really didn't mean it," when I did really mean it. I can see how that reaction can be called juvenile or immature. But this is Moxon's point: Politics is not just a group of abstract opinions, like what the Fed should or shouldn't do. It's about who controls the machinery of power, and therefore about who suffers, who is exploited, who lives and who dies.
As they say in Jamaica, dog run for him character, pig run for him life. Thinking of politics as a civilized pastime means you have to overlook the real life pain of the people getting hurt by budget cuts.
- just statistically -
Unjust, and unstatistical, but yeah...
As a stats teacher, I just want to say to these guys, "Get statistics out of your filthy racist mouth."
Supremacists are offering a tremendous gift to liberals in the form of their (domineering) friendship.
And are we grateful? We are not.
“...we should just put bullets in their head.” Projection.
Aaron Sorkin! To Kill a Mockingbird! They're seeing "kill all the conservatives" in THAT.
Somehow underneath it all some of them do subconsciously realize what they're pushing (jan 6 attack, election reversal, etc) is not legal..
The Black man got lynched anyway. They're not mad that Black people are disposable; they're mad that their view of life could be *wrong*.
Well, *spoiler alert* at the conclusion of the novel, an upstanding conservative member of the so-called “white trash” community (“white-trash” being, clearly, a racial epithet aimed at an out-class of poverty suffering white peoples) is, in fact, killed by the coward, and likely liberal disabled rights activist, Boo Radley, merely for the act of defending the honor of his family by terrorizing and threatening small children with murder.
Part of the conservative mind trick is to cast "politics" as something alien, and separate: the Orange Excrescence isn't a "politician" but a businessman...Mitch grinning and sayin' "it's just politics" to shiv Obama's appointees.
THe Civil War was politics: Jim Crow and the KKK were politics as was it's Confederate memorialization and the rise of "Southern Heritage" hisory: Anita Bryant's anti gay crusade was politics: the anti Trans moral panic is politics, most foul.
I remember Gore Vidal goggling at a Catholic Monsignor on the Crossfire gabefest claiming that opposition to gay and women's rights wasn't politics: "Well, then why are you trying to pass legislation.??"
If they don't think you are fully human (and by extension Un American) they thinks it's ok to do whatever:
and that's abuse and quietly destroy and kill the offending. After all, they don't count.
"Right Wing Civility?" no such creature exists.
Ramaswamy has described capitalism as a "sanctuary" where people of all different political beliefs can come together to consume and produce. And sure, I get it, McDonalds doesn't check your politics before they sell you a Quarter-Pounder, but dude, seriously? The oil industry is a "sanctuary" from politics? Or the chemical industry or the telecom industry or... ? Because capitalists would never dirty their hands by stooping to engage in POLITICS, it's beneath them.
Well, when you're apparently convinced "government" isn't so much by, for, and of the people, and is instead a giant alien mind-control brain that landed on Earth in 1967, I suppose it's natural to assume "politics" is entirely a quality of said brain and therefore alien and EVIL.
Exxon-Mobil buying themselves a 48-pack of Congressmen: Totally normal and non-political functioning of our wonderful capitalist system.
Teachers pushing their pension fund to dis-invest from Exxon-Mobil: Disgraceful injection of politics into the peaceful monastery that is capitalism.
I was in Florida this past weekend. There's an awful lot of White people who are intensely angry that they can't say the n-word in public without being looked at as racist troglodytes. It is sooooo unfair that Black people can call each other the n-word, but White people can't call Black people that word. So unfair!
Many--perhaps most--of these shitheads think that the prohibition on using that word is actually written into law, and thus is their constitutional right to free speech abridged. And it was obviously liberals and democrats who wrote that [nonexistent] law. Thus, race traitors.
No, you can't be my friend and think this way. In fact, we can't even be on friendly terms. As for civility, well, first you have to demonstrate that you can treat other people like they're also humans. Then we can talk about civility.
Stand down from your rampant revility
Try to brew up a little humility
Stop yer anti-gayin’
Is all that I’m sayin’
Maybe then we can talk ‘bout civility
I tell you, my friend
The issue is bigger
Than whether White folks
Can use the word "n****r."
So many words now banned
Things they no longer can say.
It's like the liberals all planned
No more "faggot" for "gay."
Free speech is White men
All yelling epithets clear
You must listen, and then
Do what the honky tells you to.
This is my gun
Do what I want or I'll kill you
(when you've got an AR-15 you don't have to rhyme.)
This is my rifle
This is my gun
Both are for fighting
Both are for fun
That might be yer rifle
But I stole yer ammo
T'were simply to stifle
Yer goin' "kerblammo"
I am in rural SW Ohio. I have been surrounded by these people my whole life. I've actively hated white evangelicals since about the seventh grade. I've got in-laws I haven't spoken to in 40 years. I'm not shy about it either. They start in I let them know right away I don't want anything to do with that happy horseshit. I'm not rude- neither am I uncertain.
I can't recall the last time somebody tried to convince me otherwise .
Because there's always time for irrelevant asides.............Is "happy horseshit" a regional phrase?
The only other person I knew who said it regularly was from Western P.A.
I don't know where I got it
to be honest. Ohio is PA adjacent but way different culturally. Eastern European vs Scotch Irish Hillbilly.
Maybe it's the alliteration.
I've heard it all my life (to the best of my recollection, anyway) right here in Godless NorCal.
Oh well, there goes that theory.
Is it too far down the comments to say Carry on, carry on?
This one hits very close to home for me. I've terminated a LOT of relationships over politics since 2016.
It has not been pleasant, but IMO is necessary, and I wish more were doing it.
Yeah, I've ghosted a long-time friend over 2016 and I struggle over it. She's a Trumper-by-default - voted for Stein because Hillary is a crook. But good times in the past don't seem to count so much weighed against the willful disregard of all logic and political reality.
Ignoring all logical reality
Shows a woefully warped mentality
We mighta been friends
But here’s where it ends
Hard pass on yer perforced lethality
Decades ago I used to exchange fluids with a woman who was a Berniac during the 2016 primary cycle, voted for Stein in November after his rightful nomination was “stolen” from the Sage of Burlington, had climbed aboard the Trump Train before the end of 2017 (she would post Ben Garrison cartoons on social media), and presently went full QAnon. We had some testy electronic exchanges on the subject. As guests at a wedding last spring, first time I’d seen her in years, we were each at pains to maintain a physical distance, and when our eyes chanced to meet, we both glared.
A brother-in-law was a Trumper before Trump, owing to a striking affinity in personal characteristics: a pig-ignorant bigot, a cheat, a mendacious braggart, the kind of man who will cut someone off in traffic for the sheer gloating joy of it. I overheard him relating to his sister in a phone conversation the other day how he had billed a client for substantial expenses he had not actually incurred. There are reasons for supposing that the basis for that family connection will have ceased to obtain within another year or two, and I will certainly not be maintaining any sort of contact with him after that.
Delicately put.
I like Bernie, but the old man couldn’t even win California. I know it’s because the witch queen Hillary put a hex on his junk, but still.
There's an old friend from college who called me in like 1998 and, during the conversation, opined that the forthcoming Star Wars prequel should show that the Empire was actually a force for order (and therefore "good") against the decadent corrupt Republic, prompting me to never speak to him again. I'm assuming he's balls deep in Trump and/or Christian Nationalism, but I don't care to find out.
Meanwhile there's that friend from my childhood I've mentioned that follows Vivek, who I certainly wish has had a rude awakening with the comments as of late, but I'd be afraid not and anyway I uninstalled Xitter and don't care to trod into that toxic swamp to find out.
"Sooo.... the Empire... good or bad?" could save a lot of time in personal relationships.
Let me get my cleats on if we're gonna be kickin' dust on the empire's shoes.
I don’t think friendship has much to do with the right wing authoritarian demand that we acquiesce to their bigotry as a condition of having a civil society. Brooks, as clueless as he unquestionably is, doesn’t want us to be friendly, he wants us to ignore the racism, misogyny, homophobia, religious intolerance that form the basis for the RWA world view. That’s his idea of civility. At the risk of repeating myself, Bob Altemeyer took analysis of the RWA personality beyond anecdotes and opinions with his years of research. His book is free at theauthoritarians.org
That is a great book
Funny how the "Supremists" are always on the far distant end of the spectrum from "Superior."
Nothing disproves White Supremacy quite like White Supremacists.
Had to go to the Dollar General because the security guard wouldn't let him shoot up the school.
Well, he knew there'd be the correct targets at Dollar General, because that's how their fetid minds work. True Americans would, after all, shop at Walmart.
Depends where the Dollar Store/Dollar General/Dollar Tree* actually is. Alla the denizens of those stores look pretty pasty in the UP.
*Honest. All three cheek by jowl same block out there on US 41...
Again I point out the need for " " marks around supremacy...
A sound criticism: but I'm not changing it now.
I felt I was clear.
Clarity crystalin. I was just reminding the Greater REBID Resistance.
Perhaps, tho I'd hazard a guess that a generous handful of the folks we rubbed elbows with on Lake Superior last week were supremacy-curious, at least...
I cannot for the life of me figure out whether Ramaswamy believes what he is saying or is completely deluded.
Or I suppose knowingly running a con, might be another option. And also assuming if he can pull it off he can avoid the results.
Oooh! Oooh! I know this one! Pick me!
Certain people known as "psychopaths" can choose to believe anything they say, in the moment when they are saying it. The words come out of their mouth and into their ears and they hear these words being said by them and believe, instantly. If, 5 minutes later, they say the completely opposite thing, they believe that absolutely, but not now, just 5 minutes from now when they say it, right now they absolutely believe the thing they're saying NOW.
Shorter SteveB: Why not all three?
See how tolerant they are? The Republican "big tent" even has room for psychopaths of all races and religious persuasions!
Only one question on the entrance exam: "Do you enjoy hurting people?" You can guess what the correct answer is.
My take that no one asked for is that he equates his having acquired great wealth to having great wisdom. And he loves (fawning) attention, but in today’s conservative environment you’re only gonna get that if you’re willing to be the craziest motherfucker in the room. He is.
Can I have that take, now you're done with it?
Some jerk on the Morning Joe called him "eloquent." So apparently now the bar has been lowered to "eloquent" = "talks really really fast."
AKA The Ben Shapiro Standard.
Neither. He's following Trump's lead: Pander to idiots with flagrant lies. He's like an Evangelical pastor, but without the inconvenience of Christianity or having to know Bible quotes. Everything bad in your life is somebody else's fault: liberals, universities, Hollywood, politicians, media. He's--or hopes he is--Trump 2.0.
TBF, Trump was never encumbered by a need for Biblical quotes either.
He was on all the Sunday Shows, he's the Hot New Property as far as the media's concerned. The clip I saw was him saying Mike Pence "missed an opportunity" to use his massive power as PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE to force massive changes in how we vote (only on election day, no absentee voting, all paper ballots). Like he doesn't understand (or, more likely, doesn't give a shit) that election procedures are set by the states and not by the U.S. Senate (which can apparently now pass laws all on its own?)
Just ridiculous nonsense, but none of the political reporters discussing this clip saw fit to point that out, just blabbered about how "eloquent" he is. These fuckers will just NEVER learn, because they really don't care.
This. As with Trump, the media don't know how--and don't care that they don't know how--to deal with shameless liars. Either they want to maintain "access," or they think they don't have the time to get into a verbal mud wrestling bout over what's true, or (for those reasons) they tell themselves it's not their job to "fact-check" their guests. It all leads to the same thing: Flooding the zone with shit under the pretense of informing the public.
One tactic that seems to work for Ramaswamy is to propose things so outrageous and impractical that reporters seem to think, "Well, that's never gonna happen, so why waste time questioning him about it?" Like "How are you going to get a constitutional amendment passed to raise the voting age to 25?" LOL, who cares, not gonna happen, right?
OTOH, if you're proposing something like Single Payer Health Care, then they got a million questions about the details of its implementation, including "How will you find jobs for all the insurance-company bureaucrats who will be thrown out of work?"
I don't think that the media don't know how. It has been going on so long that they certainly could try certain tacks to see what worked over time, but they don't do it.
They know just what they are doing and want to keep doing it. I suppose they are afraid that they could lose their jobs and money and influence, so I guess that helping destroy democracy (such as it is) here is simply a minor side effect. The only good thing about this whole thing is that they have to live here to.
I don't know. I've said before, the New York Times attitude is, "Yes, there are vile forces attempting to destroy U.S. democracy, and when they do we'll cover it." As though they won't be implicated. But you're right. They have to live here, too.
Yes. The most rabid Trumpers I know adhere strictly to "everything bad in my life is someone else's fault." These are dudes who end up in court over bar fights and alimony payments, but never believe it's their fault. One of these guys got pulled over going 65 in a 25, then sassed the cop who asked him to step out of the car because there was a warrant due to a previously unpaid speeding ticket, and this cop then noticed the guy had been sitting on a baggie of illegal weed. Anyway his license got suspended, and his lament was "It was just bad luck, it could have happened to anybody." Pal, there are a lot of ways you can cut down the angle of bad luck's shot at you, and you didn't try any of them. But go ahead, get madder at Hollywood and gays and "the terrorist Kenyan" President Obama.
It never ceases to frost me that alla them life-threatening drivers don't bow down to those of us just driving steady and straight. If it were no for us dependables they would all be dead.
Ha. Yes. As always it is only our society that enables their fantasy of no society.
Well us rule-follower milquetoast granny drivers aren't real men -- according to the real men who tout respect for the law above all... and who have been hauled into court waaaaaayyyyy more often than we have.
It's a mentality with a lot of tension wherein the value of a life is both in how strictly it is spent inside the rules AND in how wildly it violates them, asterisk footnote second part does not apply to brown people.
“Now watch me roll this coal…”
I'm starting to think folks don't believe what they're saying at first, but the repetition sneaks in and breeds those worms. "What I tell you three times is true"
There's a PSA that I've seen that seems to come from this same warped thinking: A young woman and her daughter are headed to the car when they see a swastika has been spray-painted on their garage door. She glances over to see her neighbor, a White man in his 50's, goateed, ball cap, they exchange no words and she hustles her daughter into the car and leaves.
Later, she returns and finds the swastika has been painted over. And there's Neighbor Guy, the camera pans down to his boots and you can see splotches of white paint on them THE END.
I mean, WTF? Destroying evidence of a crime is now a neighborly act? And what's the REAL message here? That we shouldn't assume goateed White men of a certain age are racists - in fact, how DARE she jump to that conclusion while hurrying her daughter to safety! It's so UNFAIR. Some us are the Good Ones happy to use a paintbrush to literally cover up evidence of antisemitism, but NOOOO, she has to assume we're in on it.
Hearted for delightful overthinking in the service of public illuminationism.
If it wasn't for overthinking, I'd do no thinking at all.
Well, to be fair, all devout white Christians, who stand before Jesus, washed in his blood, born again in his love, look alike to members of the ZOG. And he did have a goatee. (I may be assuming facts not in evidence)
Excellent column Roy.
I agree wholeheartedly with your viewpoint. I would add that the fringe of Trump’s MAGA cult aren’t even aware how fascist the diehards are. I have friends who aren’t fascists, don’t hate blacks, Jews and the LGBTQ community, but actually think Trump did a great job as president.
Partially because they are brain dead, and partially because they get their news from the “usual suspects”; Fox News and the right-wing media ecosystem.
That said, I personally have dropped most of these people including some cousins and other family members. Life’s too short to waste my time with them. They’re the problem, not the solution.
Let’s not forget, these people think democrats are destroying their way of life. Think about how insane the Bud light boycott was against that trans spokesperson. Do these people have anything better to do than post instagram video’s of them blowing up cans of Bud-light with AR-15’s?
Like how exactly does hiring a Trans spokesmodel to gain additional market share, ruin their lives? Are these people’s masculinity that threatened by an advertisement on Twitter, that they have to jump into the abyss. They talk about small town values, when anyone who lives in a small town who can leave, will leave. And as values goes, they have crime, corruption and lots of drugs. In some cases, small towns are worse.
This isn’t about wanting to be friends, or not! Clearly, these people have deep anger issues, yet they take it out on the wrong people. It’s their party and media that is doing them a disservice, not democrats.
And their Christian values and religion don’t help, since evangelicals and Catholic teachings legitimize and promote the same hatred (religious texts and passages), that leads to these mass murders of innocents.
That said, like Trump, the MAGA movement is a collective of petulant five year olds, financed by right-wing billionaires who find anyone not like them offensive and use their money to divide this nation.
Vivek, says our culture is dividing us. No it’s not our culture, it’s your party of obtuse and parochial charlatans who continually tell us, it’s not your fault! Sorry, it is your fault.
And anyone who has studied genocides from The Holocaust, Armenian genocide to Rwanda, knows the propaganda is always the same. We’re here because of them; these immoral, crooked, lying thieves and sinners! Cockroaches and worthless souls, bringing diseases and problems, etc....
I have just two more words to say: “projection much?”
Re: unaware how fascist the die hards are. I think your rank-and-file MAGA believes that under the new Trump order they will finally be on top of the heap. They’re okay with suspending civil liberties because surely they won’t be on the receiving end.
Totally agree. I was just saying there are also non-diehards that think he did a good job; personally, and don’t buy into the hatred crap.
Personally, I think they need to find a good therapist, but that’s just me...:)
Yeah my brother was a smart rich guy who liked his money and voted GOP. He knew very little about Trump, having never lived in the NY area as an adult, and assumed all the press about his greatness as a businessman was accurate-ish. He died before the 2020 election. I miss him terribly, but relieved to not have to possibly confront him as a post-Jan. 6 Trump supporter.
I’m sorry to hear it. My brothers the same way and we’re Jewish. Yet, he’s to obtuse to understand that this is how fascism starts...:)
And that his support for lower taxes comes with consequences for POC, women, and LGBTQ+ people, with whom he had no problem.
My brother as well. He thinks republicans are better for Israel and for taxes. That’s about all he has in common with the MAGA mob, and enough for him to vote for Trump.
I support Israel, but not the fascist government which is why I do t currently support them.
"Like how exactly does hiring a Trans spokesmodel to gain additional market share, ruin their lives?"
Well, sure, but what if you REALLY wanted to video yourself shootin' up some shit with your AR-15? Doesn't really matter what, but you REALLY want some attention when you do it! Could you - if you tried - convince yourself that you're REALLY OUTRAGED about this thing? So you can get out the gun and go blam-blam and get the likes and shares? Yeah, I'm sure you could.
Hearted for the Petulant Kindergarten Kollective.
'...these people have deep anger issues, yet they take it out on the wrong people.'
or as I told my right-wing brothers 20 years ago, these people you follow? they hate you every day of the year except voting day. you aren't wealthy, not do you have any real power, hence they have no use for you.
Trump in a nutshell. He’s a racist, but first and foremost a classist! If you’re rich, famous or powerful, race plays no role. If you’re poor, he couldn’t care less and has no use for you, except for donations and your vote.
He's willing to use all people equally, black or white, rich or poor. What a guy.
Exactly...:)
An INCLUSIVE sociopath!
A diversity of victims is his strength.
He would never deign to set foot in the many sad rundown shacks in the Canada-adjacent parts of upstate NY festooned with his name and image.
And he'd call Security if the orcs that attend his rallies showed up at Trump Tower and wanted a good table at the restaurant.
Oh, the Dylan Mulvaney situation is so much more fun than that (for limited definitions of "fun"): Budweiser sent a SINGLE UNIQUE can of Bud Light to her, hoping evidently to get some free influence from an Internet Influencer And Significant Person; the transphobes could have just ignored it, as she wasn't a "spokesmodel" or anything, just Some Popular Internet Person, but, no, they had to shit themselves and go into berserker mode and make a big foofaraw over it, because 14 Words or something.
Because Everything I Know I Learned in Middle School, it's like a bully who's in a mood for a fight and thinks he can take you, so he takes some imagined slight and magnifies it into fightin'-words. Does he really mean it? Well, give him a couple of minutes to get himself worked up and he will.
These cretinous trolls are basically just screaming brats constantly acting out, yet expecting "mommy and daddy" (us, in this case) to accord them the unconditional love they feel entitled to.
Fuck that shit.
From Day 1, back in the early trump campaigning days, pre-"presidency "- when it seems the logs were rolled over and the rot and vermin were released, we we told to "just listen to them, hear their concerns."
This was obviously a way to make the lib'ruls play into their game. I and most of my friends refused this tack and have been rude and pointed to anyone who spouted racist or any other of this shit they shovel. Shut that shit down and let them know it's NOT acceptable, and that everyone on the left is not some patsy who will roll over and let them tantrum their way to full-on fascism.
You have to push back. Otherwise you're no better than those "everyday Germans" who just put their heads down and went about their business as their neighbors were systematically rounded up and dragged off to their deaths for not being "the right kind".