One of the most important tasks Democrats can accomplish between now and 2020 is rebutting the myth that Bernie Sanders is the one true progressive, indeed the ultimate arbiter as to what constitutes progressivism, in US politics.
This is a man who talked a big game after Trump's electoral college victory about being Trump's "worst nightmare" should Donald go after minorities. And yet, here we are, a mere few months later, and Bernie is criss-crossing the country holding rallies gaslighting minorities about the existence of bigotry among Trump's supporters.
This is also a man who gives the millions of people who voted for a bigoted sexual predator all the benefits of the doubt about their un-bigotedness, but who couldn't be bothered to learn about, or publicly support, a Democratic candidate in an important Georgia election this week.
This is a man who, however, can find it himself to support a male politician who would force women to view mandatory ultrasounds before having an abortion.
This is a man who sees a "silver lining" to the horrors that Trump is inflicting on the world, in that, hey, at least "millions of people are getting involved in politics to fight back." This view was also uttered before the election by Susan Sarandon, who is a big Bernie supporter and a big Hollywood star. When non-"Berniecrat" politicians are supported by Hollywood stars, however, it is explained to us that this is proof that they are elite and out of touch with Ordinary (White) (Male) People, as one commentator at The Guardian recently suggesed.
To put it quite bluntly, this is a man, as one Twitter user put it, whose "greatest accomplishment in life will be sabotaging a woman's chance to be president."
Yes, there is plenty of blame to go around, but Bernie Sanders' role in Trump's electoral college win cannot and should not be understated. Misogynistic double standards and white male privilege did a lot of fucking work for this guy in the Democratic Primary and we cannot and should not cede the label "progressive" to him, nor to those Internet Warriors who aggressively harass anyone who doesn't "feel the Bern."
The lesson, as always, is this: Never mistake a self-styled, white-man-centred leftist revolution for a feminist, anti-racist one.
Showing posts with label Election 2016 Fallout. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Election 2016 Fallout. Show all posts
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Throwback Thursday: ALT-POTUS 45
Somewhere, in a parallel universe so very far, far away, Day 9 happened for Madam President, and for the other, luckier versions of ourselves:
Also in this parallel universe, Susan Sarandon and Jill Stein didn't Thelma & Louise certain segments of the left off a motherfucking cliff by acting like Trump and Clinton were both just as bad as one another. FUN TIMES!
And yes, one of my coping strategies is dark humor, ha ha HA, why do you ask?
DAY 9: STILL NO NAZIS ON THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL OR IN MY MOTHERFUCKING WHITE HOUSE.— ALT-POTUS 45 (@IfHillaryHad) January 30, 2017
Also in this parallel universe, Susan Sarandon and Jill Stein didn't Thelma & Louise certain segments of the left off a motherfucking cliff by acting like Trump and Clinton were both just as bad as one another. FUN TIMES!
And yes, one of my coping strategies is dark humor, ha ha HA, why do you ask?
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Election 2016 Fallout Part 9: On Resistance
Hi readers! I'm delighted to let you know that I have joined Shakesville as a new contributor.
(ps - I'll continue to write here in Fannie's Room, so don't worry the Xena posts aren't going anywhere!!)
Shakesville has been such an important resource both to my development as a progressive feminist over the years and during this past election. I'm so grateful to Melissa (and the contributor community) for welcoming me.
For my first post there, I am starting with the final installment of my Election 2016 Fallout pieces. This one is on the topic of resistance. You can read the whole thing at Shakesville, but here's a snippet:
(ps - I'll continue to write here in Fannie's Room, so don't worry the Xena posts aren't going anywhere!!)
Shakesville has been such an important resource both to my development as a progressive feminist over the years and during this past election. I'm so grateful to Melissa (and the contributor community) for welcoming me.
For my first post there, I am starting with the final installment of my Election 2016 Fallout pieces. This one is on the topic of resistance. You can read the whole thing at Shakesville, but here's a snippet:
On resistanceKeep reading here.
In my eyes, the quest to defeat Trump and what he stands for has already begun. Inherent in this struggle is survival. As some in the media ask us to collectively fixate on the navels of angry white people, especially men, I think back to those early Trump rallies when the press would show security escorting anti-Trump protestors out. Trump would encourage violence against them and you could see it on the screen, his supporters cackling with glee in the background. "I'd really like to punch that guy," Trump would boast, while thousands of white faces laughed at their hateful avatar.
The part of me concerned with self-preservation tells me that these people laughed because Trump was acting out their violent fantasies, particularly against the politically correct, over whom Trump's win has become a symbolic victory.
I do not expect that people entertained by Trump's calls to violence will now be nicer to us with Trump in charge. No. They knew exactly what Trump is. It was part of his appeal. "We know what we're getting," they'd say. "He tells it like it is. That's why we love him." And so, on that basis, here is what I believe, via Liel Leibovitz:
"You should treat people like adults, which means respecting them enough to demand that they understand the consequences of their actions. Explaining away or excusing the actions of others isn’t your job. Vienna in the first decades of the 20th century was a city inflamed with a desire to better understand the motives, hidden or otherwise, that move people to action. Freud and Kafka, Elias Canetti and Karl Kraus, Stefan Zweig and Franz Werfel—these were the eminences who crowded the same cafés Siegfried and his musician friends most likely frequented. But while these beautiful minds struggled to understand the world around them, the world around them was consumed by simpler and more vicious appetites. Don’t waste any time, then, trying to understand: Then as now, many were amused by the demagogue and moved by his vile vision. Some have perfectly reasonable explanations for their decisions, while others have little to go on but incoherent rage. It doesn’t matter. Voters are all adults, and all have made their choices, and it is now you who must brace for impact. Whether you choose to forgive those, friends and strangers alike, who cast their votes so deplorably is a matter of personal choice, and none but the most imperious among us would advocate a categorical rejection of millions based on their electoral actions, no matter how irresponsible and dim. So while you make these personal calculations, remember that what matters now isn’t analysis: It’s survival."
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Election 2016 Fallout Part 8: On Internet Culture and Privacy
(8) On Internet Culture and Privacy.
Today I consider how Trump's Electoral College win was a victory for the very worst of Internet Culture.
First, we have the man's social media presence itself. He was (is) notorious for taking to Twitter at all hours to peck out insults, demeaning nicknames he's bestowed upon people, and counter-attacks to any real or perceived slight against his eggshell-thin ego.
About a year ago, The New York Times ran a profile of how Trump had "mastered" Twitter. Twitter was (is) the means by which he tapped into many people's basest, cruelest selves, as the Internet is wont to do. Through the expression of aggression, braggadocio, and misinformation, he constantly made (makes) headlines.
People who've been in contact with Trump suggest that he craves attention. And, a characteristic of retweets and Twitter trends is that they are attention, no matter whether people are agreeing or not (He grabs them by the what? Wait, now David Duke is applauding him? Wait, what happened at Hamilton?). In fact, it's almost better for Trump if something is "controversial." Clickbait, as we know, pays in Internetland (both financially, to the media that support it - and to Trump's hunger for attention). What seems to matter to Trump is that Trump never stops trending.
We have to develop better strategies for covering Trump in the Internet age.
His Twitter feed, especially during the election, was a constant stream of content for us to be outraged by, distracting from the previous outrage of five minutes ago, so nobody seemed to notice that he is never, ultimately, held accountable. We stay in a constant state of outrage, with no relief.
Trump is not one to apologize, even in that mealy-mouthed non-apology way that's so common for deplorables. In true "alpha" form, at least as the "manosphere" understands these things, he doesn't correct misstatements. He flounces from one outrage to the next, and the press (and his followers) follow him because everything's about his ego and displays of dominance.
That needs to stop. We, and people with platforms in the media especially, need to disrupt the outrage-outrage-outrage cycle. I'm not sure how, but awareness seems to be a critical component here, because it seems many people are lacking even that.
Example strategy I use in blogging: From time to time, a Trump-like commenter will venture here to engage in outrage-outrage-outrage agendas of their own. One time many years ago, an anti-gay man was promoting at his own blog false anti-gay propaganda published by a hate group. He then began commenting here. So, I wrote a blog post (probably too earnestly, given who I was dealing with) addressing the falsehoods in the propaganda piece and invited him to address my commentary. He never did.
I then articulated a specific condition for him: If he wanted our conversations to continue at my blog, he had to first answer for his complicity in spreading anti-gay propaganda. Instead of doing so, he kept trying to comment here, jumping from one outrageous anti-gay tirade to another, hoping I'd be so offended-distracted that I wouldn't notice he was violating a boundary I had set for him and hoping people wouldn't notice that he never answered for his role in spreading anti-gay propaganda. (I didn't ban him. When I set the boundary and he violated it, I would simply delete his comments that didn't address the propaganda. He eventually slunk away.)
Trump needs to be treated in a similar way, I think, however the fuck we do that to a President.
Who or what will be the voice that repeatedly says, "Wait, let's back up to this pussy-grabbing, shall we?" or "Please clarify this Muslim registry plan." A major media outlet or website should keep a tally of his lies and offenses, as well as what, if anything, he has done to apologize or atone for them. We cannot stay in this cycle of escalating, continual outrage.
Secondly, on the misinformation front, a Buzzfeed analysis showed that fake news generated more engagement on Facebook than did news from mainstream sources. And, look, I get it. We're in "anti-Establishment" times. People distrust the mainstream press, and often for legitimate reasons. When that happens, they turn to alternate sources, no matter their political beliefs. People get "had" by both conservative- and left-leaning articles.
Here are my strategies for dealing with this issue (which Facebook claims to be addressing): (a) If I notice someone posting fake news, I will let them know (sometimes with a link to Snopes, if available); (b) I check Snopes or Politifact; (c) I check other news sources by doing a "Google News" search for the topic at hand; and (d) if I'm reading what is clearly clickbait (and you can often tell from the title and/or content) I don't share it, because sharing monetizes it. As Internet users, many of us can take active roles in confronting fake news and propaganda when we see it in our social networks.
Third, we saw the proliferation of white nationalist, racist, xenophobic, anti-feminist, and misogynistic online communities, serving as outlets for white male aggrievement regarding their perceived loss of status in a "PC world gone mad." Now commonly (euphemistically) called the "alt-right," Echidne (are you reading her? you should) documents the alternate set of "facts" under which denizens of these forums operate.
One of the alt-right's leaders, Steve Bannon, is a right-hand man to Trump. I will discuss this in a forthcoming post, but remember: many of these misogynistic white supremacists do not live the same reality as liberals and progressives and they are beholden to no rules of civility that are purported to exist in civil society. When they go low and we go high, they count on that and exploit it.
They harass and threaten women and minorities online. They "troll for the lulz." They largely aren't ashamed if they're called bigots, even if their "cuck" allies might be. They'll leave flaming piles of dog shit in your comment sections and, if you ban them, call you a liberal coward who "can't handle dissenting views."
These are also, likely, people who seem "normal" in their everyday lives. They wear the Internet like a white robe to spread hatred, intimidation, and threats of violence toward women and minorities. These are the people who are now even more emboldened. Be aware of who and what we're dealing with and give them your "empathy" with caution. Their goal is rarely, if ever, civil debate with us, even if they fake it at first. Most often, the goal is dominance posturing through harassment and intimidation.
But also know this: the weak point, like Trump's, are their delicate egos. In the way that Trump will pick Twitter fights with Rosie O'Donnell instead of domestic and international terrorists, know that "Social Justice Warriors" get under their thin skin like almost nothing else, precisely because we seek to marginalize their views as unacceptable in society.
Lastly, Wikileaks. In acts also cheered on and condoned by some on the left and right, we learned via hacked and shared non-public emails that Hillary Clinton likes The Good Wife and creme brulee. I hope that learning this information was worth the erosion of public/private boundaries.
Curiously, thousands of non-public Trump emails did not surface and were not posted. Which, seems fine. He seems like he'd have super good judgment about email security and also like he's really easy to work with, so I'm sure nothing embarrassing would have surfaced anyway.
On a serious note, going forward, I guess we will see for whom this standard for such invasions of privacy applies with Trump in charge. Perhaps the security of his private information will be safe. At least until he pisses off the wrong hacktivist.
Perhaps his seeming-ally Assange will provide a check on Trump's power, should he abuse it. That is, if we trust that Wikileaks is actually a non-partisan group. Which I don't.
What I think more likely is that it will primarily be Trump's political opponents and unempowered, marginalized folks who experience an increase in invasions of privacy.
AND ALSO, IS IT WEIRD THAT THE HACKED EMAILS AND WIKILEAKS INVOLVEMENT IN OUR ELECTION ARE NOT BIGGER STORIES? The media wrote 50,000 articles a day about the security of Hillary Clinton's emails so I thought they were super interested in the topic of information security BUT I GUESS I WAS WRONG.
(See above, re: cycle of outrage)
Today I consider how Trump's Electoral College win was a victory for the very worst of Internet Culture.
First, we have the man's social media presence itself. He was (is) notorious for taking to Twitter at all hours to peck out insults, demeaning nicknames he's bestowed upon people, and counter-attacks to any real or perceived slight against his eggshell-thin ego.
About a year ago, The New York Times ran a profile of how Trump had "mastered" Twitter. Twitter was (is) the means by which he tapped into many people's basest, cruelest selves, as the Internet is wont to do. Through the expression of aggression, braggadocio, and misinformation, he constantly made (makes) headlines.
People who've been in contact with Trump suggest that he craves attention. And, a characteristic of retweets and Twitter trends is that they are attention, no matter whether people are agreeing or not (He grabs them by the what? Wait, now David Duke is applauding him? Wait, what happened at Hamilton?). In fact, it's almost better for Trump if something is "controversial." Clickbait, as we know, pays in Internetland (both financially, to the media that support it - and to Trump's hunger for attention). What seems to matter to Trump is that Trump never stops trending.
We have to develop better strategies for covering Trump in the Internet age.
His Twitter feed, especially during the election, was a constant stream of content for us to be outraged by, distracting from the previous outrage of five minutes ago, so nobody seemed to notice that he is never, ultimately, held accountable. We stay in a constant state of outrage, with no relief.
Trump is not one to apologize, even in that mealy-mouthed non-apology way that's so common for deplorables. In true "alpha" form, at least as the "manosphere" understands these things, he doesn't correct misstatements. He flounces from one outrage to the next, and the press (and his followers) follow him because everything's about his ego and displays of dominance.
That needs to stop. We, and people with platforms in the media especially, need to disrupt the outrage-outrage-outrage cycle. I'm not sure how, but awareness seems to be a critical component here, because it seems many people are lacking even that.
Example strategy I use in blogging: From time to time, a Trump-like commenter will venture here to engage in outrage-outrage-outrage agendas of their own. One time many years ago, an anti-gay man was promoting at his own blog false anti-gay propaganda published by a hate group. He then began commenting here. So, I wrote a blog post (probably too earnestly, given who I was dealing with) addressing the falsehoods in the propaganda piece and invited him to address my commentary. He never did.
I then articulated a specific condition for him: If he wanted our conversations to continue at my blog, he had to first answer for his complicity in spreading anti-gay propaganda. Instead of doing so, he kept trying to comment here, jumping from one outrageous anti-gay tirade to another, hoping I'd be so offended-distracted that I wouldn't notice he was violating a boundary I had set for him and hoping people wouldn't notice that he never answered for his role in spreading anti-gay propaganda. (I didn't ban him. When I set the boundary and he violated it, I would simply delete his comments that didn't address the propaganda. He eventually slunk away.)
Trump needs to be treated in a similar way, I think, however the fuck we do that to a President.
Who or what will be the voice that repeatedly says, "Wait, let's back up to this pussy-grabbing, shall we?" or "Please clarify this Muslim registry plan." A major media outlet or website should keep a tally of his lies and offenses, as well as what, if anything, he has done to apologize or atone for them. We cannot stay in this cycle of escalating, continual outrage.
Secondly, on the misinformation front, a Buzzfeed analysis showed that fake news generated more engagement on Facebook than did news from mainstream sources. And, look, I get it. We're in "anti-Establishment" times. People distrust the mainstream press, and often for legitimate reasons. When that happens, they turn to alternate sources, no matter their political beliefs. People get "had" by both conservative- and left-leaning articles.
Here are my strategies for dealing with this issue (which Facebook claims to be addressing): (a) If I notice someone posting fake news, I will let them know (sometimes with a link to Snopes, if available); (b) I check Snopes or Politifact; (c) I check other news sources by doing a "Google News" search for the topic at hand; and (d) if I'm reading what is clearly clickbait (and you can often tell from the title and/or content) I don't share it, because sharing monetizes it. As Internet users, many of us can take active roles in confronting fake news and propaganda when we see it in our social networks.
Third, we saw the proliferation of white nationalist, racist, xenophobic, anti-feminist, and misogynistic online communities, serving as outlets for white male aggrievement regarding their perceived loss of status in a "PC world gone mad." Now commonly (euphemistically) called the "alt-right," Echidne (are you reading her? you should) documents the alternate set of "facts" under which denizens of these forums operate.
One of the alt-right's leaders, Steve Bannon, is a right-hand man to Trump. I will discuss this in a forthcoming post, but remember: many of these misogynistic white supremacists do not live the same reality as liberals and progressives and they are beholden to no rules of civility that are purported to exist in civil society. When they go low and we go high, they count on that and exploit it.
They harass and threaten women and minorities online. They "troll for the lulz." They largely aren't ashamed if they're called bigots, even if their "cuck" allies might be. They'll leave flaming piles of dog shit in your comment sections and, if you ban them, call you a liberal coward who "can't handle dissenting views."
These are also, likely, people who seem "normal" in their everyday lives. They wear the Internet like a white robe to spread hatred, intimidation, and threats of violence toward women and minorities. These are the people who are now even more emboldened. Be aware of who and what we're dealing with and give them your "empathy" with caution. Their goal is rarely, if ever, civil debate with us, even if they fake it at first. Most often, the goal is dominance posturing through harassment and intimidation.
But also know this: the weak point, like Trump's, are their delicate egos. In the way that Trump will pick Twitter fights with Rosie O'Donnell instead of domestic and international terrorists, know that "Social Justice Warriors" get under their thin skin like almost nothing else, precisely because we seek to marginalize their views as unacceptable in society.
Lastly, Wikileaks. In acts also cheered on and condoned by some on the left and right, we learned via hacked and shared non-public emails that Hillary Clinton likes The Good Wife and creme brulee. I hope that learning this information was worth the erosion of public/private boundaries.
Curiously, thousands of non-public Trump emails did not surface and were not posted. Which, seems fine. He seems like he'd have super good judgment about email security and also like he's really easy to work with, so I'm sure nothing embarrassing would have surfaced anyway.
On a serious note, going forward, I guess we will see for whom this standard for such invasions of privacy applies with Trump in charge. Perhaps the security of his private information will be safe. At least until he pisses off the wrong hacktivist.
Perhaps his seeming-ally Assange will provide a check on Trump's power, should he abuse it. That is, if we trust that Wikileaks is actually a non-partisan group. Which I don't.
What I think more likely is that it will primarily be Trump's political opponents and unempowered, marginalized folks who experience an increase in invasions of privacy.
AND ALSO, IS IT WEIRD THAT THE HACKED EMAILS AND WIKILEAKS INVOLVEMENT IN OUR ELECTION ARE NOT BIGGER STORIES? The media wrote 50,000 articles a day about the security of Hillary Clinton's emails so I thought they were super interested in the topic of information security BUT I GUESS I WAS WRONG.
(See above, re: cycle of outrage)
Monday, November 28, 2016
Election 2016 Fallout Part 7: On the Non-Pragmatic Left
(7) On the "non-pragmatic" left.
First things first, this post was originally going to be about what I was calling "the far left." But, I'm not sure the people I'm talking about are actually more "left" or more progressive than Clinton supporters. Then, in light of the various rounds of "Hillary Clinton's pandering to identity politics lost her the election" think pieces, I was going to call them "the non-identity left," but of course that movement, too, is about identity, even if invisibly so (implicitly white, male, cis, hetero).
After more thought, the group I think I'm more accurately talking about is the non-pragmatic left. That is, people who do not seem to comprehend that in reality:
Example from pop culture: In the re-imagined mini-series Battlestar Galactica, Laura Roslin is faced with an immediate moral dilemma soon after she is sworn in as President. Various human survivors are floating around in spaceships after the Cylons launched a massive surprise attack. The Cylons have found the human fleet and could very well wipe them out with their superior technology. Only some of the human ships have technology that would allow them to flee, and the human military doesn't have the capacity to defend all of the human ships. Nor can the ships with better technology take on and support all the people from the older ships.
And so, Roslin is presented with the choice: Does she order all of the human ships to stay and fight together, possibly resulting in all of the remaining humans dying? Or, does she order the ships capable of leaving to do so, while leaving the other ships behind?
Neither option is "perfect." They both actually suck. People will die either way and people could also have valid critiques no matter which option is chosen. That's the tragedy inherent in the situation. There's no ideal outcome. When history gets re-told on the BSG equivalent of Fox News or US Uncut, Roslin could come out looking like a heartless monster either way (unless she were a white nationalist, then she'd be called "dapper." Ha ha, fuck you very much): "Reckless Roslin decides to stay, mass casualties ensue!" or "Cowardly Laura flees, innocents die!"
I think we must always render valid critiques of political leaders' choices when merited. But, I say that with the recognition that political leaders are oftentimes, in the real world, faced with "no good solution" problems.
With this recognition, it is evident to me how a long history of public service can, with framing, become a massive liability in our political climate. Anti-establishment sentiments run high, and I'm not sure this sentiment is particularly new or unique to our times. Perhaps every generation needs to see for itself that being "an outsider" (ha!) doesn't render leaders capable of contriving perfect solutions to problems that have no perfect solutions.
I'm not claiming Clinton should not ever be validly critiqued or that every situation she was in was as tragic as the one President Roslin experienced. (And, I'm realllllly not here to re-litigate all the Clinton conspiracies and grievances.) My larger points are that situations are usually more complicated than people give leaders credit for and the vast majority of us are operating from an information deficit about the full range of facts anyway.
And, in case this post sounds particularly harsh to people I might be naturally allied with otherwise, here too is a larger context.
During the past 18 months, I've probably blocked more Bernie Sanders supporters than Trump supporters on Twitter. I've been called a "Hillbot." A "shill." I was called "salty af" for critiquing Sanders' Pope-visit during the Democratic Primary. Because it's really cool how some on the far left can overlook how the Pope is the leader of one of the most sexist, anti-trans, anti-gay Establishments in the world, but could forgive Hillary Clinton for literally nothing.
I've had teenage Bernie fans practically cry in rage-disbelief at me, "But how could you support HER?" taking it for granted that Bernie is 100% a saint and Hillary is 100% corrupt. Many seemed ignorant of decades of unfair smears against her. I've been told I was condescending for expressing fear that third party voters would serve as spoilers this year, as in 2000, when I discussed my regrettable Ralph Nader vote.
Over the months, I had run-ins with people on the far left who wanted to see Trump defeated but who wouldn't support Hillary Clinton, the only person with a realistic chance to do so. I watched in disbelief as even some major feminist sites played the "both sides are just as bad" game or refused to take sides. Someone at a popular feminist site even took Clinton's win for granted, predicting that fifty years from now, "We’ll hang our heads and think, 'we were there when' we elected a candidate who killed thousands, and called her a feminist to boot."
Jill Stein and Susan Sarandon suggested that Clinton would actually be worse than Trump.
And.... here we fucking are.
Melissa Batchelor Warnke recently noted in the LA Times:
For instance, I've seen this happen too many times to count: a popular feminist makes a mistake on Twitter or in pop culture or in a blogpost and, instead of just critiquing her, it's like BAM we have a half dozen lefty articles saying "ugh, aren't we all so done with her?" and then.... whether or not you're "done" with her becomes a lefty purity test/virtue pose.
I can't. I just fucking can't.
Forget having empathy or compassion for bigots and conservatives. We don't even have it for each other on the left, let alone for a flawed woman like Hillary Clinton who worked her fucking ass off her entire life and who had the temerity to run for President while not being a politically-pure snowflake. I don't even exonerate myself from this compassion-lacking group, because goddamn, this shit is hard and frustrating.
I mean, it pisses me right off that, heavens to Betsy, the thought of dirtying one's pristine hands by voting for a competent woman who who had made mistakes, over a garbage nightmare candidate gave some on the left too bad a case of the ickies. It's not just that some people couldn't privately vote for Clinton, they had to not vote for her and then virtue pose about it all over social media. Or, they wrote in Bernie. Voted 3rd Party. Didn't vote at all. Voted for a giant meteor strike to kill us all instead (ha ha, fuck you).
Like, if there was ever a time for the left to unite..... this was it, folks! But no.
Now, many of these same leftists seem to be largely horrified. They're "in shock." Some didn't actually vote for Clinton but now want the Electoral College to make Clinton President because ... ummmm?
It's also said that the perfect is the enemy of the good. I believe that, but by the gods you will never convince me that either Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein were ever "the perfect" in this conversation. And even if they had never made mistakes in their immaculate lives, had they become President they too would have been confronted with difficult choices and would then likely be lambasted by non-pragmatists for being "sell-outs," as well.
Politics is compromise, politics is compromise, politics is fucking hard-ass compromise. We can and should debate all day about what should be compromised, but to ever get anything accomplished we have to compromise.
Non-pragmatists critique those of us who acknowledge the role of compromise in politics and vote for the "lesser evil." They decry what "lesser evilism politics" have wrought. What these people overlook is that every politician ever will always be "a lesser evil" because, NEWSFLASH, no human is perfect and, repeat after me, politics. is. compromise.
What I can say is that the non-pragmatic left will likely now get none of what they wanted instead of some of what they wanted. So, that was productive.
CORRECTION. They will get two things they wanted: a complete unwillingness to compromise and extremism. So, there's your fuckin' silver lining.
First things first, this post was originally going to be about what I was calling "the far left." But, I'm not sure the people I'm talking about are actually more "left" or more progressive than Clinton supporters. Then, in light of the various rounds of "Hillary Clinton's pandering to identity politics lost her the election" think pieces, I was going to call them "the non-identity left," but of course that movement, too, is about identity, even if invisibly so (implicitly white, male, cis, hetero).
After more thought, the group I think I'm more accurately talking about is the non-pragmatic left. That is, people who do not seem to comprehend that in reality:
(a) people enter into positions of power while inheriting a set of circumstances that they usually are not responsible for creating - such as foreign entanglements, human rights crises, budget deficits - but nonetheless must respond to; and
(b) being in a position of power necessarily means making some decisions that will hurt people and, yes, perhaps even lead to some people's deaths no matter what decision is ultimately made.In the real world, one cannot simply say, "Wait, I don't like these circumstances or possible outcomes so I'm just going to go back to a previous save point and do things differently so I arrive at a different present set of circumstances so I can make a decision that corresponds with my political purity test."
Example from pop culture: In the re-imagined mini-series Battlestar Galactica, Laura Roslin is faced with an immediate moral dilemma soon after she is sworn in as President. Various human survivors are floating around in spaceships after the Cylons launched a massive surprise attack. The Cylons have found the human fleet and could very well wipe them out with their superior technology. Only some of the human ships have technology that would allow them to flee, and the human military doesn't have the capacity to defend all of the human ships. Nor can the ships with better technology take on and support all the people from the older ships.
And so, Roslin is presented with the choice: Does she order all of the human ships to stay and fight together, possibly resulting in all of the remaining humans dying? Or, does she order the ships capable of leaving to do so, while leaving the other ships behind?
Neither option is "perfect." They both actually suck. People will die either way and people could also have valid critiques no matter which option is chosen. That's the tragedy inherent in the situation. There's no ideal outcome. When history gets re-told on the BSG equivalent of Fox News or US Uncut, Roslin could come out looking like a heartless monster either way (unless she were a white nationalist, then she'd be called "dapper." Ha ha, fuck you very much): "Reckless Roslin decides to stay, mass casualties ensue!" or "Cowardly Laura flees, innocents die!"
I think we must always render valid critiques of political leaders' choices when merited. But, I say that with the recognition that political leaders are oftentimes, in the real world, faced with "no good solution" problems.
With this recognition, it is evident to me how a long history of public service can, with framing, become a massive liability in our political climate. Anti-establishment sentiments run high, and I'm not sure this sentiment is particularly new or unique to our times. Perhaps every generation needs to see for itself that being "an outsider" (ha!) doesn't render leaders capable of contriving perfect solutions to problems that have no perfect solutions.
I'm not claiming Clinton should not ever be validly critiqued or that every situation she was in was as tragic as the one President Roslin experienced. (And, I'm realllllly not here to re-litigate all the Clinton conspiracies and grievances.) My larger points are that situations are usually more complicated than people give leaders credit for and the vast majority of us are operating from an information deficit about the full range of facts anyway.
And, in case this post sounds particularly harsh to people I might be naturally allied with otherwise, here too is a larger context.
During the past 18 months, I've probably blocked more Bernie Sanders supporters than Trump supporters on Twitter. I've been called a "Hillbot." A "shill." I was called "salty af" for critiquing Sanders' Pope-visit during the Democratic Primary. Because it's really cool how some on the far left can overlook how the Pope is the leader of one of the most sexist, anti-trans, anti-gay Establishments in the world, but could forgive Hillary Clinton for literally nothing.
I've had teenage Bernie fans practically cry in rage-disbelief at me, "But how could you support HER?" taking it for granted that Bernie is 100% a saint and Hillary is 100% corrupt. Many seemed ignorant of decades of unfair smears against her. I've been told I was condescending for expressing fear that third party voters would serve as spoilers this year, as in 2000, when I discussed my regrettable Ralph Nader vote.
Over the months, I had run-ins with people on the far left who wanted to see Trump defeated but who wouldn't support Hillary Clinton, the only person with a realistic chance to do so. I watched in disbelief as even some major feminist sites played the "both sides are just as bad" game or refused to take sides. Someone at a popular feminist site even took Clinton's win for granted, predicting that fifty years from now, "We’ll hang our heads and think, 'we were there when' we elected a candidate who killed thousands, and called her a feminist to boot."
Jill Stein and Susan Sarandon suggested that Clinton would actually be worse than Trump.
And.... here we fucking are.
Melissa Batchelor Warnke recently noted in the LA Times:
"I am deeply sorry that Hillary Clinton lost. The left made many mistakes; among them was not having the gall to stand up to the far left. The far left was so rigid in its orthodoxy that it repeatedly punished those trying to strategize about electing the Democratic candidate with self-serving accusations that those who disagreed with their tactics were racists, sexists or sellouts. We let the left of the left have its way.She further writes that "lefty politics" have become a "claustrophobic minefield." And, it's hard for me to disagree, being in the blogging game for about 10 years.
And the far left wanted to be morally superior more than it wanted to stop Donald Trump."
For instance, I've seen this happen too many times to count: a popular feminist makes a mistake on Twitter or in pop culture or in a blogpost and, instead of just critiquing her, it's like BAM we have a half dozen lefty articles saying "ugh, aren't we all so done with her?" and then.... whether or not you're "done" with her becomes a lefty purity test/virtue pose.
I can't. I just fucking can't.
Forget having empathy or compassion for bigots and conservatives. We don't even have it for each other on the left, let alone for a flawed woman like Hillary Clinton who worked her fucking ass off her entire life and who had the temerity to run for President while not being a politically-pure snowflake. I don't even exonerate myself from this compassion-lacking group, because goddamn, this shit is hard and frustrating.
I mean, it pisses me right off that, heavens to Betsy, the thought of dirtying one's pristine hands by voting for a competent woman who who had made mistakes, over a garbage nightmare candidate gave some on the left too bad a case of the ickies. It's not just that some people couldn't privately vote for Clinton, they had to not vote for her and then virtue pose about it all over social media. Or, they wrote in Bernie. Voted 3rd Party. Didn't vote at all. Voted for a giant meteor strike to kill us all instead (ha ha, fuck you).
Like, if there was ever a time for the left to unite..... this was it, folks! But no.
Now, many of these same leftists seem to be largely horrified. They're "in shock." Some didn't actually vote for Clinton but now want the Electoral College to make Clinton President because ... ummmm?
It's also said that the perfect is the enemy of the good. I believe that, but by the gods you will never convince me that either Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein were ever "the perfect" in this conversation. And even if they had never made mistakes in their immaculate lives, had they become President they too would have been confronted with difficult choices and would then likely be lambasted by non-pragmatists for being "sell-outs," as well.
Politics is compromise, politics is compromise, politics is fucking hard-ass compromise. We can and should debate all day about what should be compromised, but to ever get anything accomplished we have to compromise.
Non-pragmatists critique those of us who acknowledge the role of compromise in politics and vote for the "lesser evil." They decry what "lesser evilism politics" have wrought. What these people overlook is that every politician ever will always be "a lesser evil" because, NEWSFLASH, no human is perfect and, repeat after me, politics. is. compromise.
What I can say is that the non-pragmatic left will likely now get none of what they wanted instead of some of what they wanted. So, that was productive.
CORRECTION. They will get two things they wanted: a complete unwillingness to compromise and extremism. So, there's your fuckin' silver lining.
 |
| My preferred method of virtue posturing |
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Election 2016 Fallout Parts 5 and 6: On Misogny and White Women
(5) On misogyny.
It is true that more people voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump, which gives me hope. But hoo-boy the poetic (in)justice of the system not protecting us from a predatory man governing us without the consent of the governed.
The misogyny of Trump and many of his supporters could fill volumes. I will grieve for what Hillary Clinton (and we, vicariously) had to endure, probably for the rest of my life. And to lose, in the electoral college anyway, to this man?
Donald Trump is a privileged, predatory, incompetent man who fell up. His vastly-more-qualified female opponent was pushed down while doing everything in high heels, backwards, and over towers of double-standards.
When you see enlightened dudebros in your lives doing their hot takes about how Clinton was the wrong choice because she was "the establishment candidate" you can tell them that when Rape Culture and Patriarchy are two of this county's most enduring establishments, electing Hillary Clinton was never "the status quo" option.
(6) On white women.
Jeeeeesus, the intersections on this one.
This loss is largely on white people, who disproportionately supported Trump while minority groups rejected him. We also saw white women voting against their own interests for a racist misogynist candidate.
Despite that, I also refuse to demonize white women more than white men.
I mean, really, the pieces that instantly came out about white women "selling out the sisterhood"? Yeah, they did. And people are surprised by this why, again? Oh, right, because nobody fucking listens to feminists, that's why. EVEN THOUGH it's the sad lesson from The Handmaid's Tale (1985): The very worst, most patriarchal, racist dystopia would not exist without the complicity of privileged classes of women.
Men alone cannot make racism and sexism "work." It is always a tangled knot. Forgive the circularity here, but many women hate women because women are hated. White women have a long history of benefiting via their kinship and marriages to racist, misogynist white men. It pays to be a cool non-feminist girl, for a time anyway. ("Trump can grab my pussy," boasted one Trump supporter, who both completely misunderstands the consent element of things and perhaps thinks her offering will insulate her from even worse misogyny than what she sees around her, inflicted on "other" women).
And this sweet, fresh hell in The Nation? In it, the author argues that white working class women in particular rejected Clinton because Clinton spent too much time cozying up to Lena Dunham and Big Feminism, whatever the fuck that is, when she should have been promoting:
Sure, everyone has their theories about whose fault this is.
What seems clear is that white men are almost completely being given up on as people who can contribute to the electorate as anything other than angry beings who must be coddled and centered lest they elect nightmare authoritarians to make life hell for everyone else.
Example: An actual think piece in The New York Times, which I won't link to but is titled "The End of Identity Liberalism," sneers at the "failure" of liberalism's "narcissistic" "identity politics." Here's my summary of this piece and the dozens like them I've seen: As Trump fills his cabinet with KKK-supported white guys, white guys everywhere think liberalism has failed them because liberals talk too much about race and gender.
And so, the twin narratives about white people are that we ought to empathize with white male feelings of aggrievement while being disgusted at white female complicity. That, my friends, is just another fucked-up misogynistic fallout from this shit-show of an election that I refuse to indulge.
It is true that more people voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump, which gives me hope. But hoo-boy the poetic (in)justice of the system not protecting us from a predatory man governing us without the consent of the governed.
The misogyny of Trump and many of his supporters could fill volumes. I will grieve for what Hillary Clinton (and we, vicariously) had to endure, probably for the rest of my life. And to lose, in the electoral college anyway, to this man?
Donald Trump is a privileged, predatory, incompetent man who fell up. His vastly-more-qualified female opponent was pushed down while doing everything in high heels, backwards, and over towers of double-standards.
When you see enlightened dudebros in your lives doing their hot takes about how Clinton was the wrong choice because she was "the establishment candidate" you can tell them that when Rape Culture and Patriarchy are two of this county's most enduring establishments, electing Hillary Clinton was never "the status quo" option.
(6) On white women.
Jeeeeesus, the intersections on this one.
This loss is largely on white people, who disproportionately supported Trump while minority groups rejected him. We also saw white women voting against their own interests for a racist misogynist candidate.
Despite that, I also refuse to demonize white women more than white men.
I mean, really, the pieces that instantly came out about white women "selling out the sisterhood"? Yeah, they did. And people are surprised by this why, again? Oh, right, because nobody fucking listens to feminists, that's why. EVEN THOUGH it's the sad lesson from The Handmaid's Tale (1985): The very worst, most patriarchal, racist dystopia would not exist without the complicity of privileged classes of women.
Men alone cannot make racism and sexism "work." It is always a tangled knot. Forgive the circularity here, but many women hate women because women are hated. White women have a long history of benefiting via their kinship and marriages to racist, misogynist white men. It pays to be a cool non-feminist girl, for a time anyway. ("Trump can grab my pussy," boasted one Trump supporter, who both completely misunderstands the consent element of things and perhaps thinks her offering will insulate her from even worse misogyny than what she sees around her, inflicted on "other" women).
And this sweet, fresh hell in The Nation? In it, the author argues that white working class women in particular rejected Clinton because Clinton spent too much time cozying up to Lena Dunham and Big Feminism, whatever the fuck that is, when she should have been promoting:
...[A] robust economic agenda focused on women’s needs: a $15 minimum wage, universal child care and pre-K, paid family leave, free college, and tough laws that crack down on wage theft and guarantee fair scheduling and equal pay for women."You know, the very policies Clinton supported, to varying degrees, had anyone in the media stopped talking about her emails for 10,000 straight days and actually fucking covered them.
Sure, everyone has their theories about whose fault this is.
What seems clear is that white men are almost completely being given up on as people who can contribute to the electorate as anything other than angry beings who must be coddled and centered lest they elect nightmare authoritarians to make life hell for everyone else.
Example: An actual think piece in The New York Times, which I won't link to but is titled "The End of Identity Liberalism," sneers at the "failure" of liberalism's "narcissistic" "identity politics." Here's my summary of this piece and the dozens like them I've seen: As Trump fills his cabinet with KKK-supported white guys, white guys everywhere think liberalism has failed them because liberals talk too much about race and gender.
And so, the twin narratives about white people are that we ought to empathize with white male feelings of aggrievement while being disgusted at white female complicity. That, my friends, is just another fucked-up misogynistic fallout from this shit-show of an election that I refuse to indulge.
Monday, November 21, 2016
Election 2016 Fallout Part 4: Normalization
(4) On normalizing Trump.
Here is a reminder that the normalization of Trump started during the primaries, continued during the general, and will escalate in the coming days, weeks, and months. Never forget:
We must resist this normalization, always.
That upchuck you taste in your mouth every time you hear the phrase "President-elect Trump"? Never take antacid for that. Your reaction is what it is for a reason and that reason is self-preservation.
Which brings me to the Huffington Post, that stalwart establishment of new media.
During general election season, HuffPo correctly added an editorial note to articles featuring Trump, highlighting his racism, misogyny, and xenophobia. On Nov. 9, 2016, they announced they would stop doing so, suggesting that to call a spade a spade would taint the legitimacy of the Presidency in a way similar to how birtherism tainted Obama's tenure. Yes, seriously, they found it appropriate to make a most deplorable moral equivalence:
Even if Trump does some good while President, that does not negate the harm he has done during the 18 months of his deplorable campaign, the fear he has instilled, and the bigots who have mobilized in his name. He has done nothing to atone for that. He has not owned the pain he has caused. He has not apologized for anything. He is stacking his cabinet with unrepetant racists and xenophobes, just like we knew he would. Trump is a predator dumpster fire of a person who is 70 and will not now magically become a better, classy guy.
And god, the cruelty.
"For all her faults" was Hillary Clinton's middle name for the past 18 months because we could forgive her for nothing. But, for a man - this man- all is instantly forgiven, erased, white-washed so we can "give him a chance." Wouldn't want to ruin a promising young man's career, after all. Can't we all just get along and see what happens?
No. I reject this narrative. I cannot stress enough how profoundly I want to be excluded from this narrative.
(Also, FML if Trump starts rounding up critics. Nice knowing ya'll!)
Lastly, remember that this normalization of Trump will make other Republicans who are no less deplorable, yet who are more subtle in their bigotries, seem normal, decent, and better by comparison.
Remember that they are not.
Here is a reminder that the normalization of Trump started during the primaries, continued during the general, and will escalate in the coming days, weeks, and months. Never forget:
Remember how cute this was? pic.twitter.com/7Ritk6QacX— Fannie Wolfe (@fanniesroom) November 9, 2016
We must resist this normalization, always.
That upchuck you taste in your mouth every time you hear the phrase "President-elect Trump"? Never take antacid for that. Your reaction is what it is for a reason and that reason is self-preservation.
Which brings me to the Huffington Post, that stalwart establishment of new media.
During general election season, HuffPo correctly added an editorial note to articles featuring Trump, highlighting his racism, misogyny, and xenophobia. On Nov. 9, 2016, they announced they would stop doing so, suggesting that to call a spade a spade would taint the legitimacy of the Presidency in a way similar to how birtherism tainted Obama's tenure. Yes, seriously, they found it appropriate to make a most deplorable moral equivalence:
"....[T]hroughout the entire administration of Barack Obama, a segment of the Republican coalition, led by Trump, questioned the very legitimacy of his presidency, breaking from a long-held American tradition.Nope to the nope nope nope-ity fucking nope.
We’re not going to do the same. Whether we like it or not ― and let’s continue to be honest, we don’t ― he won the election. It was a win that was at once foreseeable ― yet one we failed badly to see.
Where we find fault in how Trump governs, we won’t hesitate to call it out. If he encroaches on the norms of our democracy, if he targets minority groups or other vulnerable elements of the population, we won’t hesitate to say so loudly and clearly. If he follows his worst instincts and caters to the klatch of white supremacists who endorsed him, we won’t flinch from calling him racist. But we have hope that the man we saw on the trail at his worst moments is not the man who will enter the White House.
If Trump can reverse the economic inequality he decried during his campaign, bring back manufacturing jobs, find a way to give people better healthcare for less money, invest in infrastructure to stimulate the economy and otherwise make the country great, we’ll cheer him on. We’ll find out."
Even if Trump does some good while President, that does not negate the harm he has done during the 18 months of his deplorable campaign, the fear he has instilled, and the bigots who have mobilized in his name. He has done nothing to atone for that. He has not owned the pain he has caused. He has not apologized for anything. He is stacking his cabinet with unrepetant racists and xenophobes, just like we knew he would. Trump is a predator dumpster fire of a person who is 70 and will not now magically become a better, classy guy.
And god, the cruelty.
"For all her faults" was Hillary Clinton's middle name for the past 18 months because we could forgive her for nothing. But, for a man - this man- all is instantly forgiven, erased, white-washed so we can "give him a chance." Wouldn't want to ruin a promising young man's career, after all. Can't we all just get along and see what happens?
No. I reject this narrative. I cannot stress enough how profoundly I want to be excluded from this narrative.
(Also, FML if Trump starts rounding up critics. Nice knowing ya'll!)
Lastly, remember that this normalization of Trump will make other Republicans who are no less deplorable, yet who are more subtle in their bigotries, seem normal, decent, and better by comparison.
Remember that they are not.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Election Fallout Part 3: On the White Working Class
3) On the white working class.
I recognize two related truths: (A) Money is power, and (B) Improvement of economic conditions, by itself, does not make bigoted people stop being bigots.
Example: one of the most wealthy people I know, someone with a literal vault of gold bars, is still sending chain emails about Obama being a secret Muslim terrorist who isn't even a US citizen. Why? Because she's been surrounded by white Republicans for decades who don't want to hurt her feelings by calling her or her views racist. We, probably all of us to varying degrees, value relationships with people more than the risk of alienating them, offending them, pissing them off, or "causing a scene," by calling them on their shit. (See also, The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck)
Disclaimer, because I think it's important: I like much of what Bernie Sanders stands for. Economic inequality is one of the great injustices of our day.
One, of the.
That said, let's take Bernie Sanders' recent New York Times op-ed. As if written fresh off the Democratic Primary campaign trail, he offered us essentially the same oft-repeated, re-purposed stump speech he gave at rally after rally:
Speaking for myself, I didn't see myself reflected in his message. I never know quite what he means by working people, regular people, or ordinary Americans, but I always come away thinking he's talking about white blue collar workers, probably male.
Take a recent Tweet:
It is a tricky, nuanced take. Of course not all white working class people are bigots, but it is irresponsible for a popular politician to try to capture the argument on Twitter. It came off to me as, intentional or not, stoking the embers of white populist rage.
The Democratic Establishment is to blame for all your problems, white people, but Bernie alone understands and can fix it! Which, sounds familiar doesn't it?
His goal seems to be to reach out to people who didn't vote, who voted for a 3rd party, or voted for Trump. Or, to people who are politically apathetic. Or, to people who rejected or feel alienated by "elite" Democrats. Or, to people who, if they are politically engaged, are pissed off for vague reasons they don't, can't, or won't fully articulate.
Consider Bernie's anti-Democratic Party message in light of recent advice on the best ways we, the populace, can reach out to our Congresspeople. We must be respectful, professional, brief, and prepared. We should email or call under some very specific guidelines. The bottom line: we as citizens must make our voices heard by reaching out to the people who ostensibly serve us.
Nowhere in this guide do I see the advice: "Elect an authoritarian nightmare who will wreak destruction upon women, immigrants, and people of color." But goddamn what a white thing to do and what a goddamn white rage-privilege thing to excuse it.
And so, I offer two final propositions:
The subtext to all of the white working class fetishism, and not just limited to Sanders, is that we should put implicit good faith trust in white working class people that they are not bigots or that, if they are, better jobs will make them not be.
But, and here's what I think scares people like me: You know what's more dangerous than a poor bigot, probably? A bigot with more money and a better job.
Yes, let's lift all boats economically. But, I reject the notion that we should put kid gloves on and coddle the white working class because it hurts their feelings when they're called bigots. It is not "elite" to call out bigotry. It's self-defense. White working class Trump supporters alone did not put Trump in the White House, but many of them specifically voted for a man who boasted about getting rid of "political correctness," a man who said telling the truth was more important than people's feelings, as he enabled neo-nazis throughout the country.
If white liberals and progressives want to abandon marginalized people and our complicated "identity politics" in favor of walking on eggshells around the delicate sensibilities of fragile-yet-abusive white people, we will most certainly lose in 2020, as well, because you can deal me (and likely millions of others) out.
I recognize two related truths: (A) Money is power, and (B) Improvement of economic conditions, by itself, does not make bigoted people stop being bigots.
Example: one of the most wealthy people I know, someone with a literal vault of gold bars, is still sending chain emails about Obama being a secret Muslim terrorist who isn't even a US citizen. Why? Because she's been surrounded by white Republicans for decades who don't want to hurt her feelings by calling her or her views racist. We, probably all of us to varying degrees, value relationships with people more than the risk of alienating them, offending them, pissing them off, or "causing a scene," by calling them on their shit. (See also, The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck)
Disclaimer, because I think it's important: I like much of what Bernie Sanders stands for. Economic inequality is one of the great injustices of our day.
One, of the.
That said, let's take Bernie Sanders' recent New York Times op-ed. As if written fresh off the Democratic Primary campaign trail, he offered us essentially the same oft-repeated, re-purposed stump speech he gave at rally after rally:
"I am saddened, but not surprised, by the outcome. It is no shock to me that millions of people who voted for Mr. Trump did so because they are sick and tired of the economic, political and media status quo."Okay, but guess what, Bernie? I'm sick of the status quo too, but I didn't vote for a nightmare candidate. So why do I feel like you don't have empathy for me or the millions of other people who rejected your message? Why did many black voters, who consistently backed Clinton over you, reject your message?
Speaking for myself, I didn't see myself reflected in his message. I never know quite what he means by working people, regular people, or ordinary Americans, but I always come away thinking he's talking about white blue collar workers, probably male.
Take a recent Tweet:
I come from the white working class too and (a) Hillary Clinton spoke to me just fine, and (b) it would at this juncture be helpful for Bernie to consider that many of us fled the white working class because of abuse inflicted upon us for, in some way, being different.I come from the white working class, and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to the people where I came from.— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 14, 2016
It is a tricky, nuanced take. Of course not all white working class people are bigots, but it is irresponsible for a popular politician to try to capture the argument on Twitter. It came off to me as, intentional or not, stoking the embers of white populist rage.
The Democratic Establishment is to blame for all your problems, white people, but Bernie alone understands and can fix it! Which, sounds familiar doesn't it?
His goal seems to be to reach out to people who didn't vote, who voted for a 3rd party, or voted for Trump. Or, to people who are politically apathetic. Or, to people who rejected or feel alienated by "elite" Democrats. Or, to people who, if they are politically engaged, are pissed off for vague reasons they don't, can't, or won't fully articulate.
Consider Bernie's anti-Democratic Party message in light of recent advice on the best ways we, the populace, can reach out to our Congresspeople. We must be respectful, professional, brief, and prepared. We should email or call under some very specific guidelines. The bottom line: we as citizens must make our voices heard by reaching out to the people who ostensibly serve us.
Nowhere in this guide do I see the advice: "Elect an authoritarian nightmare who will wreak destruction upon women, immigrants, and people of color." But goddamn what a white thing to do and what a goddamn white rage-privilege thing to excuse it.
And so, I offer two final propositions:
A) Many people view the Democratic Party, especially now, as a firewall between ourselves and horrific misogynistic, white nationalist nightmare politicians.
B) That firewall should therefore not now be destroyed for the sake of making the Democratic Party more compelling to white people.People are hurting across the nation. This hurt includes, but is not limited to, working class white people. But, because white nationalism is one of the most enduring US Establishments, Bernie Sanders seems to want to tear down the Democratic Party and build it up as a white-working-class-centric institution and if that's not his aim he has a lot of work to do to make that more explicit.
The subtext to all of the white working class fetishism, and not just limited to Sanders, is that we should put implicit good faith trust in white working class people that they are not bigots or that, if they are, better jobs will make them not be.
But, and here's what I think scares people like me: You know what's more dangerous than a poor bigot, probably? A bigot with more money and a better job.
Yes, let's lift all boats economically. But, I reject the notion that we should put kid gloves on and coddle the white working class because it hurts their feelings when they're called bigots. It is not "elite" to call out bigotry. It's self-defense. White working class Trump supporters alone did not put Trump in the White House, but many of them specifically voted for a man who boasted about getting rid of "political correctness," a man who said telling the truth was more important than people's feelings, as he enabled neo-nazis throughout the country.
If white liberals and progressives want to abandon marginalized people and our complicated "identity politics" in favor of walking on eggshells around the delicate sensibilities of fragile-yet-abusive white people, we will most certainly lose in 2020, as well, because you can deal me (and likely millions of others) out.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Election 2016 Fallout Part 2: On Gaslighting
(2) On gaslighting.
Goddamn the gaslighting going on right now. It has come from all corners but here's where it hurts. If you're looking for insight into many minorities' and feminists' lack of enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders and socialist movements in general, look no further than his comment three days before the general election:
Alright, because I know it's coming and is related to the gaslighting, let's get one notion out of the way: I know some Berners believe he would have beaten Trump handily in a general election. I have serious doubts.
So you can cite the early polls showing that Sanders would have beaten Trump (as they showed Clinton beating Trump). And then let's all remember how inaccurate the polls proved to be once real life happened. Professional pollsters are currently stumped as to explanations. I really doubt a Bernie Bro who can't let go of the fact that his guy other than attributing it entirely to rigging has it All Figured Out (oh right, Bernie Math).
Two, Bernie was barely vetted by the media during the primaries, certainly as compared to Clinton, who has been vetted on the national stage for decades. Clinton herself barely went after him in the primaries so as to not alienate his fans. To think that Trump would have kept the kid gloves on when he was already throwing out a "Crazy Bernie" moniker is not reality-based.
Then there's that pesky fact that the literal KKK, neo-nazis, and even less explicitly-racist and anti-semitic whites support Trump. I suppose when a candidate doesn't believe bigotry is a big problem among the white working class, it's easy for him to discount the impact that bigotry might have on his chances.
Yet, Trump voters support him in part because they loathe the notion of "their" tax dollars going to, what they deem, "lazy minorities." So, if you tell me that significant numbers of the white working class would have voted for a Jewish socialist to make America great through the redistribution of (their) wealth ("to minorities") I would tell you that you probably haven't spent significant amounts of time among the white working class.
And I would say the same if you tried to tell me that white working class Trump voters would be on board with Black Lives Matter, pro-choice activism, equal pay for women, military opposition, anti-prison, pro-immigration, and tolerance of non-Christian religions if we just make these white people feel heard.
So, which issues get prioritized?
With the advice coming from the left and right that we all just need to empathize more with (white, male, aggrieved) working class folks, I think we know the answer to that.
And so I contend, if Sanders can't or won't acknowledge the racism and sexism among Trump supporters, he was never the right person for the job. People didn't vote for Trump in spite of his racism and sexism. Many voted for him because of it.
Why do I think this? Because we all have bigotries and biases and it takes continual work to examine that. I think that is especially true when people live in mostly-white enclaves who have little contact with people different from themselves. The solution is not to pretend that these bigotries don't exist. It's to acknowledge and confront these bigotries.
To quote Flavia: "The revolution will be intersectional or it will be bullshit." And in under no circumstances will it be had via socialist "class is the real struggle" gaslighting.
Goddamn the gaslighting going on right now. It has come from all corners but here's where it hurts. If you're looking for insight into many minorities' and feminists' lack of enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders and socialist movements in general, look no further than his comment three days before the general election:
I do not believe that most of the people who are thinking about voting for Mr. Trump are racist or sexist.— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 5, 2016
Alright, because I know it's coming and is related to the gaslighting, let's get one notion out of the way: I know some Berners believe he would have beaten Trump handily in a general election. I have serious doubts.
So you can cite the early polls showing that Sanders would have beaten Trump (as they showed Clinton beating Trump). And then let's all remember how inaccurate the polls proved to be once real life happened. Professional pollsters are currently stumped as to explanations. I really doubt a Bernie Bro who can't let go of the fact that his guy other than attributing it entirely to rigging has it All Figured Out (oh right, Bernie Math).
Two, Bernie was barely vetted by the media during the primaries, certainly as compared to Clinton, who has been vetted on the national stage for decades. Clinton herself barely went after him in the primaries so as to not alienate his fans. To think that Trump would have kept the kid gloves on when he was already throwing out a "Crazy Bernie" moniker is not reality-based.
Then there's that pesky fact that the literal KKK, neo-nazis, and even less explicitly-racist and anti-semitic whites support Trump. I suppose when a candidate doesn't believe bigotry is a big problem among the white working class, it's easy for him to discount the impact that bigotry might have on his chances.
Yet, Trump voters support him in part because they loathe the notion of "their" tax dollars going to, what they deem, "lazy minorities." So, if you tell me that significant numbers of the white working class would have voted for a Jewish socialist to make America great through the redistribution of (their) wealth ("to minorities") I would tell you that you probably haven't spent significant amounts of time among the white working class.
And I would say the same if you tried to tell me that white working class Trump voters would be on board with Black Lives Matter, pro-choice activism, equal pay for women, military opposition, anti-prison, pro-immigration, and tolerance of non-Christian religions if we just make these white people feel heard.
So, which issues get prioritized?
With the advice coming from the left and right that we all just need to empathize more with (white, male, aggrieved) working class folks, I think we know the answer to that.
And so I contend, if Sanders can't or won't acknowledge the racism and sexism among Trump supporters, he was never the right person for the job. People didn't vote for Trump in spite of his racism and sexism. Many voted for him because of it.
Why do I think this? Because we all have bigotries and biases and it takes continual work to examine that. I think that is especially true when people live in mostly-white enclaves who have little contact with people different from themselves. The solution is not to pretend that these bigotries don't exist. It's to acknowledge and confront these bigotries.
To quote Flavia: "The revolution will be intersectional or it will be bullshit." And in under no circumstances will it be had via socialist "class is the real struggle" gaslighting.
Monday, November 14, 2016
Election 2016 Fallout Part 1: On Bullying
Part 1 in a series of 9.
(1) On bullying.
I've seen a lot of white Trump voters on social media who are shocked, angered, and saddened that "intolerant liberals" are "bullying" them by calling them, or suggesting they are, bigots.
But, it's not limited to the right. Over the course of the election season, we saw various levels of even liberal hand-wringing about how Clinton supporters need to have more "empathy" for Trump supporters, largely coded as the (white, male, aggrieved) working class. The white working class, we are told, has "economic anxiety" and we mustn't judge them with our "elite liberal" sensibilities by calling them bigots.
Well, I'll talk more about that economic anxiety claim later this week. But, on the empathy/bullying front, I still contend, as I've contended for years, that the empathy must work both ways. For, we also have to remember that Trump is a bully-in-chief who ran a campaign premised upon name-calling, taunting, and aggression, which he has neither atoned nor apologized for. Indeed, he's already back on Twitter sounding off his grievances about the anti-Trump protests and media. People are so mean to him. So unfair.
So, while it is nice, I guess, that Trump supporters are taking a stand against bullying now that they feel they are being bullied, where were they for the past 18 months when their top guy was impulsively pecking out insults on his Twitter? Oh, right. They were celebrating his "tell it like it is" persona because they purportedly believe telling the "truth" is more important than coddling people's feelings.
Truth.
What a concept. Imagine if more people understood that a critical distinction exists between saying what one thinks the truth is versus what the truth actually is. Trump, for instance, might be "honest" in the sense that he says whatever is on his mind at the moment; but what's on his mind is not necessarily truth in any objective sense of the word.
Which leads to the hypocrisy of it all, via garbage fire Joe Walsh:
The "joke" within the first post is that liberals have overly-delicate feelings and can't handle the truth.
The argument within the second post is the threat: you damn well better not call us names, or we'll never vote for you again! That this also might be construed as a request to coddle the delicate feelings of bigots, who literally argue for safe spaces within the public discourse, does not seem to cross the bigot mind.
All of this is to say I'm suspicious of any demands to re-center the feelings of white people who have unexamined, defensive bigotry, whether these demands come from the left, right, center, media, or purportedly neutral parties. The Tolerance Trap of "you must tolerate my intolerance of you" is a real, fucked-up thing. But, listen, we actually don't have to be tolerant of all things all the time, particularly of opinions and people that degrade our dignity, just because people call us "intolerant" or mock our safe spaces or think we're mean when we express fear, hurt, or anger at injustice against us.
Drawing boundaries is, actually, a key point to being a feminist progressive.
I humbly offer this post as a resource, particularly for those who navigate conversations in which people request that you not call out bigotry when you see it. You might have noticed the Gaslight Extravaganza that's going on everywhere lately.
Name what is happening, if only to yourself, and know when you need to walk away for your own well-being. Note the hypocrisy. Note the double-standard. If Trump supporters and their liberal enablers are imploring to you that bigotry wasn't a factor in Trump's election, know that this claim can only be made with a straight face in communities with toxic, fucked-up power dynamics.
(1) On bullying.
I've seen a lot of white Trump voters on social media who are shocked, angered, and saddened that "intolerant liberals" are "bullying" them by calling them, or suggesting they are, bigots.
But, it's not limited to the right. Over the course of the election season, we saw various levels of even liberal hand-wringing about how Clinton supporters need to have more "empathy" for Trump supporters, largely coded as the (white, male, aggrieved) working class. The white working class, we are told, has "economic anxiety" and we mustn't judge them with our "elite liberal" sensibilities by calling them bigots.
Well, I'll talk more about that economic anxiety claim later this week. But, on the empathy/bullying front, I still contend, as I've contended for years, that the empathy must work both ways. For, we also have to remember that Trump is a bully-in-chief who ran a campaign premised upon name-calling, taunting, and aggression, which he has neither atoned nor apologized for. Indeed, he's already back on Twitter sounding off his grievances about the anti-Trump protests and media. People are so mean to him. So unfair.
So, while it is nice, I guess, that Trump supporters are taking a stand against bullying now that they feel they are being bullied, where were they for the past 18 months when their top guy was impulsively pecking out insults on his Twitter? Oh, right. They were celebrating his "tell it like it is" persona because they purportedly believe telling the "truth" is more important than coddling people's feelings.
Truth.
What a concept. Imagine if more people understood that a critical distinction exists between saying what one thinks the truth is versus what the truth actually is. Trump, for instance, might be "honest" in the sense that he says whatever is on his mind at the moment; but what's on his mind is not necessarily truth in any objective sense of the word.
Which leads to the hypocrisy of it all, via garbage fire Joe Walsh:
The "joke" within the first post is that liberals have overly-delicate feelings and can't handle the truth.
The argument within the second post is the threat: you damn well better not call us names, or we'll never vote for you again! That this also might be construed as a request to coddle the delicate feelings of bigots, who literally argue for safe spaces within the public discourse, does not seem to cross the bigot mind.
All of this is to say I'm suspicious of any demands to re-center the feelings of white people who have unexamined, defensive bigotry, whether these demands come from the left, right, center, media, or purportedly neutral parties. The Tolerance Trap of "you must tolerate my intolerance of you" is a real, fucked-up thing. But, listen, we actually don't have to be tolerant of all things all the time, particularly of opinions and people that degrade our dignity, just because people call us "intolerant" or mock our safe spaces or think we're mean when we express fear, hurt, or anger at injustice against us.
Drawing boundaries is, actually, a key point to being a feminist progressive.
I humbly offer this post as a resource, particularly for those who navigate conversations in which people request that you not call out bigotry when you see it. You might have noticed the Gaslight Extravaganza that's going on everywhere lately.
Name what is happening, if only to yourself, and know when you need to walk away for your own well-being. Note the hypocrisy. Note the double-standard. If Trump supporters and their liberal enablers are imploring to you that bigotry wasn't a factor in Trump's election, know that this claim can only be made with a straight face in communities with toxic, fucked-up power dynamics.
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